Construction 4.0 is key to Managing Escalating Project Complexity
Over the past few years, the construction industry has been buffeted by economic headwinds from rising inflation to material shortages. As projects become increasingly complex, schedules are continually being derailed and profitability eroded. Andre Gunter, Head Technical Pre-Sales & Consulting explains how Idox’s support for Construction 4.0 is transforming quality, confidence and performance.
Lack of Visibility
Speed of delivery is has become one of biggest pressures facing the construction industry – and it is causing problems in quality, delivery and, predictably, rework and delays. Evidence for the pressure facing contractors to expedite project delivery times – and the associated implications – is growing. One study in Singapore found that increasing the pace of construction work can lead to quality being sacrificed for speed with the inevitable result of expensive reworks and project delays.
The increasing scale and complexity of construction projects are compounding quality control challenges. Projects typically involve numerous diverse cross-sector partners and sub-contractors, often working to different project control models and expectations. As a result, it is not uncommon to find hundreds of thousands of errors that must be managed, triaged, and resolved across one large project. With such large and complex projects, vital data about these errors can easily be lost in translation between teams – and far too many construction errors can now be attributed to miscommunication.
Time Pressure
The slower the project, the greater the pressure placed on partners and subcontractors to expedite delivery times. Rising project delays are becoming a major concern for investors, with contractors facing ever more punitive penalties for missing deadlines. At the same time, it is becoming more challenging to maintain consistent quality across increasingly complex, sprawling capital projects. The resultant rise in construction errors is leading to costly budget overruns and delays and growing compliance risks for contractors.
It has becoming absolutely essential to understand project process – and progress – in real time. Tools such as Idox’s cloud-based FusionLive deliver the connected data required to transform a fragmented paper trail into a joined-up audit trail. The benefits are clear:
- A single source of cross project data delivers clear accountability and traceability across complex, multi-party projects.
- Real-time updates on defect status across all locations helps prevent any errors falling through the cracks.
- Consolidating quality control data also helps contractors join the data dots and identify common trends over time such as project teams responsible for repeated building errors.
Construction 4.0
In a bid to foster more collaborative, joined-up issues management across complex, fast-paced projects, growing numbers of contractors are now turning to construction 4.0 technologies. The key is to engage all employees in the quality control process by allowing any construction worker to remotely report errors from the field whether on or offline using smartphones or tablets. Simplicity is important – for example, by using visual tools that allow errors to be pinned onto drawings. This not only makes the process easy for the construction worker on site but also ensures any project manager has an immediate understanding of the problem to enable a rapid, targeted response.
Construction 4.0 also encourages the integration of high quality data management data from all companies and subcontractors working on a complex project. This helps to overcome silos between teams, immediately ensuring everyone is working on the same trusted information. With a common visibility of project errors, everyone involved can work together to quickly determine and deliver the right solution. Furthermore, the ability to share real-time information provides workers with more confidence that concerns will be addressed; and project managers confidence that workers can and will rapidly share concerns. The result is a far more connected workforce throughout the project, irrespective of complexity.
Conclusion
This is just the start for construction 4.0 technologies. Solutions such as remote real-time monitoring of issues across locations, for example, allows contractors to switch from reactive to preventative quality control akin to ‘predictive maintenance’. Machine learning algorithms could in future harness this data to predict and prevent issues before they even arise.
Underlining all of these advances is a trusted enterprise information tool such as FusionLive which provide the fast, easy access to information required to achieve a far more efficient, effective, collaborative and high quality construction environment.
Sources
- Burns, J. (2023). Delays in the construction industry: Our 2022 survey results and how they compare to 2016 – Cornerstone Projects Ltd. [online] https://www.cornerstoneprojects.co.uk/. Available at: https://www.cornerstoneprojects.co.uk/blog/delays-in-the-construction-industry-our-2022-survey-results-and-how-they-compare-to-2016/.
