Every summer, construction crews are given hard deadlines for school renovation projects. And it doesn’t stop there—throughout the year, projects with tight timelines, and oftentimes plenty of press coverage, pressure construction companies to get through projects as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, all this pressure to move projects along quickly can mean important organizational processes get pushed to the side.
While this may not seem like the ideal time to try something new, it can actually be the best time to incorporate technology.
Incorporating tech can help keep your projects organized, on time, and on budget—all crucial elements when working with a tight deadline or with a small crew. Here’s how tech can help your company accomplish all that (and more):
1. You can plan ahead with production tracking
Need to know exactly how much of each material your crew has used? Keep track of inventory in real time with digital production tracking. Raken’s production tracking makes it easy for those in the field to log exactly how much of each material has been used. And once it’s logged, you have immediate access to this up-to-date information. This makes it easy to watch exactly where you’re at with materials, and even equipment usage and hours worked.
An added benefit of Raken’s production tracking is the ability to see insights and trends from your desktop. Trends creates visualizations of where projects are financially. You can even compare up to five cost codes.
Our construction cost tracking software helps you predict production—from costs to timelines—throughout a project. Most companies wait until the end of a project to discover this level of insight, which doesn’t allow them to course correct during a project.
Being able to know on a day-to-day basis exactly where you’re at with production will give you the ability to make better decisions early on.
2. Improves documentation (when it would normally be an afterthought)
2021 has meant constant changes, and companies will be forced to deal with these changes for the foreseeable future.
Constant change means more opportunity for disputes to arise. This is where documentation is incredibly important, including:
Time cards
Material and equipment usage
Photos and videos
Daily reports
Safety documentation
Contracts
Correspondence
The hard part? Superintendents don’t want to focus on documentation and administrative tasks all day (and frankly don’t have the time to). When it comes to crunch time and teams are forced to work long days, documentation becomes an even lower priority and can get messy.
Raken makes digital documentation easy to do in the field. Field crews can complete reports and send updates to the office on a mobile device while they walk the jobsite. Instead of spending an hour or more at the end of the day completing notes and documentation, supers get to head home early. This means they can focus on moving projects forward during their work day.
John W. Danforth Company saw the value of using digital documentation to not only save time, but improve the quality of documentation—to the point where they won a dispute with the government.
“Everything with COVID-19 was an unplanned cost. But [with Raken] we’re able to show the impacts to labor and material, and we’re able to report that on a daily basis to the GCs and CMs, providing a real potential for fair and equitable compensation,” said Todd Follis, Danforth’s VP of Pre-Construction Planning.
Having organized documentation means saving money in the long run. Don’t let a busy project keep you from making steps to improve documentation—especially at a time when change is a constant.
3. Implementation time is minimal—and the benefits make it well worthwhile
When you have a tight deadline and plenty of obstacles to navigate, adding tech to your company can seem like just another cause for problems.
But Raken is designed to be picked up in a matter of days (or even hours) by even the least tech-inclined person.
“With Raken, there was no learning curve,” said Reed Homola, Operations Manager at Stonwerk. “We're stone masons, we're not generally known to be really techy guys. And if we can get this technology, anyone can.”
Stonwerk implemented Raken across their entire team in a single day. Raken provided a training call, but everyone immediately understood how to use the app, making implementation time minimal.
Once Raken is implemented, the hours saved every day make it worth the transition— especially during times of high stress. With daily reports, Raken makes it possible for supers to head home an hour early. With time cards, payroll no longer needs to manually re-enter data. With production tracking, checklists, and daily reports, the office doesn’t waste time chasing after paper, or driving to the construction site to see what’s really happening.
Ready to reduce your team’s project load?
If you’re working on a tight schedule, you want to keep the construction project moving. Don’t let documentation slow you down—use Raken's construction document management system to help improve documentation efficiency, while saving everyone time.
And all this documentation actually gives you better insights into your business, so you can make better decisions and increase productivity.
Given that Raken has ranked #1 in usability by G2, don’t let implementation time keep you from improving documentation today. Raken is most needed during the middle of a stressful project with a tight deadline.
Learn more about implementing Raken by scheduling a 1-on-1 demo today.