A Construction Project Management solution saves time and eliminates extraneous costs. Explore this practical guide to gain an understanding of CPM software.
Retail organizations are constantly challenged with needing to open stores and locations as quickly as possible while maintaining low costs and doing everything they can to maximize profits. This is where construction project management (CPM) software can be a transformative solution.
Construction project management software is a specialized digital tool designed to streamline and optimize the planning, execution, and monitoring of construction projects. It serves as a centralized platform that allows key stakeholders to efficiently coordinate and collaborate on various aspects of a construction project.
Construction project management software enhances transparency, fosters collaboration, and facilitates remote management, making it a vital tool for modern construction projects of all sizes and complexities. It ultimately contributes to cost savings, timely project completion, and the overall success of construction endeavors.
Construction project management software is a specialized project management platform purpose-built for managing the planning, design and execution of a construction project, offering comprehensive oversight of the entire construction process from beginning to end.
Construction project management software should allow organizations to:
Effective construction project management software enables organizations to control enterprise construction projects at scale, in both the macro and the micro. As companies continue to grow and expand their location portfolio, the solution should scale to fit their expanding needs.
Successful implementation of construction project management software helps eliminate project delays and increase broader efficiencies by allowing users to work in a centralized and automated tool that keeps everyone on the same page, ultimately allowing for better visibility into a standardized process.
Construction project management software helps you simplify project planning, improve communication, optimize resource allocation, ensure cost control, and more. Here are ways your organization can benefit from utilizing CPM software.
Many organizations are still using spreadsheets to track and manage their construction projects - even as their needs outgrow them. Spreadsheets are notorious for their inaccessibility, can be prone to error and require multiple versions that can easily be lost. For large or complex projects, manual spreadsheets limit efficient information sharing and make managing timelines more difficult.
This is because spreadsheets are not purpose-built to manage construction projects. While they can be customized to include the information you need, they require extensive manual updating and offer no assistance with best practices or automation. Eventually, companies find that they need the right tool for the job - and even the most advanced spreadsheet will never be able to support the complexities of project financials, approvals, conditional workflows, etc.
By pivoting to a construction management software solution, organizations eliminate the need for extensive spreadsheets, instead offering a more effective way to manage enterprise construction projects at scale and remove the fear of lost time, progress or information.
An effective construction project management system empowers your team to scale across departments, bringing people together from your real estate, accounting and maintenance teams. It also brings together leadership, project managers and general contractors to work out one system.
By accessing the same system across project modules, teams can seamlessly share and use information from the same system, eliminating complicated file sharing. This puts teams on the same page when sharing metrics and terminology, reduces misunderstandings and wasted time, and simplifies executive reporting.
An effective project management system offers users different dashboard options based on what each person needs to know, with a dedicated system administrator granting access as required. This keeps things simple - reducing clutter, minimizing wasted time and ensuring that the employees in your organization have right access to the right information at the right time.
A competent CPM solution can also keep sensitive project data out of the hands of those who should not have access, helping to uphold the standards of competitive bidding and allowing organizations to control project financials and other private information.
A best-in-class construction management software will not only be cloud-based to maintain data integrity and security, but also have robust mobile capabilities to expand the impact and access of the solution. This means that teams both on and off-site are able to access the same information using a convenient mobile device. Teams on project sites can make updates in real-time, automatically syncing their data to keep information as up to date as possible, using either a mobile-friendly browser link or a mobile application.
This ensures that important data is not lost, and time is not wasted having to manually transfer paper documents into the system when returning to the office from a construction job site visit.
62% of businesses identified measuring the time and costs of their construction projects as the most significant project management challenge.
A construction project management software solution gives you control over these core project management challenges by letting you track and manage any threats to your schedule or budget, ensuring you remain on your critical path and within budget.
Get the right tool for the job, one that has all of the out-of-the-box features for what you need.
A lack of coordination and workflow efficiency is a common source of delays and financial waste for large, complex construction management projects. It's not uncommon to experience higher expenses, project delays and ultimately reduced profits as a result of inefficient processes.
Knowing what works best for leading companies and what is endorsed by industry experts such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) can help streamline these roadblocks and offer a clear path toward project cost savings.
An effective project management solution will improve the overall quality of your workflows by offering expert guidance and templated workflows to set you up for success. By having these workflows built into the system and available for you to configure ensures you are starting your project off right, and that you can easily stay compliant with any construction regulations in your industry.
Further reading on construction project management software:
When researching construction project management solutions, there are many available features to evaluate and consider. But most importantly, a strong CPM solution needs to provide the right functionality for managing construction project from inception to project completion and simplify the overall user experience.
The primary features and core functionality to look for when purchasing a construction project management software solution include:
An effective construction project management solution should provide scheduling integration software that offers users and technicians insights into work calendars and timetables. For construction projects, this feature will minimize confusion for users and technicians by highlighting:
Uncover where you are in a workflow process -- whether in a form completion process or a work order implementation -- and where you need to go next. This feature should give users insights into the different construction workflow stages, from beginning to end.
Perhaps the most critical feature involves project budget and cost tracking. With a CPM solution, organizations can define budgets and costs alongside individual projects.
This feature should allow you to:
For organizations that work globally, having a construction project management solution that can be internationalized and customized is essential to success. Alongside customizable dashboards and easy-to-understand access to international standards, an efficient CPM solution should include:
Organizations can eliminate unnecessary trips and consolidate information between users and clients by allowing system users to store and attach relevant documents and photos.
This includes the ability to:
From pre-construction to post-completion financial management, everyone within the construction workflow can gain a departmental advantage from using a construction project management tool.
When it comes to CPM solution users, there are two levels:
Both levels require a solution that can work from project implementation to completion without causing further delays or issues.
A construction project management tool solves this and helps users bridge the gap between on-site and office to manage new location construction, site openings and capital improvement processes by ensuring every detail is done on time and budget.
How do you know if a CPM solution is the right tool for your business?
A CPM tool is a dedicated solution intended to help organizations manage new location construction, site openings and capital improvement processes by streamlining the project management process for everyone involved.
With a CPM solution, you can save time by reducing unnecessary meetings, keep clients and users up to date and informed on both site and construction data, and eliminate extraneous and unnecessary costs in the construction process.
Accruent's Lx Projects is a best-in-class construction project management solution that can help to ensure your business delivers projects on time and on budget.
