Mastering Digital Construction Project Delivery: Your Guide to Success
As the industry increasingly emphasises digitalisation, are we truly sure what a successful digital construction project delivery involves? Transitioning to a digital mode of operation requires a clear understanding and strategic implementation.
Table of Contents
- Challenging Times for the Industry
- The Global Pandemic’s Impact
- Safe Distancing Guidelines
- So, What’s Next?
- Where Does Digitalisation Fit?
- Key to Digital Transformation
- The “Digital” You Need Right Now!
Challenging Times for the Industry
Even before the global lockdown, the construction industry was already facing significant pressure. For instance, Construction News reported that 22 UK construction firms were already in some stage of administration or bankruptcy. These companies ranged from £1 million to around £100 million in turnover. Clearly, this indicated an urgent need for process improvement and greater efficiency to ensure survival in the industry.
The Global Pandemic That Brought Work to a Halt
The COVID-19 pandemic severely restricted work globally, necessitating a radical shift in the delivery of construction projects. Never has the industry needed more transparent communication and better collaboration.
With already razor-thin profit margins, companies now had to contend with closing sites indefinitely. Projects attempting to remain open operated at reduced capacity, often with smaller, multi-shift workforces. Teams working remotely and social distancing on sites necessitated a complete overhaul of traditional work practices.
Safe Distancing Guidelines
Governments worldwide are currently establishing guidelines for on-site work progression. Where full work restrictions are not in place, defined guidelines for safe practices ensure social distancing is maintained. They also outline best practices for the safety and health of all personnel present on site.
So, What’s Next?
This period offers a crucial opportunity to implement improvements and revise project delivery methods. You can primarily achieve this in two parts:
Part 1: Mapping the Status Quo, Potential Constraints, and Analysing It:
- Can the work continue? If so, at what pace and how? What are the specific requirements and guidelines that need to be addressed? These questions demand a thorough review.
- Next, assess your resources. Can you acquire the necessary materials? Is your supply chain still operational? What is the current status of your workforce?
Part 2: Collaborating on the Strategy Forward.
- Based on this analysis, begin planning your next steps. Collaborate with your team to make rescheduling decisions, assign constraints to relevant team members for resolution, and initiate pull planning sessions based on defined phases.
- Step-by-step, develop your look-ahead plan, narrowing down specifics before committing to your weekly work plan. Work with your site team to secure commitments for constraint-free tasks that are ready for execution.
But Where Does Digitalisation Fit into This?
Digital construction project delivery is crucial for maintaining efficiency today. Current circumstances will compel people to work remotely, whether it’s a two-meter separation on-site or miles apart due to remote work across different global locations.
The following factors highlight why digital construction project delivery is essential right now, and what constitutes an effective digital solution:
1. Planning Control
- Today, planning cannot happen in isolation simply by automating a new schedule on software. A system cannot fully comprehend the uncertainty of the current scenario, which includes government regulations, supply chain issues, and workforce constraints. Social distancing norms make it impossible to maintain the initially planned number of workers. This necessitates an overall review of the workforce allocated to each location daily.
2. Realistic Collaboration
- Currently, the focus is on empowering the team to control the workflow. This means collaborating on strategic decisions while working remotely. Teams should be able to digitally collaborate, making realistic commitments to upcoming tasks while factoring in real-time resource availability and site conditions.
3. Single Integrated Platform
- All stakeholders require a common platform to review the project plan and status. This eliminates the need to wait for individual reports and analyses. Having a shared window to monitor the project is essential for more efficient and effective collaboration among teams.
4. Information Flow and Waste Minimisation
- With remote working, information must be transmitted seamlessly across project teams with minimal physical interaction. Even on-site, task allocation and handovers require digital communication among the various teams.
5. Real-time Monitoring from Anywhere
- Live updates from the site must flow uninterrupted to the entire project team, regardless of their individual locations. Real-time tracking prevents any delays in reviewing project progress, ensuring all stakeholders operate in sync.
Key to Digital Transformation
For successful digital construction project delivery, aligning technology with people and processes is crucial. A top-down approach to deploying any market solution will not automatically deliver benefits. It is equally important to align the solution with your existing processes and the mindset of your people. Then, you can gradually and incrementally introduce process changes towards a digital model of project delivery.
The “Digital” You Need Right Now!
Many “Digital” solutions in the market promise various benefits; however, most address only peripheral concerns. Proper alignment of lean processes with digitalisation demands a solution that tackles the core of lean production management. This depth requires a solution developed from a pure understanding of lean, both conceptually and practically.
We created VisiLean to harness all these aspects of Lean Construction, integrating them within a digital platform for construction projects.
VisiLean addresses the heart of construction production management. With dedicated modules to digitalise your production planning, monitoring, and tracking, along with the correct tools for production control, VisiLean helps you transition seamlessly towards Lean digitalisation. We offer dedicated support and excellent system interoperability, respecting your teams’ familiarity with existing platforms and workflows. This promises a smooth onboarding and transition across the organisation, one step at a time.
If you want to take the first steps towards digital construction project delivery and save significant time and cost on your construction projects, sign up for a fully featured free demo at VisiLean – Book a demo
Want to know more about us? Head to https://youtu.be/vALoybf0zpM or visit our website, https://visilean.com, to learn about all our features!
