Improved efficiency can be one of the hardest goals to reach, but it is the key to survival in the construction industry.
As a result of advanced technology and a need for a sharp eye on the bottom line for each and every project, many companies are finding themselves eliminating employee positions. The question asked is how do we accomplish more with less people, and the result is a heavier workload for management. The heavier workload unfortunately defeats the purpose when it comes to attempting to improve overall productivity, profitability and efficiency.
America now has about 730,000 construction companies, with an average of only ten employees each, according to the Economist. Enter subcontractors who are more concerned about their individual profit than maintaining low costs for your company. Affecting the project’s margins dramatically, there is no denying that increasing overall profit is a heavy burden to bear.
The management teams are left holding the bag. With all the data flowing into their hands from the jobsite alone, it’s easy to be completely overwhelmed. With the overwhelm, the tough battle of true productivity is lost when it comes to analyzing reports and keeping an eye on the big picture.
The solution is still always going to be better efficiency, but what’s the secret? The secret is in the exceptions, or the outliers.
Exceptions equal Efficiency
Do you ever feel like you waste time looking at the same reports day in and day out? Well, you probably do.
Setting up your reports to only show you when there are outliers – numbers that are out of the ordinary – will significantly decrease the number of hours spent reviewing heavy equipment inspection reports, for instance. This way, your management team’s focus will remain only on the factors that require your attention, such as an above average temperature on a piece of equipment in the field. It is natural to scan the bulk of reports, with an eye peeled for the exceptions on each, but it would be significantly more efficient to run reports that only contain these outlier numbers instead.
Too often in the construction industry, ineffective reporting systems consist of manual reconciliation and double data entry, using data collecting strategies such as project management by spreadsheet. These exact data collection and data analysis techniques are the reasons projects end up with blown budgets.
It is time to embrace systems specifically created for our industry to save time for our employees, for our management teams, and most importantly, to increase overall profitability for the company. Again, using equipment inspection as an example, quicker daily inspections providing customized reports to management only when there is a need for review – containing numbers that are exceptions to the norm – will impact your company’s bottom line. Implementing standards for this process will reduce the man hours spent collecting and analyzing data, decrease equipment downtime, and increase overall productivity and profitability.
A new digital inspection application that has recently hit the construction industry by storm is eesyQ. This new technology not only standardizes your company’s inspection process and provides customized reporting, but it can also contact service repair providers directly and independently. Designed specifically for this industry, those are just a few of the efficiency benefits that the new technology offers companies of all sizes, at an affordable price that guarantees an increased bottom line.
Want to learn more about eesyQ? Click here to schedule a free demo and see how eesyQ customized technology can save your company significant time and money in just 2 clicks.