In a highly competitive and complex industry, construction leaders face a wide variety of challenges so common that accommodating them has become the status quo in the industry. But solving these challenges isn’t as simple as setting your sights on quality, cost, or time—in most cases, focusing on making improvements in one area leads to compromises in another.
Consider the builder committed to handing off the building on time. By bringing in teams to work overtime, they can make up any delays caused by rework or supply chain disruptions. But with overtime coming at a premium—frequently paid out at time-and-a-half for the trades—the budget takes a significant hit. Similar trade-offs result from focusing on quality or cost as well.
Against this backdrop, construction leaders are developing robust strategies to manage the industry’s most common challenges—without having to make any tradeoffs. While technology and innovation are increasingly prevalent, the real change is coming from those who are using established and emerging technologies in new ways to do things differently. By embracing technology, these industry innovators are able to:
Ensure accuracy to plan
Technology is transforming how industry leaders ensure that they are building according to the most up-to-date plans. Companies are leveraging tech to enable fast and accurate verification, with tools that digitally verify the conformance of every constructed element to its plans, scan the jobsite in the background to generate digital twins of work performed, then verify those digital twins against construction plans as installation is in progress. With automatically generated insight into work that does not conform to plans, teams can focus attention where it’s needed and reallocate QA/QC budgets and time to other aspects of the project.
Improve financial performance
Developers and GCs are also bolstering the bottom line by leveraging technology. Projects become more viable with increased quality and adherence to schedule, and tools that enable standardized digital verification of adherence to plans allows teams to work more efficiently, predictably, and productively. Complete and systematic digital verification across a project—and even the portfolio—enables the GC to uncover errors, removing uncapped risk that occurs when errors remain hidden until later stages of construction, and allows teams to correct errors before they compound. And, by automating the bulk of quality control, GCs can leverage a less experienced workforce to manage QA/QC, for additional savings in terms of labor costs.
Provide certainty to schedule
Owners and developers are increasingly turning to data analytics for greater certainty in construction. They’re leveraging actionable data about every element installed on the job site—and the performance of each trade involved—to make informed decisions, mitigate risks, and ensure successful construction projects from start to finish. With actionable insights tuned to unique project specifications, teams can take immediate action in the field, keeping projects on schedule. Identifying errors before they compound also leads to shorter punchlists, less rework, and a reduction in the overtime required to fix errors. And, by digitally verifying installed elements to plans as they are built, they are ensuring that materials fit right the first time—a critically important factor with materials that have a long lead time.
Eliminate rework at scale
Modern construction support systems that provide automated verification of every installed element as work is in progress eliminate rework at scale, assuring quality, keeping projects on schedule, and improving overall financial performance. Complete real-time control over what needs to be corrected and a comprehensive accounting and documentation of element verification enable teams to direct their attention where it’s needed, not on the elements that have been installed according to plan. That allows developers and GCs to recover time to focus on quality, safety, and schedule.
Moving forward: Do away with trade-offs between quality, cost, and time
Technology and innovation continue to deliver new opportunities to help the construction industry improve. A growing number of industry innovators are turning to SiteAware to solve the challenges of quality, cost, and time—and to do so without solving one at the expense of the others. SiteAware delivers actionable insights, highlighting work that does not conform to plans, so teams can focus attention where it’s needed and stay on their critical path. It uses artificial intelligence to verify that each element is built according to its plan and reveal patterns that help teams uncover errors, prioritize fixes, and make better decisions, and it uses rich site data of as-builts to build a digital twin that artificial intelligence compares to the original BIM to verify design compliance. And, with real-time dimensional verification of concrete construction, SiteAware enables teams to verify 100% of formwork, embeds, and MEPF during installation, so they can correct errors before they’re set in concrete. Learn more about how industry leaders are using technology to solve construction’s most pervasive challenges.