Written by LetsBuild
Last updated April 05, 2024
Unless someone has a high-falutin’ definition, Document Management is all about how we deal with the mountains of paperwork generated by any construction project. It also implies that the necessary paperwork is received by everyone who “needs to know” – and that as soon as possible! After that, of course, it might be necessary to refer back to it so it should be filed away in an easily-findable manner!
The filing away is something that, on site particularly, often doesn’t happen. This failure can carry a very heavy price tag if it comes down to a Dispute! A forensic delay analyst just loves it! Spends days rooting around trying to find things like RFI’s and then the dates they got responded to! Lovely, jubbley! Bit of a boring job but great for their bank accounts!
Related article: How to upgrade your construction document management with software
The document management is a similar problem for Head Offices, Clients, consultants and sub-contractors. All they avoid, except in very rare circumstances, is getting involved in the paperwork hunt for the Delay Analysis!
Drawing management is just one aspect of document management, but a “big” one! Big because we all know how much space they take up: chart table, filing racks, clips to hold them together. For the site management who suffer the age-related eyesight problems, chart tables are a ‘mare! Unless they fork out for variable focal lens in their specs, they have to clamber on to the chart table to read what it says at the top of the drawings! Been there! Done that! Can’t even go for cheap lens, either! They make horizontal and vertical lines into curves! Not too clever if we wander round checking if things are plumb and square!
The next drawing management problem involves time. Time for the latest version to arrive in the post; time taken to get enough copies to hand out to those needing it; time wandering around trying to find the guys to hand them to! Once that is done, some careless clot will get their soaking wet or lose it! Time spent getting him a new copy! Then, because so few of us are perfect, we can never be sure that everyone needing it has the latest copy of a drawing! All this means work is done which has to be re-worked to comply! No good trying to claim the additional costs from the Client if it took a week to get the latest edition out there! The Main Contractor and/or Subby has to pick up the bill!
So how does Construction Software help Drawing Management? Well, if it is the right Construction Management Software, which GenieBelt is, it does away with nearly all paper drawings! It also makes sure that everyone involved in the project has a copy on their PC, tablet or smart phone instantly a revised version is issued! This saves expensive re-work as the first big win! Fair enough, for some reason some people will still want a paper copy of the drawing but that can be banged out for them on the site Plotter and any superseded ones can just go in the recycling skip! Loads of office storage space saved simply like that! If anyone does have occasion to need to look at a superseded drawing that will still be available in the Cloud! The site management also saves great chunks of their time by not having to distribute the latest drawings to people!
