3 Ways Keeping Your Technology
Up To Date Can Pay Off

by ALISA BANKS SNYDER, Customer Marketing & Advocacy, Procore Technologies | Aug 24, 2015

Many construction companies are adopting technology to stay competitive. In some instances, tech adoption is getting pushed from the top of the building chain all the way down.

Owners want more efficient buildings so they demand green technologies and green building. General contractors want more granular control over the project schedule so they require their subcontractors to use cloud-based construction software in order to see what is happening on the job site in real time.

No matter the size of the company, or where it fits into the architectural, engineering and construction sector, technology brings advantages that far outweigh the costs. The value of keeping your tech up to date is that you can be more efficient, and therefore, more competitive.

1. More Cost Transparency

Job costing is one example where keeping your tech up to date rewards you with clear benefits and ROI. There was a time when there was no easy or reliable way to get accurate records of the time people spent on tasks – from a punch clock at the job location to employees recording their hours on paper. Human error, buddy punching, and forgetfulness created numbers that were often just "best guesses." Today, people can use applications on smartphones and tablets that not only record when they clock in and clock out, but also where they were when they did it. Since labor accounts for about 50% of the cost for most projects, having an accurate account of time spent on tasks helps manage labor costs and improves estimating on future projects.

Other technologies like building information modeling (BIM) help reduce change orders and mistakes. Laser scanning, for instance, corrals unseen costs and improves your estimate accuracy.

2. Better Coll-Com

Effective collaboration and communication make projects successful. Keeping your tech up to date, makes a positive difference in these areas that you can see right away. Construction software helps companies tame the collaboration and communication demands of the modern project. This type of tech handles the heavy lifting by ensuring the right voices participate in the right discussions. It takes the approval process out of the infinite loop it’s often locked into, and onto a straight path to timely completion. Plus it tames meetings, improves accuracy, and enhances transparency.

Other technologies, like electronic plan tables and drawing management applications, revolutionize the way people interact with building plans. They eliminate the dog-eared, coffee-stained paper plans of not-so-long-ago, replacing them with always-and-everywhere-available, up-to-date plans. Trips to the job trailer are eliminated.

3. SECURITY AND ACCURACY

Keeping your tech up to date also means ensuring you’re using the latest version, latest tools, or latest hardware to make sure you have the most secure and accurate platform. Change is rapid in the tech sector, and there are constant threats because of the connected environment.

However, part of updating your technology can also involve replacing it. Eventually, most on-site tech becomes outdated and is no longer maintained by the vendor. Some of it simply gets replaced with newer technologies which build on advancement in other fields, making them more comprehensive and less costly to purchase and maintain. For example, cloud computing now offers even the smallest construction company tech advantages once only available to the big companies. Cloud computing also removes much of the costs of managing technology. Updates are applied by the vendor, so you don’t have to manage hardware. The vendor also handles security.

Keeping your tech up to date requires planning and management commitment. Those costs, however, are justified by the efficiency, accuracy, and added security you gain from tech that’s right for the job.

Based in Los Angeles, the author is demand generation manager, customer marketing and advocacy at Procore Technologies. This article first appeared Aug. 18 on the Procore Blog. She can be reached at alisa@procore.com.