Even in our increasingly digital age, many organisations require physical locations. For instance, some of the world's biggest technology companies are making significant real estate investments. Google recently spent more than $100 million on the State of Illinois Center in Chicago and is currently building its new UK HQ, due to open in 2024.
Then there are retailers, public sector entities, manufacturers, and other enterprises requiring brick-and-mortar locations. As the world of work continues to evolve, they need to ensure the physical locations match their employees' current and future needs. Often, this requires construction — whether the aim is to build something completely new or renovate existing properties to better suit their needs.
The Construction Project Management Challenges
The challenge with anything relating to construction is to deliver these properties as quickly as possible while maintaining budgets in order to get the locations operational and generating revenue. But this is easier said than done. As we noted in our blog on Building Information Modelling, "Poor visibility and disjointed collaboration between architects, contractors, engineers, owners, and facilities managers have been challenging for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector for decades. Inadequate communication and a lack of interoperability are leading causes of project delays and cost overruns."
What is Construction Project Management Software?
As organisations continue to grow and construction demands and challenges increase, project teams will inevitably outgrow their current project management tools. That's why many people turn to purpose-built construction project management (CPM) software, as it is better suited for their construction project needs and helps them overcome their most significant challenges.
CPM software provides companies with a specialised project management platform for managing the planning, design, and execution of a construction project. It aims to offer a comprehensive view of the entire construction process from beginning to end.
Ideally, a CPM solution should give organisations the ability to:
- Track and control costs through purpose-built functionality for budgeting, bidding, and change management
- Increase cross-functional collaboration with shared workflows and notifications
- Automate standard processes with repeatable schedules and flexible workflow resources
- Strike a balance between configurability and best practices with their construction projects
- Control enterprise construction projects with both macro and micro views
- Allow users to work in one centralised, automated tool, keeping all parties on the same page
- Eliminate project delays and increase project efficiencies
- Scale to fit their expanding needs as companies grow and expand their locations
Benefits of Construction Project Management Software
Fundamentally, CPM solutions allow you to:
End your reliance on spreadsheets
Many companies still use spreadsheets to track their construction projects. Notorious for inaccessibility, prone to errors, and requiring many versions that are easy to lose, spreadsheets are not designed to support large or complex projects. Using them manually limits efficient information sharing and makes managing timelines more difficult. Even the most advanced spreadsheets will never be able to support the complexities of project financials, approvals, data automation, and conditional workflows.
Deploying CPM software allows you to eliminate the need for extensive spreadsheets. That's because it offers a more effective way to manage enterprise construction projects at scale, and removes the fear of lost time, progress, or information.
A single source of information
An effective construction project management system can scale across departments, bringing people together from real estate, accounting, and maintenance teams. It also allows leadership, project managers, and general contractors to use one system.
By accessing the same system across project modules, teams can share information, thereby eliminating complicated file sharing. This puts teams on the same page, reducing confusion, wasted time, and rework.
Giving the right people the right access
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. It reduces clutter, minimises wasted time, and ensures that employees have the right access to the right information at the right time.
A competent construction project management solution can also keep sensitive data out of the wrong hands, helping to uphold the standards of competitive bidding and allowing organisations to control project financials and other private information.
Real-time mobile information sharing
A best-in-class construction project management software will be not only 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 both on and off-site teams can access the same information using a mobile-friendly browser link or mobile application. Updates are in real-time, automatically syncing to keep records up-to-date. Data is never lost, and your teams are more efficient as there is no need to manually transfer paper documents into the system when returning to the office from a site visit.
Track costs and financial projections
According to MPDI, “the construction industry has been already facing huge cost and time overruns, affecting all stakeholders.”
Modern construction project management software gives you control over these core project management challenges by letting you track and manage any threats to your schedule or budget, such as automated notifications and customisable views. These capabilities allow you to remain on your critical path and within budget.
Access best practices for greater compliance
A lack of coordination and workflow efficiency is a common source of delays and financial waste for large, complex construction projects. It's not uncommon to experience higher expenses, project delays, and reduced profits because of inefficient processes. Knowing what works best for leading companies and what is endorsed by industry experts can help streamline these roadblocks and offer a clear path towards project cost savings.
An effective construction project management software will improve the overall quality of your workflows by offering best practices and proven and templated workflows. Having these configurable workflows built into the system ensures you are starting your project off right and that you can easily stay compliant with any construction regulations in your industry.
Want to know more?
Construction project management needs the right supporting tool to get the job done well. When you leverage the right construction project management software, you can rest assured that it can help you keep even the trickiest of projects on track.
To learn more about Accruent's best-in-class CPM solution, visit the Lx Projects webpage or contact us for more information.
