With the use of construction technology, firms can access data to drive better and more informed decision-making. But what happens when project data is not used or readily accessible across individuals involved in a project? Unpredictability.
Disjointed solutions and a lack of interoperability leads to broken lines of communication and silos that can cause rework that leads to cost overruns and schedule delays. While the construction industry is traditionally known as a high risk, low margins business, a single product on a unified platform can help the industry move to being a low risk, high margins business.
In November, we announced Autodesk Build – a project management, cost control, and field collaboration solution – to better connect the office to the field and help the construction industry overcome potential challenges that impact their bottom line.
Today, Autodesk Build is now generally available to contractors, subcontractors, and owners to unify key workflows on one platform to seamlessly connect project teams from design through operations. With a unified platform, teams can leverage data across the project lifecycle to make more informed decisions that benefit project outcomes.
Traditionally, key performance indicators have lagged in construction. When it comes to key performance indicators, traditionally, construction has measured lagging indicators. These are a measurement of output and you can’t do anything about these metrics because they already happened. To truly improve project performance, it’s essential to track leading indicators, or predictive measurements. At Autodesk, we spoke with our construction customers, and they helped us identify and define five value drivers that impact their business:
Each value driver is supported by a defined set of desired outcomes that construction companies want to achieve. For example, if you look at winning business, that’s all about maintaining or increasing revenue and ensuring a steady pipeline of business opportunities. Under the value of winning business are outcomes like expanded service offerings or an increase in successful projects.
Under the value of quality, cost, and schedule, the outcomes are about managing risk and reducing potential overruns that impact budget and schedule, while making sure that you’re delivering to a perceived level of quality.
For health, safety, and the environment, that means ensuring your organization follows legislative and industry requirements to minimize risk exposure. A safety or environmental incident can stop production, but more importantly, it can negatively impact an organization’s reputation, resulting in the inability to win work or repeat business.
Today, construction firms of all types and sizes are digitizing workflows to minimize risk and create greater project predictability. The advantage of focusing on these value drivers is that they affect everybody from those who manage the jobsite to the executive level.