Getting it Together: Predictive Data Platforms in Construction

For any industry, technology can only be judged successful if it can improve on how that industry works using proven fundamentals. This is particularly true in the construction industry where technology only very recently was often viewed as a “nice-to-have.”

Now, we see it as a “must-have,” a vital investment in our future, with employees approaching tasks with a focus on how technology can help them do their jobs faster, better and safer.

Using the data captured from today’s advanced construction software, businesses are becoming increasingly data-driven. Projects now have real-time construction data that can be relied upon on a daily basis, including updates to productivity, quantities and tracking.

Data has moved into becoming predictive data, allowing organizations to identify projects that may come up against schedule or budget concerns, and then make more informed decisions about the right paths of construction to pursue.

Just consider having the ability to perform those “what-if” analyses during your planning and scheduling processes. The big takeaway there? Predictive data analytics allows you to be proactive, rather than reactive. Let’s look at what all of this means for your business.

UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF A PREDICTIVE CONSTRUCTION DATA PLATFORM

Fully embracing an integrated construction data platform allows you to capture the data needed to inform future decisions from previous projects. This is a very important aspect of the power of connected data.

And as technology continues to evolve with new physical technology that puts electronic devices into the toolbelts of team members out in the field, new apps are also being continuously developed and improved to electronically share daily plans, reports, inspect equipment and capture work-hours.

When you look at the bigger picture, virtually everything in the construction project field is becoming integrated, from the estimate to project cost management, administration to field execution, all with real-time construction data access.

With better data like this available at your fingertips, clients will have more confidence in your project plans and projections. You will be able to use your own growing project “knowledge libraries” to leverage data across your entire organization from current and past projects to better identify possible future project risk issues (and do it earlier), improving field productivity in the process.

SOLVING EVOLVING INDUSTRY CHALLENGES VIA PREDICTIVE CONSTRUCTION DATA PLATFORMS

The industry is also using predictive data within integrated platforms for team education, training and qualifications. Considering our current and growing labor shortage, this is helping to fill gaps in all levels of project teams, from craftspeople to the front office.

With data solutions becoming fully integrated, providing unprecedented access across organizations, there is also an improved ability to consistently deliver projects on time and on budget. The estimating process for construction data, for example, is more streamlined and reliable, leaving estimators and schedulers able to do their jobs better and with more confidence.

As our growing industry evolves, project teams will spend less time filling out endless reports and more time tending to the projects at hand. Technology is eliminating time spent gathering, organizing, and entering information multiple times into different systems. Rather, construction personnel are now able to consume this information and use that time to analyze project performance.

All projects, including the growing number of global infrastructure projects, will become more data-driven with stakeholders spending less time sorting through mountains of quickly-outdated information and more time bolstering project certainty through today’s advanced construction data platforms.

Ready to take a deeper dive? InEight can help get your projects where they need to go and help you create a solution or view that matches your needs while leveraging your teams’ existing strengths. Let us show you how.