By Khalid Noor, 2020
In construction there are obviously many phases in actually constructing a building. A lot of careful planning and estimation. The best construction management software aims to streamline all the aspects of project management in construction in providing a more efficient way to collaborate with the relative stakeholders involved in the building processes.
The best construction management software will utilise cloud collaboration for file storage and document sharing due to the inherent large amount of documents that come as a part of construction management which are all utilised through an online software. This construction software enables different tools in the construction management process such as workflows, calendars, schedules and estimation and financial tools along with the ability to update stakeholder’s through communication on this platform.
This article will detail the different aspects of a good construction management software and how these aspects can be utilities as tools to help streamline and create a more efficient way to collaborate and work on construction projects.
The first area to look at is project management. Project management encompasses objectives with the intention to build within limitations including time and resource constraints. Hence, it is important for project management to be wary of the scope, financial cost and budget, as well as the quality of a project and the time constraints of a project. A project must take these factors into account before haphazardly commencing construction.
Project management within software essentially ensures a project manager has access to estimation tools, quality and safety protocols, workflows, calendars, financial/accounting tools, scheduling tools and production calendars for managing time and scope constraints, secure cloud storage for file transfer and document uploads and lastly an efficient communication platform for ease of communication with team members. These are all tools necessary for the best construction software and all will be discussed as we progress.
Following project management is estimation tools. Estimation is an important part during the pre construction phase of a project during the bid process. Contractors will submit a bid to the person they are seeking to win the project from. The bid itself is a summary of the cost that the builder expects to incur for the construction of the intended structure of the project. Depending on the size of the company, many different bids may be accepted from different contractors and then a decision on the right contractor will be made from there.
It is evident that a construction management software will incorporate a useful estimation tool enabling the builders or contracts to effectively estimate the costs of the project. The estimation tool in the best construction software should be designed to streamline the process of creating cost estimates based on labour, materials and other cost factors of the project. It should help create the line-by-line and quantity estimates of the materials. Features such as pre-determined formulas, calculation capabilities, and more should be included.
An extremely beneficial and important aspect of construction that is a necessity for a construction software relates to quality and safety protocols. Quality and safety is important within construction which is inherently full of risks on site, therefore there must be a way to minimise risk and mitigate damage and ensure the safety of builders.
The quality and safety aspect of a building software should assess, manage and mitigate risk on construction sites. It should constantly take action to be aware of possible litigation issues in construction relating to procedures that must be followed or proper documentation of permits. It should aim to effectively reduce errors in project design as this will lead to less issues down the line hence the mitigation of damage.
Some things included in the quality and safety aspect of the building software would be keeping track of defects and ensuring accountability as well as assigning responsibility to different people so issues are resolved and tracked. Creating comprehensive reports on project information that can be visualised and summarised effectively giving important insight into a project is also important. So essentially reporting tools that gather data, such as measuring the amount of incidents that occur, the type of incidents and pointing out different hazards. This helps a project stay on track and not be derailed by defects and issues.
However, being derailed by defects is not the only issue. A project being on time is extremely important. One time you’ve completed a project in record time and another time you’ve completed a project way beyond the time limit you had set. This inconsistency is not a good look. Hence, a project in construction must have detailed and realistic project work schedules. In a workflow, one completed action will lead on to another action and so on until completion of the project. Who completes each action and how is also important and to be detailed in a project schedule or workflow.
An efficient workflow aids construction project management process by standardising a process, through detailing how it is done every single time. A good construction software will be able to aid project managers in standardising this process through completing different projects and collecting that data, so that future projects are easier through standardisation.
This enables the project manager the time to work on more important tasks than continuously worrying about the workers and their progress as standardisation can give ease of mind due to the predictability of the process. A construction software should provide online tools such as gantt charts or other alternatives to provide visuals for the tasks.
Secure cloud file and storage is another important area in which a construction software must incorporate. It should allow a team to share documents with each other with ease and collaboratively work on those documents. Obviously there are a lot of documents in the construction process and it can quickly become a headache having a large multitude of files on hand that need to be archived or stored correctly, so having those files online can be very handy.
Expanding on secure cloud storage for files and documents and the capacity to collaborate on them. The building software should also ideally allow for team members to collaboratively work together and communicate with each other efficiently. Depending on the number of users on the system an internal messaging feature should be incorporated for ease of communication. Real time communication is essentially for a team as if certain members are remotely viewing the project they can communicate for clarification on any updates.
Lastly, a good construction software has a reliable tech support system in place. Reliable tech support is extremely important as considering a lot of the management of the construction process for the project is online through the use of the software, a reliable support team should be there to help with any clarifications on the actual use of the system or in the event that an error occurs in the system to ensure a project runs smoothly.
A good construction software makes use of good project management functionality, estimate and financial/accounting tool functionality, job management, scheduling and planning and support functionalities and more. WunderBuild is a construction management software that aims to provide all of these functionalities and more to bring out the best outcomes for a project.
It is currently offering a free trial, visit here to try WunderBuild for free
