Like any other industry, the construction industry has been steadily adopting technology over time. This is because the stakeholders are starting to realize the enormous advantages of applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning to their operations right from the planning, design, and implementation stages.
Technology has mainly helped construction executives tackle most of their pain points like;
- Complicated project planning
- Inefficient coordination between back office and field
- Predominance of paperwork
- Poor performance management due to difficulties in data analysis
- Inadequate risk management
- Poor maintenance of plants and equipment hence costly project delays, etc
The challenge is that many executives find it hard to go digital simply because they do not understand the dynamics. Going all in at once can seem overwhelming. The best approach is to go in one step at a time.
In this post, we note the different steps construction companies can take to digitize their processes, human resources, maintenance, and every single company operation to enable them to stay a foot ahead of their competition.
- Review your goals. As much as you have to digitize your company, the first step should be reviewing your company goals and how going digital can help you achieve them in the specified period. Common goals for construction companies are increasing efficiency and revenue and improving employee retention.
- Digitize the forms your company uses most often.
Focus on the construction forms that you use most often in your work, such as quotes, contracts, weekly construction safety checklists, or accident reports. To activate your business and increase productivity, you should start using digital forms. This information is very important as it sets a base for information artificial intelligence models will use for predictability and analytics. Switching to digital forms will also enhance your sales and marketing activities because will help your company to win more construction bids. - Repeat. Once you have digitized your first paper forms you will see the benefits of digitization. The next step is continuing to do the same with other forms to improve your workflow and your production system.
- Integrate other aspects of your operations. Digitization demand that all of your tools work together. Therefore, you need a process centrally managed and streamlined. Appropriated construction digital tools will make worksites safer, more efficient, and will increase ROI. They should be easily integrated into the standards of your operations and provide information in real-time. This will create big data repositories that can be used for analytics, systems monitoring, and maintenance, etc.
These first steps not only transform your documents management system but also the entire productivity and effectiveness of your operations, helping you operate in a more efficient way, one step ahead of the competition.
In the next few years, the profound benefits of digitization and mobile solutions for construction will attract every construction company to go digital. However, companies that take the leap and start now will be ahead of their competitors.
As much as digitization opens up all kinds of ways to boost their productivity, construction companies face the challenge of deciding which approaches suit them best and how they can be implemented.
At Flaxem, we partner with 2 international leaders of business software – Infor (from U.S.A) and Sage(U.K)- which develop business software used by leading companies like U.S Airforce, Ferarri, Nissan, and 900+ companies worldwide.
Contact us to find out how we can help your construction company excel by using Artificial Intelligence based business software
