An Autodesk report has found that there is “significant opportunity” for contractors and clients to improve data tracking in the early stages of projects and therefore prevent delays and increased costs as projects progress.
Autodesk commissioned Censuswide to carry out a survey of more than 400 contractors, subcontractors and project owners in the UK and Ireland to identify and analyse construction process management and benchmarking – and just 13% of UK respondents and 33% of Irish respondents are capturing errors in the tender phase.
Furthermore, only 26% of those surveyed in the UK create a log of requests for information (RFIs) – and nearly three-quarters of those said it is a valuable exercise.
Even when they track issues on their projects, UK respondents are less likely than their Irish counterparts to compare the issues tracked with previous similar projects.
When the original project contract or schedule gets amended, it can cause delays and may result in additional costs being incurred. Despite this, just 23% of UK respondents and 38% of Irish respondents document change orders.
The survey respondents appear not to be updating programmes frequently enough: 41% of respondents in Ireland stated that this is something they do monthly compared to 36% of respondents in the UK.
Autodesk said: “For improved performance on projects and better collaboration, more frequent updates make for better project performance so taking the time is worthwhile.
“It’s evident that there’s still a way to go with embedding data and technology into the construction lifecycle process. Perhaps understanding the true value of what this data can do on a project would incentivise those working in the industry to track it more. Using these insights to inform future bids or negotiations with clients would be a step-change for the industry.
“Even data alone on the average number of change orders per project provides asset and project owners with richer information which they can use to base their decisions or to influence their commercial models.”
Download the report: http://bit.ly/AutodeskKPIs
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