Construction Planning and Management: 5 Essential Software Tools
As a construction manager, you know that planning and organisation are essential for a successful project. There are many software tools available to help you manage your construction project, but which ones are the most essential?
In this blog post, we will explore five of the most important software tools for construction planning and management. Stay organised and efficient with these helpful tools!
What are construction planning and management tools?
Construction planning and management tools, as the name would suggest, are designed to help you coordinate tasks within a project.
Today’s leading management tools are built as software applications with diverse functionality, creating simple and quick access to data anywhere, anytime.
All major construction projects are unique and multi-faceted. In order to help you excel across every stage, here are several recommendations for essential software tools that can provide greater clarity and efficiency on your construction projects.
1. Correspondence
With so many points of communication, from conversations to revisions and information requests, misunderstanding and oversight can quickly ensue and result in project delays and rising costs. Traditional email, while still a valid form of communication, does not have the scope to handle such nuanced discussion.
A better alternative is a centralised and accountable communication hub, such as Correspondence. This provides users with a single source of truth and stores all user activity, allows attachments of all sizes to be sent and can deliver automatic reminders.
All these features and more work to improve project productivity and minimise potential miscommunication.
2. Publication Space
Sharing and retrieving documents during a construction project can be challenging with such long timeframes and diverse files. Publication Space is an integrated module that makes it simple, efficient and transparent. Drawings, reports, contracts, schedules and more can all be shared to the simple online storage hub.
Similar to the communication hub, this provides a centralised place where stakeholders can remotely access the documents they need in a flash. Various permission levels preserve document security, activity is tracked and all previous versions of documents are archived for convenience and future reference.
This creates an efficient workflow that’s protected from start to finish.
3. Contracts Administration
Speak to any project manager and they’ll tell you cost management is a crucial element to oversee. Minor disruptions from mistimed payments or overspending can quickly snowball into major issues with various implications for many stakeholders.
That’s why Contracts Administration has to be included on this essential tools list. The module streamlines the specifics and helps users manage multiple contracts in real-time. You can create budgets with accurate estimates, manage any variations, break down costs, automatically generate payment schedules and more.
By organising payments with intelligent procedures, managers can ensure stakeholders are paid promptly. Moreover, a complete history of audits is recorded within the module so construction managers can identify and remedy budget discrepancies.
4. Tender Management
Tendering can be a frustrating and inefficient exercise. To make the process for gathering, comparing and managing bids better, Tender Management is a dedicated module that allows bidders to submit all the necessary information and specifications for a project.
From there, Head Contractors can assess them using our Bid Evaluation tool, which dives into the specifics of each bid and compares them side-by-side. Each party can stipulate requirements, sign confidentiality reports, and send documents with ease. Once a financially suitable bid is chosen, it can be reviewed for the scope of work, schedule of rates and any other comments or changes made by the bidder. All correspondence is recorded for posterity offering protection if required.
With all necessary data organised in one place, what was once a complicated process to get jobs awarded can be effectively streamlined.
5. Defects Management
As with any major project, identifying and resolving issues is a necessary but time-consuming procedure that often involves disorganised spreadsheets and paper forms. Defects management is a mobile and cloud-based module that lets users capture, assign and track issues in real-time, drastically boosting efficiency and creating better outcomes. If no internet is available, the database will automatically synchronise when you connect to the internet again.
Helping to increase accountability and address urgent matters faster, there are several useful features built-in. You can capture images, mark out the issue and share them directly with the contractors to avoid confusion. Any stipulations can be cross-referenced with plans, and budget variations tracked inside the tender management console.
Even better, because every action associated with a defect entry is stored within iTWO cx, project managers can quickly identify the history of what’s happened and responsible parties.
All this goes to show that the right construction planning and management tools can help your company grow and boost its productivity considerably.
If you want to implement these tools into your next project, request a demonstration with one of our friendly iTWO cx team members today.