8 tips to help you smooth out your construction project
In recent years, many construction companies have faced challenges due to constant uncertainty and the repetitive need to change their plans. At the same time, these circumstances and especially economic challenges force us to save time, resources, and money, those bring us the opportunity to develop our processes, prioritize, and become stronger.
We have compiled a list of tips to help you smooth out your construction project:
1. Make sure you have quality information
In construction, information is power. Having timely, accurate, and well-shared information will take you far away. Coordinate and organize information to ensure that work can be done as smoothly as possible. By sharing the right information between the different parties involved in your project, your construction process will become more integrated and effective.
2. Automate processes when possible
For any construction company, its people and their time is the most valuable asset, especially now, working in unexpected places and even having to take care of other personal matters. Save your people's time by automating repetitive and tedious processes. By freeing their time up from those tasks, they can use their expertise to keep your business running, to find new ways to develop procedures, or even to develop a new business idea.
3. Plan effectively with a detailed 3D model
Forget the pen and paper or other obsolete tools to make calculations, drawings, and plans. Now, you need a modern tool to collect valuable information and create a complete design of your building with all the information that you and your team need to execute your construction project flawlessly.
4. Check ahead to avoid clashes and unnecessary requests for information (RFI's)
Finding possible mistakes during the construction design phase is way cheaper than finding those on the site. In the same order of ideas, who wants to use unnecessary time finding for missing information, especially if you and your team are already on the site "ready to pour"?
5. Ensure your plan is constructible
More than ever, you now need to make sure that what you are planning is possible to realize. Accurate and highly developed 3D modeling will help you to visualize your building before you even start to construct it.
6. Accurately calculate your quantity takeoffs (QTO)
By using your 3D model to calculate your QTO, you will not only be able to calculate the correct amount of material you need, for example, to pour certain areas. You will also be able to play with different scenarios and see quickly how much it will cost if you use another material in the same area. By having a 3D model that shows you the right size and the right amount of material you need to cover specific areas, you can find various alternatives to your construction process. You can use this useful data when bidding in your upcoming projects.
7. Use the right tools to speed up communication and team collaboration
Have you ever calculated how many hours per week you and your team spend sending emails, asking, and looking for missing information, or even sharing some vague information within your company and your subcontractor? You can reduce that time and cost by using an effective software that helps you to speed up your communication and your team collaboration. Using a 3D model as a source of truth can help you to save time and money, and it works very well when working remotely. We are all together in this. So, even if you are working remotely and on different schedules due to various life circumstances, you must stay connected.
8. Be ready for changes and react quickly to those
Very likely, your construction design and plan will change. You don't want to use, for example, drawings or printed documents to track your changes. You can do this smartly and faster with a 3D model.