According to a recent study, 74% of all construction projects are delayed and exceed committed timelines. These are influenced by 3 factors - owner-driven, vendor-driven and consultant-driven delays. The end result of this is everyone playing a catch-up game becoming a frustrating experience which affects the relationships between all the 3.
This is common across businesses of all sizes and the gravity of the problem is proportional to the scale of the project. On digging deeper, at the root of all of this lies the fundamental problem of miscommunication among stakeholders.
Here is a study that categorized the levels of miscommunication by category:
3 out of 4 categories specifically point to a lack of a proper approach and a system to manage information flow across stakeholders. This timely flow of information is critical to ensuring that every stakeholder is empowered with mission-critical information for timely execution of activities that are part of the project plan.
To pick the ones relating to poor document management out of these buckets will help us understand how this is a setback for each layer in the system.
Under organization & management, two factors - lack of correspondence and lack of collaborative activities can be a result of poor document management. Given the main layers and this largely referring to the top layer, a delay in correspondence due to paper-based operations can be perceived as a lack of correspondence. This also significantly affects collaboration, productivity and in many cases, leads to repetition of the same tasks because the changes did not reach in time. This further has cost implications on the project. It also reflects poorly on the optics of many stakeholders and leads to often undesirable situations for people.
The entire bucket of project information, consisting of - inaccessibility, poor project documentation, unavailability of important data, slow flow of information and incorrect information - all of it point to documentation. With good documentation management software, businesses can ensure relevant and right information is available to stakeholders at the right time. It solves the problem of inaccessibility and lack of authenticity.
The third bucket has little relevance to document management except for one factor - language barrier. With established practices, tools and technology, that barrier could be crossed. With today’s highly evolved AI-based translation and transliteration capabilities, this can be solved to a great extent. This ensures that the right information reaches every level irrespective of language.
The final bucket, Technology & methods yet again touches upon a few areas such as - lack of communication, lack of standard operating procedures and challenges in adoption of tools and technology. However, there are many simple, easy-to-use, easy-to-onboard tools for construction document management that are available. This can enable the entire organization to seamlessly slide into using the tool which can also help them establish operating procedures and facilitate timely communication.
Construction projects are a culmination of several aspects - creative, design, operational, functional and several more. Today, there is a dash of innovation and creativity that is part of the mix which could further complicate the scope of things. In this scenario, right communication is the key to making sure what’s on paper gets translated to actual execution.
However, a common practice that impedes this paper-based operations. Here are 7 reasons why paper-based operations can hamper construction projects.
Cloud-based construction document management tools are what modern-day construction businesses need. This enables to digitize project operations from paper-based processes. This helps businesses do away with legacy practices and modernize their approach to functioning.
Here are 7 ways how digital documentation saves the day for construction businesses:
By switching from paper-based to digital construction documentation, businesses can improve their chances of timely completion of projects. They can mitigate the delays and rollbacks arising due to poorly managed communication. They can enable better stakeholder relationships, inter-team, inter-departmental and cross-functional communication by facilitating real-time collaboration.
It also positively reinforces sustainability initiatives, thus making it an environmentally conscious business in addition to boosting operational efficiency. For further reading on how construction document management software can prevent challenges, click here.
