Mobility Elevates the Game in Construction

Industry statistics on the growth of mobile data worldwide speak for themselves. According to the “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2011-2016,” global mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold over the next five years, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016 (one exabyte = one quintillion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, bytes). Cisco also estimates that the number of mobile network connections will reach 10 billion by 2016, with 8 billion smartphones and 5 billion tablets.

The mobile Internet revolution is changing the lifestyles of billions of consumers and the work styles of millions of business users. Virtually every industry is evolving rapidly to leverage mobile data in every aspect of business, from long-term strategy to daily operations. Construction, sometimes characterized as slow to adopt new technology, has fallen in line with this trend. As networks become faster, devices more sophisticated and apps richer and easier to use, the middle and younger generations of construction professionals are becoming more tech-savvy—and mobile-savvy—than ever.

In a survey conducted in August 2012, McGraw-Hill Construction’s Industry Insights group found the following:

• 97 percent of general contractors and 87 percent of subcontractors use mobile devices on construction sites.
• 75 percent of general contractors and 50 percent of subcontractors use mobile devices on more than 75 percent of their sites.
• 86 percent of companies in each segment allow employees to bring their personal devices for use onsite.
• Adoption is expected to increase steadily through 2015, with 91 percent of subcontractors using mobile technology onsite and general contractors increasing their usage at the same rate.

Mobile Collaboration for Project Teams

Everyone on a construction project team benefits from collaboration through mobile access and communications. The principal reason for this is that the majority of aggregated workflows occur in the field or away from the office. Using smartphones and tablets with mobile, cloud-based, collaborative business tools, team members can synchronize the following processes between the office and the field:

• Capturing onsite photos, video and audio for communication and distribution
• Accessing and managing the most current project documents and communications from any location at any time
• Reviewing images and drawings, and delivering comments and updates to project team members
• Managing tasks and issues, and communicating action items that address them
• Viewing and editing project information offline when a mobile connection is unavailable, and synchronizing files when the connection is restored
• Managing the inspection, correction, re-inspection and close-out of defects and other field issues

Assessing Mobile Need and Work Styles
The benefits of mobility are enhanced when teams share a common platform for end-to-end project management. This connects everyone from owners to subcontractors’ employees and ensures that all information and processes are consistent across all participants.

However, it’s important to discern how those participants’ mobile needs and work styles may differ and overlap. Building owners, developers and contractors typically have little time to spend at a computer, as their schedules are often filled with numerous meetings and a lot of travel. Mobility enables them to review documents and drawings and to read and respond to communications when they are away from the office and support staff.

Subcontractors spend most of their time onsite. They tend to rely heavily on mobile devices for voice calls and emails, which keep them up-to-date on projects and allow them to respond to changes. What they need is the ability to access project information and work collaboratively with their contractors and other project team members in real time.

Site managers and staff spend all of their time onsite in order to ensure compliance with safety, audit, quality-assurance and other requirements. They need to be able to capture field information in various forms, such as text, images, video and audio, on their mobile devices to minimize the time invested and risk inherent in manual data entry and re-entry.       

Project managers, architects and engineers are ultimately responsible for the success of a project. They are often running multiple projects concurrently and spend their time onsite, in the trailer and in the office. From their mobile devices, they require the ability to actively manage and coordinate all of the processes, information and people involved in their projects.

Mobile collaboration technology empowers today’s owners, contractors and project managers–and their teams–to create, capture, share and control their project information from wherever they are, whenever they need, whether online or offline.

Innovation, Adoption, Impact
As critical as it is, mobility is only one factor affecting success. Basing mobile collaboration technology in the cloud can provide the highest levels of security, reliability and neutrality for centralized multi-party solutions. Cloud-based technology also avoids the deployment, operations and maintenance costs of installed hardware and software systems behind firewalls, which may limit access and communications among diverse project participants.

The practical advantages of cloud-based mobile apps for construction project management are both straightforward and compelling. They include the following:

• Seamless mobility across multiple devices, including bring-your-own-device (BYOD) capabilities for all users, improves team productivity and accountability while reducing cost and risk.
• The intuitive user experience offered by smartphones and tablets enables users at all levels of computer skill to become fully productive in a short period of time.
• Secure online access to project documents and drawings, including building information modeling (BIM) files, improves quality and accelerates schedules.
• The larger display and keypad of tablets supports rapid comments and updates from the field and explicit graphical communications to all team members.
• The ability to capture issues on-site and transmit the data to the office for action and resolution dramatically increases the efficiency and accuracy of the field inspection process.
• With mobile access from anywhere, project managers can make timely, actionable decisions to manage change and pre-empt delays and penalties.

The bottom line for mobility in construction project management is this: It saves time and improves accuracy in an increasingly competitive environment where every second and every task have real financial impact. Mobile collaboration among team members promises higher quality for capital projects of all sizes, with delivery on time and on budget.