COVID AND T EC H N O L O GY
COVID-19 SHOWCASES IMMENSE POTENTIAL OF CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY
BY: CHRISTOPHER GUDERIAN, DENHOLTZ PROPERTIES
Reprinted from Construction Executive, Monday, June 1, 2020, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.
COVID-19 has brought dramatic and lasting changes in countless ways. Uniquely, the hands-on nature of construction has presented a wide range of challenges to the industry. Seemingly overnight, long-established construction best practices for in-person meetings, onsite tours and financial tracking procedures were rendered unfeasible, inefficient or dangerous as social distancing mandates took hold. Suddenly, construction firms were tasked with redefining how projects were managed and executed in the era of COVID-19 and beyond. Construction technology quickly emerged as a key component in solving the myriad of issues arising from the new normal. Prior to COVID-19, the need for multiple contractors and subcontractors to be onsite and the fact that every project is truly unique along with well-established industry best practices made the industry technology adoption rate glacial at best. The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up an industrywide adoption that would have taken years to complete under ordinary circumstances. Through deployment of construction technologies and platforms, development firms have been able to maintain safety and efficiency on jobsites while positioning their companies for long-term flexibility and profitability. Although necessity has brought on widespread technological adoption across the industry, two core advantages will ensure that it is here to stay.
project managers to migrate many in-person tasks to a virtual format. Now, almost every aspect of a job can be made available through a phone or tablet. Contractors and subcontractors can easily access up-to-date blueprints and plans, while also checking on the status of the job remotely, which limits how many people are needed onsite and also reduces the length of time they will need to be there. Additionally, managers have been able to rely on contractors and subcontractors to upload daily timestamped photos of job progress, allowing managers to virtually visit jobsites and conduct inspections. Furthermore, the adoption of 360-degree video hardhat cameras is taking these virtual visits to the next level by providing a comprehensive snapshot of jobsites in real time. Through project management platforms, managers can now visit multiple jobsites, perform rigorous inspections, and instantly mitigate problems in a single day without leaving their offices or homes.
Along with virtual project management tools, managers are also leveraging video conferencing tools and cloud-based, construction-specific document markup tools to virtually review plans with contractors and subcontractors. In the past, all those involved in a job would need to drive to a single location and spend countless hours poring over paper plans that would then need to be revised and recirculated. Now, all members of the construction team can quickly jump on a video call to go over a plan and make edits in real EFFICIENCY time. Once reviewed, new plans can be instantly uploaded Maximizing efficiency while ensuring the safety of those on to ensure that every contractor and subcontractor on the site the jobsite has always been the core focus of construction receives the revisions. Through this virtual and collaborative project managers. As COVID-19 struck, managers were approach, managers are now able to oversee the markup forced to balance efficiency and safety amidst a fluid and process more efficiently while saving contractors and evolving situation. Virtual, cloud-based project management subcontractors time and confusion. platforms quickly emerged as possible answers to solving this dilemma. While some firms had adopted these PROFITABILITY platforms as ancillary parts of the construction jobsite With skeleton crews in many offices, receiving prompt prior to COVID-19, they immediately became crucial and accurate payment has been an issue throughout the components for managing a jobsite during the pandemic. industry. As many construction management firms will increase levels of remote work even after COVID-19, this Cloud-based project management platforms have enabled problem will not be disappearing anytime soon. 57 www.abcpelican.org/newsletter
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