The construction industry is time-based, meaning every delay has severe financial and reputational consequences. According to a recent survey by Cornerstone Projects, it was discovered that any delay in a construction project eventually leads to increased costs, missed deadlines, and dissatisfied clients, which directly or indirectly impact the profitability and reputation of construction firms.
Given the high stakes, every contractor must adopt a proactive approach to managing their projects. In the coming sections, you’ll learn a few contingency plans you can implement to handle any circumstance that could delay your building construction.
Weather-Related Delays
A contractor’s greatest enemy and asset is the weather. Weather can significantly determine how soon construction work is completed, whether it will stay on schedule, and the freedom workers will have on-site.
While you can’t control the weather, you can make changes to minimize its impact on your project. This mainly involves proper site preparation and protection and a risk management plan.
Your risk management plan should outline alternative work schedules, temporary site protection measures, and resource allocation strategies you plan to use in severe weather conditions like heavy rainfall, extreme temperatures, or strong winds.
This may require that you invest in weatherproofing measures like temporary enclosures, tarps, and drainage systems to keep your work areas dry and protected, adjust the work schedules of your on-site workers, reallocate resources to activities that can be performed indoors or in protected areas, or regularly review weather forecasts so you can adjust your work plan accordingly.
No matter the strategies you’ve set out, what’s important is that you have these risk management strategies pre-planned and are proactive in implementing them.
Material Procurement and Logistics
Supply chain disruptions and material scarcity issues are another area to consider. When your workers don’t have materials to work with, they’ll have to wait until you provide them, which can delay the project and even impact other construction areas.
So, it’s essential to be proactive and work closely with your suppliers to anticipate potential shortages and plan accordingly.
Encourage your site supervisor or foreman to collaborate with your inventory or procurement manager in designing a comprehensive material procurement plan. This plan should identify all required materials, quantities, lead times, and potential supply chain risks.
Get a hard copy report of the plan, and use it to address any predictable material shortages, such as identifying alternative suppliers, substituting materials, or adjusting construction sequences. This collaborative effort will help you stick to your schedule and minimize delays.
You can also use the plan to implement an efficient inventory management system that aligns material deliveries with construction schedules. This way, you can evaluate and select your suppliers based on their reliability, quality assurance, financial stability, and ability to meet project deadlines.
Equipment Maintenance and Reliability
Construction projects rely heavily on various types of equipment, such as Caterpillar bulldozers, excavators, cranes, and concrete mixers. However, these machines are prone to occasional breakdowns, and no one wants an essential piece of equipment to fail during construction work. Such breakdowns or failures can negatively influence the momentum of the project.
This is why implementing a robust preventive maintenance program for all your construction equipment can help you avoid downtime by spotting and fixing issues before they become problems. Preventive maintenance is simply regularly inspecting, servicing, and repairing your critical construction equipment to remain in its best condition.
This may mean replacing the Caterpillar engine parts in your Caterpillar bulldozers before they fail or regularly maintaining your concrete mixers to prevent unexpected breakdowns. The goal is to have a plan to tackle any breakdowns before they become a big issue.
Leverage Digital Channels for Progress Reporting
Levelset recently surveyed construction businesses and some of their employees to assess the amount of time wasted on construction projects. What they found was astounding. 85% of respondents reported spending more than 1/4 of their time tracking and reporting on project progress.
That’s around 40% of valuable working time wasted on traditional progress reporting methods like paper-based documentation and manual data entry, which are not free from human errors and may require several evaluations before being accepted.
Given these inefficiencies, what can be done? You can start by switching to a digital progress reporting system. Leverage mobile applications and cloud-based platforms like Procore that allow you to capture and upload progress updates, photos, and other relevant data directly from the job site.
This improves the accuracy and timeliness of progress reporting and facilitates better communication and coordination among your team members, clients, and other stakeholders.
Integrating these digital solutions with your project management software and other construction technology tools can also give you a holistic view of your project’s progress and enable you to identify areas that can cause delays so you can fix them as soon as possible.
Switching to a digital progress reporting system is an effective way to curb inefficiencies. Leveraging comprehensive construction collaboration software, such as the ones listed in this detailed overview of Top 7 Construction Collaboration Software in 2024, can streamline your operations and ensure better communication, coordination, and real-time updates among team members and stakeholders.
Wrapping Up
Construction work is very dynamic because so many factors can slow it down. However, focusing on these effective strategies will help you minimize costly delays.