When delivering a construction project, managers have many elements they need to juggle and which ultimately will be used to judge their success. These vary but generally include staying on time (and budget), quality of the work, health and safety, and client satisfaction. And yet, so often in the construction industry we hear about projects running over schedule, escalating costs, and accidents happening on jobsites.
Traditionally, project teams would gather at the end of a month to run through all the reports and data they had to analyse how they were tracking according to these measurements of success – often uncovering hidden problems and frustrating delays.
Today, managers have the tools to gather all the information they need to keep track of a project in one place, digitally, which can be updated in real-time. Through using cloud-based applications such as Procore, everyone involved in a project can be given access to the latest information. Such tools empower construction companies to not only improve quality and safety processes on individual projects, but they also enable the better management of multiple projects going on simultaneously.
Part of the beauty of using project management software to aggregate all the data into one information hub, is the way this then opens doors into data analytics and the ability to dig deeper for greater insights into the performance of a project.
A great example of this is the recent integration between Procore and Acuite, the leading construction intelligence software for construction. While Procore assists with the day-to-day running of a project, the integration with Acuite means that customers are able to have a real-time health check at not just the individual level, but also across a whole portfolio of projects within a specific region and between regions as well.
When asked about the integration, David Speight, COO and Co-Founder at Acuite said, “I think the construction industry has been tarnished with a brush of poor performance in the past. Yet the industry is so dynamic and people are learning to use technology more and more. It’s already starting to shift how projects are managed now and it’s becoming increasingly important to use data to manage performance and to increase the chances of delivering a successful project.”
For example, a common barrier to running construction projects efficiently is keeping on top of consultant response times to queries, such as an architect responding to a specific question about their designs. This poses a huge challenge to keep on top of all the RFIs, who’s responded and who hasn’t and then following up.
While Procore is able to assist with the action of sending out queries, Acuite can extract data to conduct analysis and highlight risk. In this example, Acuite would be able to provide insight into trends in response times, and can alert managers when a response is likely to be delayed.
For Richard Joseph, Programming & Systems Manager at Dominion Constructors – a construction company in New Zealand currently using Procore and Acuite, using the two systems together enables their project teams to pay attention not only to the day-to-day management but also take a larger viewpoint.
“The strength of Procore and Acuite combined together is to give access to accurate information quickly so that our staff focus on our core function and business which is constructing projects; not extracting and sifting data.”
According to Mr Joseph, “filters in Acuite allow us to extract specific data from Procore and present it across a period of time to identify trends, track improvements in performance or identify and highlight poor performance. This information then allows decisive & quick corrective actions to be implemented to correct an issue before it develops significantly to affect the project or our company.”
An important element of the integration is that both Procore and Acuite enable project management across multiple projects simultaneously. With larger projects often going on for a number of years, there can often form a disconnect between the head office and site teams, causing a lag or even a complete breakdown in communication.
Milton Walters, VP of Marketing APAC at Procore said, “while construction projects have often fallen into delays and issues around poor management, adopting the right software systems can transform the performance of a project. More fluid communication and access to information in real-time helps teams work more closely, and act upon insights and trends to improve quality and safety.”
Originally published on Construction Industry News.
