Due for disruption, the construction sector is struggling to keep pace with other industries when it comes to embracing digital tools. This challenge applies to both the construction of buildings and engineering and construction (E&C) companies within mining services, which are slow to adopt established and emerging technologies.
A recent study by McKinsey Global Institute analysed 22 major global industries and ranked construction the second last for overall digitisation rates.
The same report found, as a result, the sector’s productivity was stunted in comparison to other industries.
According to Ernst and Young, despite the industry’s slow uptake in digital tools, investment in construction technologies has grown 568 per cent from US$66 million to US$375 million in five years to 2017, with investment likely to continue.
The tools are being made available, meaning it’s up to transformational leaders to drive the change, before being undercut by disruptors.
HardHat explores how technology can power mobility and bring transformation to three primary areas across the industry:
- People’s safety
- Project quality
- Productivity
1. People’s safety
Improving collaboration and access to data can transform an organisation’s approach to safety and compliance, plus it puts safety into the hands of individuals on site.
Incident reporting
How often is incident information captured hours, or days after the fact when details are less vivid? With paper-based systems requiring double handling of data, it’s easy for incident details to get missed or responses not actioned fast enough when working with manual systems.
Mobile incident reporting allows both supervisors and site workers to report and review incident data in real time.
By capturing the incident information instantly with photo, video and text uploads, the accuracy and efficiency of the data is boosted, supporting stronger communication of safety risks and requirements.
Site sign-ins
Mobile site sign-in can instantly transform the way attendance and compliance data is captured.
Frictionless and simple to use, sign-ins can be recorded directly from mobile devices through using a QR code, removing the need to download a mobile application.
Mobile sign-in and attendance capturing makes it easy to send automatic push notifications in the event of an emergency or incident; improving emergency responses, safety and compliance outcomes.
Induction training
Induction training across your site team, sub-contractors, and visitors is fundamental to setting off on the right foot and ensuring safety and compliance on site.
Mobile site inductions will reduce manual paper-based processes and encourage more efficient and effective training so that your team can work safer and with greater compliance.
Schedule inductions, documents submittals and tracking completion from anywhere at any time using mobile tools make it easy to follow and monitor compliance of safety procedures.
2. Project quality
Decisions made throughout a project will have an impact on quality and profitability; having access to the right information at the right time is crucial to delivering high quality outcomes.
Project milestones management
Ensuring quality outcomes begins with a quality plan that is communicated across the project.
Clients, supervisors, site workers, designers, sub-contractors and other relevant parties should be able to access the plan from anywhere at any time for the best chance of nailing each milestone.
As each milestone is met, updates can be captured, uploaded from site and instantly reported. With all the related project information accessible via mobile, project milestones are always available for review to ensure the team is on track.
Quality control
With improved access to information, all project participants can know exactly what needs to be done and to what standard, holding them accountable to achieving quality results.
Throughout the project, site managers can send and receive real-time notification via a mobile app. They can also communicate with workers, review site files and drawings from wherever they are. Compliance issues can be captured and resolved instantly and reported to a central dashboard for review.
3. Productivity
According to McKinsey & Co productivity in the construction sector has stagnated for decades, with the average capital project reaching completion 20 months behind schedule and 80 per cent over budget.
The lack of efficiency translates across to mining services projects, which reportedly come in late four out of five times and over budget by an average of 43 per cent.
As with the construction industry, the uptake of mobile tools has the potential to transform productivity levels across the industry.
Site diary
With an easy-to-use mobile site diary, workers can record activities across the site and see tasks assigned to them and the team. Real-time push notifications will keep all project participants informed and up to date and cut back administration time.
Real-time reporting
It’s not uncommon for companies to experience delays and cost overruns because stakeholders do not have access to the same information when making decisions or monitoring performance.
A cloud-based solution with centralised reporting has the power eliminate double handling of information and encourage more efficient decision-making, saving on time and preventing costly mistakes.
With layers of information across a project captured and collated into one place, easy to read reports can be pushed out to selected stakeholders, keeping them informed on-the-go.
About HardHat
HardHat believes the best businesses run as one. Our solution helps build a connected organisation; enabling you to manage information about your people, projects, and operations – all from one platform.
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