Are you responsible for managing a large construction project? If so, congratulations. Now, how do you make sure that your project is successful? The key to this is to tackle two aspects in particular: increasing productivity and controlling costs.
Here are five steps that will help you to achieve this goal and we also take a look at how resource management software will support you in mastering these steps.
5 steps for successful management on a large construction project
1. On-site control : overall view of the worksite
With a large construction project, it is hard to keep track of everything : the budgets, schedules, workforce, materials, etc. But to avoid any legal/financial penalties or unwanted accidents, it is important to closely monitor the workers on-site. A crucial part of this is ensuring that everyone’s administrative status is in order.
And because of increasingly stringent legislation worldwide on the registration of workers’ attendance, you also need to make sure you are well equipped to record these particular details on a daily basis.
On many ways, a resource management software can be your best friend to ensure on-site control.
A presence control solution, coupled with an intelligent document platform, greatly facilitates compliance with legislation. With this solution, documents are quickly and easily uploaded and shared. Plus, you can check the attendance of all workers in just a couple of seconds, making sure that everyone is where they are supposed to be. And, just as importantly, an access control solution ensures that any unauthorised personnel are not allowed to enter the worksite.
2. Productivity follow-up : clear view of labor productivity
A large construction project will inevitably take a long time to complete. Throughout this time, you need to make sure that you are on target and meeting your goals. This means you need to have a clear view of your workers’ productivity for every single phase, task or activity of the project.
With the right resource management software, it is now possible to have up-to-date information on the executed hours of your workers. An efficient digital timesheet solution offers you all the information you need to conduct any follow up related to productivity that might be required – for example, hours executed by project, phase or task; by day or week; by person or by team; etc.
Timely access to this sort of dynamic information means that you can check at any time whether you are meeting your goals and, if not, you can then take any necessary remedial action.
3. Cost monitoring : real-time follow-up
Just like productivity, costs must also be closely monitored. This means keeping control of the costs of your resources, both in terms of labour and material.
Labour costs
Once you are equipped with the right software, managing labour costs then becomes quite easy. When your cost structure and HR software are integrated into a digital timesheet solution, information collected in the field comes back to you in a format that is already structured.
You can check the progress of the time budget at any time, which means that you will never be surprised by a budget overrun again.
Material costs
Regarding your material resources, strong resource management software, more precisely a fleet management software, will help you to save money in several ways. For example, it helps you to avoid unwanted behaviours, such as driving at excessive speeds or the unauthorised use of vehicles. For smaller equipment, making your team directly responsible for the tool – by assigning it to an individual person through an app – is a good way to avoid theft and losses.
Overall, technology is your partner in controlling costs and preventing undesirable events.
4. Streamlined processes : time and money saving
To successfully run your large construction project, you need to identify any unoptimised processes. Where exactly are you losing time and/or money? How can a resource management software help ?
Here are some examples:
- Payroll management can be a very time-consuming task, with little added value. However, integrating data from a digital timesheet app into your payroll software can make a huge difference.
- Managing the documentation for all your workers, interims and subcontractors can be a tedious task. But intelligent document software can automate the collection, recognition, processing and sharing of all these administrative documents.
5. Good communication : between field and office
Finally, and with regard to process streamlining, you need to ensure a good communication flow between your teams.
By ensuring your communication processes are efficient, you will enable people to effectively and productively communicate with each another, which is vital. Here are two examples of how a resource management software enables a better communication :
- With an attendance monitoring app, site managers can easily access each worker’s admin status. This will allow the efficient and effective control of access to the worksite.
- Streamlining the collection of workers’ hours means your HR managers avoid potentially difficult conversations with personnel in the event of missing or unclear information.
In general, enabling people to communicate efficiently avoids unnecessary tension or misinformation that could negatively affect workers’ productivity. A good flow of information also means better reactivity to address any risks or opportunities.
Choosing resource management software for large construction sites
In all companies there is nothing worse than software that is rarely or never used. To avoid this, it is essential to choose very carefully the software which will best respond to the identified requirement.
Selection criteria for resource management software:
- Your sector: as a construction company, choose software that is specialised in your sector, and which has been designed to respond specifically to your issues.
- Your company size: micro businesses, SME and large groups don’t have the same requirements. For optimal management of a large site, check that the selected solution can be deployed on such a project.
- Your need: this seems obvious but it is vital to accurately identify the problem you seek to overcome. Depending on this, a specialised software company will be able to guide you to the best solution.
- Your budget: of course, budget is always among the selection criteria. When calculating the allocated budget, don’t forget to take into account the expected return on investment. It is often the case that a few well-invested additional euros enable optimal return on investment and lead to considerable savings.
Successful identification of the best software to meet the requirements enables optimisation of both the productivity gain along with the resulting reduction in costs, and thus leads to better competitiveness.
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