According to a recent IT Brief report, 70% of construction businesses are facing major challenges in technology implementation. Additionally, over 90% professionals in the industry expect digitalization to dominate many aspects of their work life in the next 3 years. Given this race for adopting technology, specifically for managing projects, the choice of software tools is a crucial decision every decision maker needs to make carefully. The stakes are high as it affects everyday operations and impacts people at all levels in the system.
Here are a few reasons why companies need to consider implementing a project management tool for construction:
1. Real-time Management
Project management software helps transition businesses from delayed and dependency-driven project management to a more real-time and collaborative one. This facilitates faster flow of operations and timely communication amongst all parties.
2. Improved Collaboration
No time is wasted waiting for the most recent information. In a fast-changing world, this is essential to keep chaos at bay. Improved collaboration can give people involved in the project adequate clarity on timelines and other critical information which can impact project cost & quality.
3. Instant Visibility
One of the biggest advantages of using project management software in construction is the centralized, 360-degree visibility it provides for businesses. This is key to flagging delays and disruptions beforehand. This preventive approach helps ensure efficiency at all times and levels through effective project management.
4. Faster Execution
The benefits mentioned above that include real-time communication, better collaboration and comprehensive visibility result in timely execution of projects. This is critical because delays can escalate project cost. Project managers can leverage the software to draft plans, set deadlines, assign tasks and comments, get approvals using an easy-to-use simple interface. This accelerates project design and execution.
5. Change Management
A construction management product can go through several changes at anytime during the course of the project. This often has a major execution-level change for all levels. With modern project management tools, this can be seamlessly achieved. Timely communication of changes can result in a lot of time and efficiency benefits.
6. Security
Ensuring all project-related documentation is securely stored and accessible is a critical requirement. This can be specially helpful during compliance checks. This also ensures all project-related documentation is maintained safely for future reference and tracking iterations. By enabling role-based access, businesses can ensure admin and user level access controls can be established. This is to ensure that the right people have access to sensitive data.
7. Scale
One of the major advantages of using project management software is its ability to simplify and stabilize scale. When large projects involving 10s of 1000s of workers, teams and managers are involved, finding tasks can become extremely daunting. However, modern day project management tools tailored for construction facilitates this and enables easy location of any type of data at any point in time. It also has the ability to support, in parallel, a large number of users.
Considering that the scale of construction projects is fairly large, the approach to selecting the right software needs to be broken down to stages.
Stage 1: Assessment
This is the stage where the current process and the methods of executing them are studied, documented and assessed. This stage is where the major challenges come into light. This is that stage where the cracks, gaps and inefficiencies can be found.
Stage 2: The Shortlist
Considering that several tools are available for this, businesses typically make a shortlist of the tools that best fit their needs. A variety of factors come into play here that include pricing, feature comparisons, support level, integration capabilities and usability.
Stage 3: Evaluation
Typically, after the shortlist, one or two products that made to the final list are evaluated. A short period and small scale approach is best taken in this case. A set of impact metrics or indicative metrics are chosen and which ever tool meets the criteria gets selected,
Stage 4: Rollout and Training
A tool can have its transformative power only if a loyal user base is built for it. Yet, it is not usually at once a large project like this io lauched. Businesses typically take a phased approach to launching these products. In some cases, this is accompanied by process training for users.
Are they a generic tool or a purpose-made tool tailored to the needs of the construction industry? Considering how evolved the construction industry is in all aspects, a tool that is built with ground level and specific understanding of field operations, client-vendor relationships and aims to make lives easier for project managers is a good tool to consider.
To drive adoption of the software far and wide, one of the first factors to consider is the user-friendliness of the tool. Whether it is project managers making plans or field staff trying to receive some information, this app should be extremely helpful.
Since a lot of the work takes place on distributed jobsites, there is a significant change in a manager’s approach to running projects. To ensure that different users would access from different devices without any usability and data quality issues becomes essential.
The ability of the tool to integrate with existing systems and seamlessly interoperate is a key consideration. We are living in a data-driven world and these integrations are critical to making sure that smooth flow of information channels is maintained.
From free tools to highly paid tools, there is a long line of products that were shown in the pictures. One that fits the budgets of the business should be selected and rolled out. There are tools that offer usage-based and pay-as-you-go pricing. The best fit can change from organization to organization.
The scale of projects is typically large. This means that there could be times when 1000s of concurrent users may require access to the tool. Keeping future needs in mind, businesses can pick and choose the scale that best works for them.
The responsiveness and the willingness of the vendors to help wherever there is a hurdle in using the product is another important factor. Multi-channel support - email and phone - is a way to deliver timely resolution of queries and ensure business continuity.
To tackle the changes of the rapidly evolving construction industry, the right set of tools play an important role. Making the right choice of tool can ensure timely completion of projects. To evaluate KYRO, visit kyro.ai
