Construction document management may appear to be a daunting endeavor as it entails many facets and variables. However, with a construction document management software, you can simplify and streamline the process.
Here are the 6 pillars that you can depend upon to improve your construction document management.
1. Begin with Company Culture
You must first communicate the value of construction document control to your staff. This will help you to streamline your workflow and enhance the efficiency of your staff. Explaining to your staff the importance of construction document control is necessary to complete your projects within the given deadline.
Since the construction industry has been slow to embrace change, there may be a certain level of reluctance from some quarters. To ensure everyone is onboard with full willingness, you should explain the benefits of construction document control and provide necessary training to your staff so that they can understand the new system with ease.
2. Select The Right People
While improving the system of construction document management, make sure that you grant the correct level of authority and privileges to concerned persons so that they may feel empowered in their respective job roles.
You should get your team together and tell them how they can make document control management a success. Assign one member as the key contact for oversight and implementing changes wherever necessary. Such a contact will be instrumental in establishing templates, managing workflow and troubleshooting. They can also assist members who are having trouble with the new system so that their issues can be resolved and hindrances removed.
3. Evaluation
You should ask yourself the following questions to assess how robust your system really is.
- Is it fast and user-friendly? Can users retrieve data quickly when necessary?
- Is it easily accessible?
- Is it connected to the cloud and can it integrate with different mobile apps?
- Is the system scalable? Can you scale it according to increasing staff and workload?
- Can the system by downsized when required?
- Can you easily include new stakeholders while removing the rest?
- It the system secure? Can it login the right personnel while barring unauthorized people?
- How is customer support? Does the system developer have strong customer support in place that can immediately assist in resolving problems as they arise?
If you cannot answer ‘yes’ to the aforementioned questions, then you may have to think about getting a better system.
4. Standardization
You must centralize all of your construction documents under one robust system. The system must satisfy all criteria mentioned above to qualify as a dependable and feasible construction document management tool.
Once you have reassured yourself on this key aspect, you should turn towards standardizing the general contractor project management software.
Although it takes time and entails plenty of work, the effort expended is well worth the benefits that you will consequently accrue. All of your team members and managers should be working with the same system and templates for maximum compatibility and seamless collaboration.
Standardized and seamless processes are necessary for seamless construction document management. To this end, you must ascertain what will be most viable for your company.
You may begin by asking the following questions:
- How should you be updating the changes?
- Who should be responsible for approval and review?
- Who should be notified about changes?
- What level of authority and privileges should each of your team members be getting?
The answers to the aforementioned question will depend on the specific workflow and hierarchy of your company. There is also a possibility of changes to the system depending on the scope and complexity of the project at hand. However, where possible, you should adhere to the standards that you have established and train personnel accordingly.
5. One Information Source
Construction document management will benefit tremendously with a single source of information. Having just one source of data provides multiple critical benefits. Your staff will be satisfied that they have the most current set of documents when they retrieve them from the system.
With more than one system, the staff may retrieve documents that are not current and this could lead to problems. But with just one source, your staff will know that they are looking at the most current version. Hence, there will be no room for confusion on this front. With a single information source, it is still possible to provide access to historicalm archived documents. This provides much needed flexibility if you come to rely on archived files.
6. Integration
With a general contractor project management software in place, you will need to integrate with other solutions if you are relying on them. Companies often use multiple systems owing to their unique merits and functionality. If you rely on multiple systems, then you must ensure that they are seamlessly integrated for a frictionless workflow.
However, this can create problems with updating documents simultaneously on all systems. There is, hence, a risk that your staff may access documents that could not be updated. This can possibly lead to costly errors and rework.
But with the right framework for construction document management, you can alleviate these problems and prevent them from transpiring in the first place. You should integrate various systems seamlessly using the appropriate software solution to make sure that all of your documents and data can be updated, modified and managed correctly.
The 6-pillars of construction document management can help you to gain the maximum ROI from your construction document management software. While having such a software in place is essential to remain competitive in the construction sector, it is also imperative to orchestrate the best practices to get the most out of the software.
Even after setting up and implementing appropriate practices, you should review and update them for continuous improvement. To this end, you should hold meetings with your team and take their input to see where and how improvements can be enacted.
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