It is no secret that poor communication between teams causes huge delays and losses for construction companies. What is worse is that companies miss out on valuable data coming in from the field everyday which could be used to make better decisions to improve processes and increase profits.
A viable solution to bridge the communication gap between field and office is to adopt a suitable software with the right set of features. Let’s take a look at what such a software should like, and what outcomes teams can expect.
In order to properly bridge the field-to-office gap, the most ideal route would be to adopt a cloud-based construction communication software solution with proper mobile-friendly features to aid the field crews during their day. The main focus should be on ease of use for field personnel.
Let’s face it - as much as the office personnel are involved in the strategy and design of each project, it is the boots on the ground that bring that vision to life. In most companies, the team strength of field crews, whether in-house or sub-contractors, is far greater than that of office-based employees. In short, this means that any software you adopt needs buy-in from the field crews, without which your purchase would go to waste. What would be considered essential for field buy-in? Let’s take a look.
The most basic requirement is that the software is cloud-based. Intrinsically, these systems update the latest changes in real-time to all employees, ensuring that nobody is in the dark about the latest changes in either design or schedules.
Field crews spend the best part of their day on the construction site completing essential work that is both time and labor intensive. You want to make sure that the software you adopt doesn’t add to all that stress and prolong their working day. Ensure that the system you adopt is simple and intuitive, which actually saves time on the field for your team.
To illustrate the previous point better, let’s take an example - one of the key parts of a field worker’s day is filling out daily reports at the end of each day. This is essential in that it not only provides visibility on work done, but also sends back valuable data to the office. Overtime, a sizeable collection of this data can empower companies to make better decisions to improve their processes. With all this in mind, it is essential that the experience of filling out forms everyday is as smooth as possible.
One of the clearest ways to show updates from the field is to capture the photo, and even markup the exact point in focus. If a software has a feature where a photo can be instantly uploaded and submitted as part of a form, it can potentially shave off 45 minutes of extra work for field crews. Moreover, the ease of this feature would only serve to increase buy-in from the team.
Field crews spend a considerable amount of time each year working on sites with poor or no data connectivity. One of the most essential features of a software is to support field crews even in these situations. The ability to store information even while offline and sync back once connectivity is restored will further enhance the user experience of field crews, along with providing a continuous flow of data back to the office.
As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest drawbacks of poor field-to-office communication is the loss of valuable data that could drive impactful, data-driven decisions for the future of the company. It is absolutely imperative that any software a company adopts can provide actionable insights from the data through the form of dashboards and other means, including Artificial Intelligence. In recent times, there has been an increasing awareness over the impact of AI in construction, and a software that can provide smart insights can help companies predict and prevent issues long before they usually happen.
Effective field-to-office communication is crucial for construction firms to ensure projects stay on time and within budget. Poor communication leads to costly mistakes, delays, safety issues and unsatisfied clients.
Implementing a construction-specific software solution can provide huge benefits through real-time information sharing, centralized data, automated workflows and collaboration tools. The key is choosing software with features like mobile access, offline syncing, document control, equipment tracking, and analytics.
