With winter on its way, the world once again faces the prospect of extended shelter-in-place orders. While it is unlikely that the engineering and construction industry will grind to a halt as it did in March 2020, many companies are much more prepared for that eventuality than before. Data collected through the first lockdown suggests that most have adapted to the challenges of this new working environment, with project teams finding ways to keep building safely and efficiently through these uncertain times.
As anyone who has been around the industry long enough can tell you, construction project management is a team sport involving dozens of companies. Tight schedules and even tighter margins are the norm, and a decrease in communication, collaboration and cooperation would likely mean a loss of momentum and lower performance across every aspect of the project life cycle. Now, new research into the construction industry’s work-from-home trends suggests technology may be playing a key role in driving forward project work despite challenging conditions.
Analysis of data pulled from the InEight platform revealed new trends and behaviors as teams continued work during the initial shelter-in-place orders, providing clues about the benefits of digital transformation and the future of work for the engineering and construction industry. The analysis was produced by researching user behaviors on the InEight Document project document management (PDM) solution from February 2020 through July 2020, comprising an average of more than 250,000 unique users across more than 2,100 international projects. The data was anonymized and normalized to show spikes in usage above and beyond normal year-over-year (YOY) growth rates.
Maintaining Collaboration
To facilitate people working remotely, project teams need a central repository to keep critical information accessible and available to everyone regardless of physical location. One way this need was addressed in the first lockdown, according to the data, was with increased collaboration in the shape of total document uploads, which increased by almost 40 percent YOY.
The data also reflect a jump in another area of digital collaboration — the use of InEight Forms. Forms allow project teams to manage things like requests for information (RFIs), submittals, non-conformance reports and other workflows requiring multiple stakeholders input. Forms usage was up by more than 28 percent YOY and reached an all-time high at a nearly 80-percent increase in June YOY.
The increased usage of these features indicates that many engineering and construction businesses actively sought out new ways to keep building, but also found value in deepening their use of an existing solution, achieving new levels of return on existing investments. With shelter-in-place orders on the horizon for several states, businesses should take the opportunity to maximize the use of digital tools in preparation.
Decreased Field Activity
Even though the industry had been launched into a more collaborative environment than ever before, analysis of how customers were using the InEight PDM module suggests the work happening on the platform was primarily back-office work. Researchers found that features typically used by project professionals as they walk the site showed sharp declines between February and July.
Take document downloads for example. Construction sites typically have terrible Wi-Fi and mobile-data connectivity, so team members frequently download project documents to a mobile device before beginning work on the project site. Document downloads decreased by a total of nearly 30 percent during the period surveyed, indicating fewer people were physically present on project sites.
Likewise, picture uploads were down by roughly 26 percent. Normally, someone uploads a picture from the project site to add context to a request and allow off-site team members to see how things look on the ground. With fewer people on-site, it follows that there would be fewer pictures uploaded.
With this in mind, construction and engineering businesses may seek to alter their plans accordingly in favor of completing on-site tasks soon and where possible, leaving non-urgent back-office tasks for later.
The Road Ahead
The construction industry displayed tremendous agility and creativity in adapting to the challenges of remote work the first time around. As crews returned to work and on-site activity increased, normalized usage of InEight’s platform remained up YOY for digital collaboration in new workflows. This is a very encouraging sign; it suggests that construction and engineering firms may be much better prepared to handle new shelter-in-place orders than before. While for those companies found it difficult to progress their construction projects, the data gives a clear indicator of just how impactful digital construction tools can be
For more information, visit www.ineight.com/visibility or call (866) 225-9570.