Improve construction collaboration by leveraging construction analytics

It’s no secret that the construction industry faces many project management challenges. Cost overruns are one of the most common results of these challenges, leading to construction companies going significantly over budget more often than they’d like to admit.

Unorganised and siloed data, data spread across multiple systems, and an overall lack of connectivity are common factors among projects with high failure rates.

But by breaking down data silos and leveraging construction analytics, we can improve on-site and off-site collaboration to help complete our projects on time, on budget, and with better efficiency.

Free eBook: Quick guide to Lean practices for construction professionals

How data and analytics enhance construction collaboration

Construction teams worldwide face collaboration challenges that are only made worse by the industry’s reliance on email, Excel sheets, messaging apps, and various paper-based processes.

Technology and construction analytics helps connect teams by giving every stakeholder access to project data from anywhere and allowing them to view changes in real-time. This is key for improving construction collaboration between teams.

The data you gather from using a central construction management platform not only helps boost everyone’s collaborative efforts but also helps make your on-site and off-site processes more efficient promotes transparency and keeps workers accountable.

Interesting read: How construction companies can leverage the power of data

1. Facilitate better communication

When everyone understands what needs to happen and when it needs to happen, productivity soars. Teams can see issues as they pop up and easily access the information they need to make better, faster decisions to resolve them.

With construction analytics and connected data, all communication happens in one place—the same place where the relevant information about the project is stored. On-site and off-site workers have to collaborate efficiently, and they have to be able to do it from anywhere.

The first step is using construction analytics to facilitate effective conversations between teams.

2. Reduce delays and rework

Mistakes happen, especially during large-scale projects. Those mistakes aren’t necessarily the issue for extensive, costly rework and delays; the problem lies in siloed data.

Improperly storing data and not paying attention to construction analytics leads to a snowball effect, making it almost impossible to identify and correct small mistakes before they turn into significant problems.

When you collect, connect, and analyse your project data, you can address issues as they occur instead of uncovering them when you get closer to finishing the build. In addition, access to real-time analytics empowers contractors and subs to avoid making those mistakes in the first place.

More to read: The top 5 construction project management challenges and what to do about them

3. Gain real-time visibility

While the benefits of construction analytics are more noticeable during the building process, they can also boost productivity in the design stage.

Your design team can leverage data and analytics to improve construction collaboration by coordinating tasks to create designs that match your client’s vision and expectations.

And those benefits extend past the design process—other teams get better collaboration with the design department, allowing everyone to plan their activities together instead of taking a siloed approach, risking costly delays and rework, as we discussed above.

4. Mitigate safety risks

Construction collaboration is crucial for better safety planning, which can save your company in the long run. In fact, investing in worker safety can save you money without slowing down your project’s progress. And the answer to mitigating safety risks lies in construction data analytics.

When you put together all of the other benefits of improving your team’s collaboration, you might notice something interesting—each one indirectly improves on-site safety:

• Better communication and real-time visibility ensure that everyone knows what’s happening on site, who’s working in what areas, and if there are any potential hazards.
• Identifying and fixing mistakes as soon as they happen significantly reduces the risk of injuries due to preventable accidents.

Further reading: Construction risk management: Regain control when your project goes wrong

5. Enhance operational readiness

Better collaboration leads to better decision-making. It also makes it easier to get your client involved in the project to gather feedback and make necessary changes early on in the design and building process.

Afterwards, you can share insights and analytics with the client, improving your operational efficiency and handover procedure.

Construction data and analytics can also help you reduce disputes throughout the project and after completion—the data you collect serves as a single source of truth and a solid audit trail.

You might also like: Data culture: The missing link to bring construction together

Connect your data and improve your workflows

Data is data, right? Not quite. Most construction companies have pools of data—especially as they continue working toward digitalisation. But a majority of that data sits in silos and goes unused.

Siloed data leads to costly mistakes and misinformation. For example, when we rely on data that doesn’t get real-time updates and doesn’t foster collaboration between teams (think Excel spreadsheets), everyone only sees a small piece of the project with no way to know if the data is up to date.

However, when you connect your data using a central platform, you’ll find that the real value of data comes from the construction analytics you get from the relationships between datasets.

Make construction collaboration easy by leveraging the power of data and analytics. Connect your teams with LetsBuild; book your personalised demo today to see how we can help you improve your on-site and off-site collaboration.