Construction firms juggle dozens or
even hundreds of projects simultaneously. For c-suite decision-makers, that can
translate into a near-permanent state of triage—scrambling to put out
project-specific fires related to schedules, costs, quality and safety.
It’s a dynamic that must end if
contractors, especially self-performers, are to take full advantage of the tech
and data revolutions in construction.
When you’re in “triage mode,” after
all, you have little time to think about how integrating the likes of
artificial intelligence, robotics, large-scale 3D printing or modular
construction could benefit your organization. In fact, when multiple projects
are plagued by major challenges, even maximizing your existing data analytics
tools can seem like a job for another day.
Fortunately, you can escape from triage
mode by setting warning-alert thresholds on your Key Performance Indicators.
The goal of this approach, which is part of exception-based reporting in construction data analytics, is to
call attention to problems before it’s too late.
How Construction Projects Spiral Out of Control
If triage mode is the norm at many construction firms, one factor is largely to blame: the tight relationship between schedules, costs, quality and safety. Deterioration in any one of these four areas has a strong tendency to affect the rest.
Let’s say your
company is hired to build a new public high school. Having assured the county
that the building will be ready for occupancy by the start of classes on Sept.
1, you realize too late in the game that the project is worryingly behind schedule.
While the students may be thrilled by an unplanned extension of their summer
break, your firm cannot afford the PR nightmare or possible liquidated damages
of opening the school two months late.
The potential for a self-reinforcing,
negative spiral here is easy to understand: With the deadline looming, your
project manager, superintendent and foreman pressure the crews to get the job
done, pronto. Under-the-gun workers then start making mistakes that erode job
quality and trigger further delays. As a result, profit declines, and safety
deteriorates.
Exception-Based Reporting in Construction
Now that tech is becoming so integral—data-generation starts before the groundbreaking and continues straight through to the final delivery—every project is an ocean of information unto itself. Realistically, high-level decision-makers responsible for, say, 200 jobs cannot track all of the metrics associated with each project simultaneously. To avoid “paralysis by analysis,” they need to be selective with their limited time and attention. Exception-based reporting cuts through trivial data and puts the most relevant information right in their hands. However, this does not have to be a passive approach in which management receives alerts only after projects are woefully over budget or behind schedule.
On the contrary, it’s possible to use
analytics so that you receive early warnings about deteriorating metrics. This in turn gives you more time to put
projects back on track.
For example, using modern analytics,
you could set up an alert that is triggered whenever a job starts to edge
toward running over budget, as opposed to actually crossing that line. “Phase I
of the Peoria hospital is now within 10 percent of our estimated cost for where
we should be at this stage,” the CFO tells the CEO. “To avoid cost overruns, we
need to take a closer look at what’s going on with this project.”
These days, contractors rely on various
apps that yield all kinds of information. Cloud-based platforms with mobile
capabilities allow them to flow those data streams into an analytics engine to
yield new insights. However, while collecting data is easier than ever,
contractors should feel no pressure to use all of it right away. Some data is
just good to have. Maybe it will make a critical difference in litigation years
down the road or provide an analytical benchmark on another job.
Getting Creative with Construction Metrics
Escaping from triage mode promises to free up time and resources for higher-order data analytics over the long term. However, novel approaches to analytics can benefit contractors day-to-day as well. Anomalies of all kinds—even, in certain circumstances, the anomalous absence of problems—can suggest a need for closer scrutiny.
Take requests for information (RFIs).
It’s fair to say that RFIs will come into play at just about every construction
site: Planning to install a toilet, the subcontractor finds a kitchen where the
bathroom should be; puzzled, she submits at RFI. Since too many RFIs could
signal a broader problem, it makes sense for contractors to use data from
comparable jobs in the past to set reasonable thresholds for this metric.
However, if a project has too few RFIs this could suggest that crews
aren’t asking the quality-related questions that result from paying close
attention to detail. Figuratively speaking, it would be like installing a
toilet in a kitchen, no questions asked.
Moving forward, contractors will
continue to see data volumes rise as drones, interior scanning, digital twins,
safety-related wearables and other tools become standard. That may seem
intimidating, but there’s no need to feel overwhelmed. By zeroing in on
actionable KPI thresholds, you can put triage mode in the rearview mirror and
take full advantage of one of your greatest strategic assets—your data.
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