Skip to content

Embrace, Study the Wealth of Construction Data at Your Fingertips—It’s the Key to Better Projects

In the construction industry, there in such an influx of data bombarding construction companies and contractors that it can cause them to regress, or look to the past for safety and security. Change is hard, and often times requires some loss, however it always offers new opportunities.

Recent studies regarding the amount of data used in any one construction project has risen significantly. One report compared the difference in data volume over a ten year period of time. In 2007 a construction industry project required upwards of 100 gigabytes of data, while in 2017 a project requires 8.6 terabytes (8,600 gigabytes). A medical building expansion project reported 1 gigabyte of data per user. That’s a lot of data.

As is the norm in the construction industry, the data is used all at once and then archived. How much data is involved in a project doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the data. It’s important to look into the data a bit more deeply to find out what you might be missing.

Future Predictions With Past Data

By analyzing past project data, there are a number of ways you can predict and improve future projects. Take past information and compare it to current projects to make improvements for the future.

Project budgets are excellent to analyze because there are so many hands in the pot, so to speak. On any given day materials are delivered from suppliers and because you are in the midst of it, you may not notice the quality slipping. When you are able to see the whole picture and analyze the time stamps on the deliveries, you may very well see that the supplier is not delivering on time, or not delivering what you ordered. The same thing can be done with the cost of materials. While you are in the day-to-day midst of it, you may not notice the prices getting hiked up a little at a time. By seeing the whole picture, after the fact, you may see how much those little price increases add up to a staggering amount of money.

Be Your Own Detective

All of the information you find while you are analyzing past projects could lead you to making changes on future projects. You may find new suppliers or drive the prices down with old ones. This is very important in the construction industry due to the fact that products are now being found from around the globe. Better products at a lower price can be found.

Speaking of quality products, it’s very important – now more than ever – to keep a watchful eye out for counterfeit products. Use the data you are analyzing to make sure the suppliers you are dealing with are honest and produce quality products. Don’t let your company be scammed.

Minimize Your Risk

Construction industry projects are some of the riskiest investments there are. They are what is described as “exercises in managing risk.” By analyzing your company’s past, you can prepare for future risk. Getting ahead of the risk involved in a project is the only way to manage it. You can lessen your risk, but you need to be able to recognize it to do that. That’s where past data analyzing comes into play.

Contractors are often at the mercy of subcontractors. Subcontractors are usually dealing with more than one contractor at a time and requires to do them a bit of schedule juggling. Subcontractors have a great many demands placed upon them and if their performance is declining, by way of low quality, sporadic attendance, reporting deficits, then they are a huge project risk.

By steeping back from the day-to-day dealings with subcontractors and analyzing their performance, you can spot these issues before it’s too late. This information will also help you decide who you will be working with in your future projects.

Information Is Money

Using telematics as one of your equipment management tools not only saves time, it saves your company money. The data that you receive reduces any risk related to your equipment. With your equipment being monitored on an ongoing basis, it can be used efficiently and a valuable part of future project planning. Many times a project comes to a screeching halt because of broken equipment or equipment sent to the wrong job site. With telematics, you can monitor equipment wear, schedule routine maintenance, order parts ahead of time, and reduce the time your equipment is out of working order.

Be Proactive – Not Reactive

By being proactive with your construction company you will find new ways to do things and new opportunities to grow. You might find that purchasing materials in bulk can protect you from rising prices. You might find that you need to look for new subcontractors, or renegotiate with the ones you have. Perhaps it’s time to look at the vendors available to you in different areas.

By analyzing past data you are able to make changes ahead of a project in order to get the best outcome, therefore improving the customers experience with you and putting your company ahead of the competition.

 

 

Sign up for our Newsletter

Get the latest training and software information, along with tips and tricks, sent straight to your inbox.