Many real estate projects are facing regularly delays in execution. There are a lot of reasons among which the most common are visible in the picture hereunder.
Whatever the size and experience of the real estate contractor, some of the delay sources will be more under control than others, which the contractor can’t have under control. The supply of resources and materials, the subcontractor activity and the customer payments flow is often outside the power area of the main construction contractor, not to speak about the weather which nobody can master. The main contractor has the freedom to reduce his risk by accepting or not a more or less unique project. At start the contractor also defines the project planning. Project changes are generally first discussed, negotiated and accepted by the contractor. The global monitoring is also in the hands of this contractor.It is important to use a professional planning tool – like Prixo for example – at all times during the construction process. This tool allows you to quickly act to (un)forceable delays during construction.
TOOLS & ADVANTAGES WHICH A MARKETPLACE CAN BRING TO THE CONSTRUCTION MARKET
Several original and ambitious marketplaces for construction material or machine rentals are appearing into the construction market.
Marketplaces offer access to a unique centralized tool, which will allow the project manager to save time by focussing on all the areas where he has high control capacity of the progress and consequently directly can reduce the construction delays:
- Follow Up tool:
- see the construction site in real time
- faster monitoring of deliveries
- one view showing project steps and actions accordingly
- Stable Project schedule:
- Instant synchro of steps and actions to avoid delays and keep the original schedule
- Anticipation
- Updated masterplan shows planning for several weeks ahead
- Downtime elimination between tasks
- All subcontractors are linked together with view on tasks and resources
- Updated project reports and dashboards
- Automated dashboards enabling interactive progress visibility
- Reduce admin time by automated sync of all project stakeholders
- Enable access to the reporting tool directly from the worksite
- Flexible planning of orders
- Orders for material and rental equipment based on interactive progress data
- Planning ahead of tasks and events
- Standard order profile for material and rental equipment
COMMON SENSE
Using the best tool goes hand in hand with common sense, where these practical guidelines are key for avoiding construction delays:
- Go digital for documenting your project progress reporting. A digital planning tool like Prixo helps you keep an overview of your projects at all time. It allows you to adjust plannings at all times and communicate it with all stakeholders.
- Reduce by all means your admin tasks and time
- Install one single common source of information among all project stakeholders
- Use construction specific IT tools and avoid generic applications such as Whatsapp or XL. It’s absurd to see how many companies still use the latter for stuff like invoicing or planning, when it’s clear that Excel was never intended to be used like this.
- Standard your business processes before applying technology to run them
CHANGE
Human nature hates changes and introducing new technology in an old fashioned market is not an easy journey because the actors will rarely change their business approach stating:
- The tools they use every day ‘are good enough’ to do the job
- The admin work has always been part of the job (think about the famous poster…)
- Getting workers to follow new rules is almost impossible
FACTS
Still this market will face following recurring situation:
– 10 Mio€ projects have +/-600 interruptions
– It takes 7 days in average to solve them
– 25% of the interruption issues will never have been addressed properly
The number of incidents in this case is less important than your speed of reaction to solve them !
TO DO’s
In order to react quicker, all project people need to be empowered to make faster decisions. A centralized tool where all project participants can exchange and update information in real time or reach conclusions when issues arises.
Replace your traditional reporting which generally costs 40% of your time by a digital follow up solution where all project actors can interact and update the project tasks within a few clicks.
Decide to take action today and don’t hide behind a too busy situation.
If you want to save time, which is the number 1 advantage of all marketplaces and e-business solutions,
don’t postpone,
just do it !
