Does your project manager maintain a comprehensive overview of project aspects? Can your contractor pull up plans easily when a client is balking on site? Does invoicing take too much time, physically pinging from desk to desk?
You wanna hear a good construction joke? Hold on, I’m working on it.
Jokes aside, a contractor’s work is never done. He or she must be in multiple places at one time. Long hours, ongoing site visits, and a flurry of projects move through every workday, with dozens of invoices, plans, contracts, change orders etc., tagging along with them to ensure the job moves forward.
Generally speaking, construction companies and AEC firms at large must keep tabs on a plethora of documents and records essential for business workflow. The level of efficiency in which they access, coordinate, secure, and share these files plays a large role in productivity, professional proficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Does your project manager maintain a comprehensive overview of project aspects? Can your contractor pull up plans easily when a client is balking on site? Does invoicing take too much time, physically pinging from desk to desk? When it comes to accessing documents are you “still working on it?”
At its core, a centralized document management platform provides organization and structure to your plethora of documents and records you need to do business. For a contractor bouncing from site to site, or a project manager spinning his or her wheels with ongoing changes, document management can be a critical workflow renovation.
5 Benefits of Document Management inside the Construction Arena.
1. Improve Access to Mission-critical Documents.
Scope creep is a real thing. Ever been on site with a client and the question comes up: “I thought we were going with a lighter beige?” or “This wall is two feet longer than we agreed on!”
Can you easily respond: “Let me pull up the plans and show you”?
With a document management engagement, documents like architectural plans, change orders, etc. can be accessed on-site via web browser, smartphone or tablet, preventing a trip to the office, a call to your team to pull up a document, and that blank stare of uncertainty as a client is breathing down your neck.
2. Streamline Record Management.
Whether you’re a construction manager, engineer, or subcontractor, record keeping is an oft-overlooked – yet critical – function of business. A retention policy is an essential guardian against liability claims for delay damages, negligence, defective work, etc. A Document Management engagement can help with that.
Through record management features, you can set up retention schedules, cycle definitions, cutoff instructions, while organizing these records into folders that determine the retention requirements and life cycle stage. In short: You set the timetable for when a record can be appropriately “destroyed.”
3. Reduce Security Risk.
Still working with paper documents? That can induce a slippery slope when it comes to security. They can mishandled, stolen, lost, or simply transmitted to the wrong person.
A Document Management system protects data with encryption in transit and at rest, as well as allowing administrators to govern over granular controls that regulate (and restrict) access of information to certain employees, based on need and relevancy to a given document or record.
4. Automate Routine Processes and Approval Workflows.
Still waiting on a manager to approve an invoice (and he’s on vacation for four more days)?
Utilizing over 100 automation tools and “Decision trees,” users can build a customized automation workflow (imagine a flowchart of sorts) that identifies specific metadata and routes documents like invoices to the appropriate employee. If that document is not approved in a preset amount of time, it will be sent up the chain, keeping a record of all document activity along the way.
After approval, that document can in real time be sent on to the appropriate department to complete the workflow.
5. Expedite Construction Progress.
Imagine this scenario. After a heavy rain, a resident calls in to a local city department and complains about the erosion issue. The foreman is alerted so he jumps in his truck, fills out an active project issue form, takes pictures, and then heads 20 minutes back to the office so he can begin processing everything.
With a document management engagement, the photos, the form, and any other pertinent document can be uploaded from a smartphone or tablet and sent directly back to the city, providing the kind of on-site access that greatly expedites progress and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.
Is the way your construction company manages, stores, and access documents needing renovation? Are you strapped to manual, paper processes, or storing documents in too many separate silos to keep track of? Unsure of what types of workflows you need? Consider Datamax. With our Document Management engagement, we can provide the consultation and the tools to arm you with workflow that really works to your specific business needs, beginning with a discovery process to holistically understand your people, your processes, and where improvements can be made.
