By Andrew DiSabatino III, EDis Company Chairman
The backend of most construction projects normally entails only 3 or 4 percent of the costs, but it can account for as much as 50 percent of the aggravation. It is not uncommon for a $10 million project to generate $300,000 in change orders across 19 contracts. Add to that the less formal notes, questions and other communications that can instill delay, inefficiencies and oversights that produce errors in a project’s execution.
The accuracy of the paper trail assembled throughout the entire construction process inevitably leads to either profit or loss during a project’s closeout.
EDiS Company, a construction management, design-build and pre-engineered metal building contractor in Wilmington, Del., collaborated with New York entrepreneur Justin Nolan to develop a new IT tool that streamlines the administration of a project’s paperwork and facilitates the eventual closeout.
Nolan, a former document administrator for a construction consulting firm, was inspired to create his fledgling venture from the frustrating experience of compiling paper-based punch lists for major building programs involving sometimes 10,000 or more items generated (including some missing) by the many individuals associated with the project.
To streamline the process, he developed a Windows-based PDA punch list tool that became the cornerstone for a now commercially available web-based construction management system which makes innovative use of the iPhone.
The new iPhone app, called
BuildingBlok, compiles a complete and current project status on a secure website where stakeholders can upload and access the summary either for simultaneous or independent review.
The website contains the project’s ongoing status and a complete history of the normally paper-based flow of change orders, RFIs, submittals, payment applications, daily reports, schedule, logs, emails, blueprints and other communications. All eligible stakeholders on the project team, including owners, architects, engineers, managers and subcontractors, can refer to the same, continually updated page.
Because the exchanges and routine communications are engrained in any commercial construction project, EDiS wanted to preserve but replicate them digitally. The system also had to be readily understood by the authorized participants. EDiS’s project activities offered a real-world basis on which to create a comprehensive but universally applicable system.
The use of the iPhone allows managers in the field to update, document and sync their input to the blueprints, daily reports, punch lists and photos. The application allows access even from remote locations lacking an Internet connection. In these situations, any changes input to the device are saved until a connection (wifi or cellular) is reestablished, and that data then transmits automatically to the project webpage.
The use of this new tool has streamlined decision-making and overall communications, with reductions in completion time approaching 75 percent.
The system maintains a paperless audit trail at closeout for every construction document related to a project.
Although the technology’s typical users are small and medium-sized contractors, the system can be scaled to manage almost any building program, whether a $50,000 or a $200 million contract.
The technology also can save significant costs historically associated with paper: printing, faxing, shipping, courier services and blueprint duplications. A project that once required up to a dozen boxes for document storage can be reduced to a small box, and because project information remains online, customer questions can be readily answered years after completion.