The construction industry is regarded with significant impact in the global economy, bringing outstanding contribution in terms of revenues and labor workforce. Its growth also depicts major implications of technology in a country as a whole, wherein today, the urban areas experience fast paced growth in real estate and commercial infrastructures. Being an old industry itself, the construction industry had a series of sinusoidal growth, being affected by natural and beyond control factors such as major environmental disasters, global economic crisis or political issues. But nonetheless, the construction industry is continuously thriving and improving in many aspects, to successfully overcome its adversities, and to survive all its ordeals.
The Current State of Construction Industry
The current status of the construction industry varies in different countries. But those that have significant impact are the driving forces of global economy like the US, UK and major Asian economic players like the Middle East and China.
Currently, the state of US construction industry continues to overcome from the recent blow of global financial crisis. Fortunately, the US saw a promising start in the opening of 2016, despite of global economic concerns it is still facing.
The impact of Brexit left uncertainties in the UK construction and infrastructure sector, wherein analysts will have yet to see when investors will gain their confidence back in continuing business with the country.
The ongoing major slump in the oil and gas industry brought about by the oversupply, left exploration projects hampered, and thousands of workers jobless. This includes civil construction workers that comprise both laborers and professionals. It has been one of the global issues that we are facing right now, which spans its negative impact across many industries and countries alike.
But there is hope. A market research released a positive prediction that in 2016, construction startups will grow by 6% in the US, or worth $712 Billion, with the residential sector topping the list of the most contribution with a 16% share. This positive outlook constitutes a slow, but steady growth in the construction industry this year.
Overall, the construction industry has its own share of ups and downs, but it still lives and survives. This means that this sector will continue to mature and stay strong amidst all challenges and uncontrollable circumstances that affect it.
Construction Industry, Defined
Surviving many significant market shifts and adversities by the construction industry just proves its necessity for the global economy to function properly. It serves as a foundational industry that usually participates at the beginning of every business infrastructures and projects, especially on larger scale. It employs multi-discipline collaboration between varied professions and skilled workforces like engineers, architects, project or construction managers and construction workers.
Fast forward today, the construction industry operates with traditional methods, as well as with technology assisted tools, in order to accommodate the varying needs of the consumers or businesses. There are three construction sectors, which includes buildings, infrastructures and industrial. Each associate with other sectors as well, including; buildings to non-residential or residential; infrastructures to heavy civil works; and the industrial to public type of works, as well as large scale businesses that utilizes manufacturing plants. Each sector experience growth and added dimension as time goes by, and it is impressed upon by deploying building technologies and automated tools concerning construction management systems.
Challenges in the Construction Industry
Aside from the global issues that the market is facing right now, a significant part of the challenges that the construction industry encounter today boils to adopting an effective construction management system. Now that the needs of businesses and consumers are more demanding and specific, and uncontrollable situations are becoming more severe and unpredictable, construction managers are left with more burden. This calls for a balance between realistic and being future ready of all the elements comprising the construction management system.
The construction industry is a dynamic sector that consists of many levels of progress, which attributes it being time-run and budget-critical. It also involves many work processes that are executed in series of steps: from planning and scheduling, design, construction and supervision, and timely delivery. It also comprises major considerations in budgeting, safety, environmental impact, and logistics. There are many aspects to consider in the construction industry, and this is where the need for an effective construction management system to adopt, comes in.
Building Technologies and Construction Management Software
The pressing demands in adopting more sophisticated methods in the construction industry saw light in the application of technology based tools.This increases the efficiency of implementing excellent management skills, and the productivity of both managers and workers alike.
Construction management tools allow multi tasking capabilities to take a notch higher than the usual exhaustive and stressful means. The application of technology enables to put everything in a single platform, which centralizes workflows and processes. It also allows better transparency in the status of progresses, which strengthens the confidence of the clients with their contractors.
Construction management softwares are also flexible to accommodate the different needs of its clients, which allows a “one stop shop” of management productivity tools that can be customized to tailor fit every construction scenario.
Optimizing Resources and Budget
Budget concerns are one of the most crucial aspects in construction management. There are many direct and indirect factors to consider in making effective budgeting.
Direct costs include price of construction materials, manpower salaries, equipment capital costs, and technical tool adaptations.
On the other hand, indirect costs include safety related costs and compensations, weather disaster incurred costs, transportation costs, administrative costs and legal costs.
All of these contribute to the complexity of budgeting and costing among construction managers. Decision making in this aspect should be dealt with critical thinking and estimation, which makes an experienced manager different from the newer ones. The ability to make accurate calculations is a skill that develops from repetitive and continued exposure to the construction market altogether.
Construction project management softwares enable more efficient ways in calculating the overall budget and costs of the different areas in the construction process. It makes use of web based tools that increase transparency in the budget and cost management system.
Construction project management tools also enable tracking of changes in the costs made within the course of the construction, to properly address them, too, upon closing of the deal. It helps to identify where the bulk of the budget went or what aspect where the most changes happened. It doesn’t just constitute to the overall project analysis, but to a bigger picture of the construction market as well.
Importance of Time Management
Time is also one important aspect of the construction resources that has to be effectively managed and distributed all throughout the construction process. Faithful observation of the designated timeframe will not only promote productivity among the workforce, but will make a credible testimony of the construction manager’s skill in the management system.
The construction, being time constraint, is one of the most crucial areas of the construction that a manager faces the most problems from. This is a fixed resource, in general, and there are many considerations involved in the scheduling and delivery of the whole construction process. The majority of these considerations involved uncontrollable circumstances like issues in weather, accidents or safety issues, client contributed delays, bankruptcy, workforce delays, personal issues, etc. Making schedules have effectively been both skill and luck, and there should be a considerable time allowance when making phase schedules and time frame for deliverables.
Web based construction management tools assure of powerful scheduling methods that lay all deliverables and its corresponding time frame for all the members of the workforce to view. This is to enable the people to develop their individual time management skills in order to accord their work with the time constraints. It also makes collaborative work more effective, even including the clients, in making sure that all phases are finished within a considerable time, or better if as planned.
Importance of Human Resource Management
Overall construction quality lies on the knowledge and skills of the workforce the company utilizes. It should be supported with an effective collaborative work among the skilled and professional workers, to foster accountability and timely delivery across the entire construction management system.
However, the construction industry faces a challenge in organizing a pool of efficient and talented workforce due to shortages in the labor sector. According to a survey conducted in 2015, about 80% of the construction businesses revealed that they couldn’t find workers that are skilled and qualified enough for the jobs. The recent blows of recession that hit the world discouraged young workers to explore the construction industry, finding it as an unstable firm to establish a career on. The flourishing of technology based jobs and skills also attracted more young professionals to its safer and more comfortable working environment.
The good news is, the construction industry is gradually opening its doors in making technologies part of its operations. This is to encourage the white collared sector to explore the industry by applying technology based tools in making the processes more efficient. The application of technology in rendering designs also attracts more varied types of clients, including those with modern preferences. This kind of progress inspires the workforce to look at the construction as a rather stable industry that can go side by side with the growth and advancements in other market sectors. It also empowers the labor force to have benefits of productivity and efficiency, making them enjoy work and contribute better in the workplace.
Web based construction management softwares act as a hub, where all the members of the construction workforce meet, remotely through the web, to enable more efficient collaboration and coordination to take place. It helps in managing all workflows, processes and human work more efficiently, by the construction manager. It also enables increased accessibility in all documents and project phases, both by the business people and their clients.
Significance of Excellent Communication
Collaborative work efforts are more effective in delivering a high quality and timely output in the construction. Communication system can impact this, whether positively or negatively. In the case of construction management softwares, effective communications can take place by enabling a centralized platform where all mediums of correspondence can be sent and received. All of these can also be collected and stored within the system as a reference should the need arise. All changes made are logged as well, and notifications can be enabled to alert construction managers and project leaders of changes, completions or even problems. It helps both the workforce and the clients be updated with the progress and phase completion within the construction process.
The application of technology based tools in the construction industry made it more robust in delivering high quality infrastructures, in a timely manner. To know more about how top construction management tools impact the way the construction industry works today, see CrowdReviews.com’s list of construction management tools.
Keith Moore
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