Time Management: Digital tools that speed up the flow of crucial project information regardless of a stakeholder’s location can drastically reduce time-intensive tasks. This is particularly the case with project document reviews, where traditionally physical paper copies needed to travel to several locations. Now reviews can happen digitally in real-time. Supply Chain Management: Being able to estimate material amounts is essential to project profitability. And with today’s digital tools, estimating is faster and more precise than ever. This goes a long way toward helping construction firms manage supplies properly while reducing waste. Error Reduction: Digitizing plan review markups and comments ensures clean and clear legibility. Additionally, the detailed review logs these tools provide makes work approvals crystal clear. Together, these can drastically cut down on project errors, which lead to costly re-work and drawn-out timelines. Ensuring Regulatory Compliance As the construction industry strives to be more environmentally sustainable, building regulations in this area are only going to become more stringent. With digital tools, builders can more closely track critical regulatory data points for each project, in turn improving their overall regulatory compliance. It’s not just builders who stand to benefit. Digital construction tools can help building owners as well, especially as more regulatory bodies across the globe adopt regulations that either accommodate or mandate digital delivery. Preparing For the Future The evolution of technology is a runaway train. In the past year alone, advances in artificial intelligence and other nascent technologies have continued at a breakneck pace. That’s on top of things like Digital Twin, which has come a long way fast in the construction industry. While these advances have yet to go mainstream, adopting them when they do will be easier for companies already using other digital tools for essential workflows.
Finally, embracing digital tools doesn’t have to be difficult. Thanks to a crowded and competitive marketplace for construction technology, testing and adopting these new tools can happen without much financial commitment. Once a contractor does decide to adopt a tool, implementation and training is accessible and intuitive. Here are a few ways to start your digital journey: Assess Digital Gaps: Audit current processes and workflows. Identify ones that could be streamlined with technology. Gather Feedback: Develop a way to gain feedback from key people on where technology could help essential processes. A simple survey will suffice. Implement One Improvement: Based on that feedback, test a digital tool to improve one of those processes. Go slow; keep it simple. Track progress every so often. Repeat with other workflows as the tool becomes more ingrained in the company. A New Way Forward It’s a fascinating time to be in the construction industry. Societal shifts and accelerating changes to the ways people live and work will require a reimagining in the way our world is built. Contractors that have fully embraced the industry’s plethora of evolving digital tools will undoubtedly hold a competitive edge in this world.
Steve W. Smith serves as Director of Partnerships at Bluebeam , a provider of construction software for innovators. Architects, engineers and builders use Bluebeam software to finish projects faster, reduce risk, and maximize ROI. Steve is a long-time construction technology enthusiast. His areas of focus are partnerships, product management, construction hardware and software workflows, reality capture, business development, sales and marketing. He began his career in construction directly after high school as a laborer for a general contractor in New Hampshire, and has also held manager and executive roles at Leica Geosystems and Hilti. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in German Studies from BYU and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He resides in the greater Atlanta, Georgia area.
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December 2023 csengineermag.com
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