Construction Companies Should Consider Moving All Their Organizational Workflows to Cloud

 Success of a construction company depends on several things; use of information technology is one of them. However, I think most of construction companies do not use the actual power of information technology and they are not ready to move on from email and FTP for projectmanagement. Perhaps following facts will help them take better decisions:

•     90% of a construction manager's time goes in communication.
•   15% of time construction project managers are searching for information.
•   50% of problems faced during construction are due to ineffective information exchange.
•    85%-90% of project cost is decided in the design stage.
•   30-50% of changes during construction result from error in design due to poor communication.
•   30% of time field staff asks questions related to inconsistencies in drawings.

   Use of information technology improves coordination and collaboration among companies participating in construction projects. There are several tangible and intangible benefits of using IT in construction. 

Benefits of using IT solutions for construction include –

1. Improved document quality
2. Better document organization and tracking
3. Better financial control
4. Better communication
5. Anytime, anywhere access to information
6. Decrease in documentation errors 
7.  Cost effective SAAS based model for midsized companies

IT Solution characteristics

A good IT solution needs to do these tasks for making construction project managers more efficient in dealing with information -

1) Efficient information generation

2) Storage

3) Retrieval

4) Communication

Enabling Technologies and Resources

1) World Wide Web 2.0

a)      Available from anywhere, anytime on need to know basis.

b)      Its use as a communication medium helps effective and fast information transfer 

2) Internet

                a) Cross organizational team work is enabled

3) Infinite computing power in the cloud

4) Highly secure servers

5) Easy to use and Intuitive application designs

Best Practice

1.  Set up a project website from the design stage of a project
2.  Set up a project wide collaboration and coordination platform for open communication and information exchange 
3.  Run training programs organizational IT skills development
4.  Input all the necessary information in the system of choice
5.  Look for both tangible and intangible benefits when evaluating the system

GamePlan – Construction Management Solution

GamePlan revolutionizes the way construction project teams do business. It is one of its kind products and focused on construction execution phase. Real time information update and information exchange is a must for effective field to office coordination and collaboration in today’s volatile world.

Integrate, Implement, and Coordinate

Having a construction project in hand is not enough until the course of action is planned beforehand. There are many instances when full-fledged construction Companies have failed, not because of lack of projects, but because they were unable to manage the existing projects efficiently. Prior assembly of resources and coordination of activities becomes therefore essential. Three simple steps to instigate a thriving construction project include:

1. Integrate: assimilation of resources is very essential in order to implement the plan of action of any construction project. The first step to begin the process of implementation includes integration of resources, because if the resources are not gathered efficiently at one place then it would become extremely difficult to execute the plan so prepared for accomplishing the project.
2. Implement: the second step to put a thriving project into action is putting those resources into practice by effectively implementing them into the project. And what matters more is implementation as per requirement rather than implementation of resources alone. There happens many a times that the construction companies find it hard to utilize the resources properly because they are unaware of where to employ them.  Giving a prior thought to implementation of resources hence becomes very much needed.
3. Coordinate: the very last step to accomplishing a flourishing construction project is establishing coordination so that the activities being carried out remain harmonized and issues concerning lack of coordination do not arise. Because most often lack of coordination proves to be the underlying factor behind letdown of good construction projects.