Recognizing the benefits of collaboration in construction

Collaboration in construction ensures quality and on-time project delivery – explore the multi-fold benefits of using a construction collaboration platform. 

Any construction project requires varied design teams, contractors, trades and specializtion to work together. Collaboration among the people from other companies is vital to the success of construction projects. Sharing knowledge, information and cooperation are essential factors in getting the work done with quality and on time. Project team members of different companies involved in a project must pool their resources and expertise to ensure project progress. A software solution with collaboration at the heart is a necessity for project success. Linarc, a construction management software, provides a unified data and workflow platform for contractors, architects, and builders to collaborate on construction projects as a team.

Collaboration in construction

What is successful collaboration?

Successful collaboration in projects:

• Encourages teamwork
• Develops cooperation between team members
• Encourages information sharing
• Ensures transparency among project members
• Improves quality of the project
• Ensures timely completion of projects
• Enhances service quality

Linarc software system offers powerful tools for effortless collaboration.

Feature benefits of collaboration

Workflow coordination

During its life cycle, any construction project involves many construction documents and other items that move through different stages like revision, review, approval, etc. Examples include budget revisions, submittals, RFIs, change orders and punch lists. Each workflow item mentioned above passes through different parties like subs, general contractors, and architects responsible for attending the item at successive stages. The process requires proper coordination and collaboration for timely and successful completion of those items.

A collaboration platform like Linarc tracks workflow items and routes them to the responsible persons at successive steps. It also ensures that the item is attended to at each stage before due dates and completed on time. As an advanced feature, Linarc allows users to create several custom workflow templates for different types of work orders for use across your project portfolio. The templates define the steps in the life cycle of each kind of item with their permissible durations. Depending on the creator and the nature of the article, you can apply the templates to the workflow items. It makes sure that it is routed to the right person at the right time at each stage for successful completion.  

Real-time connectivity and resource sharing

Sharing of mission-critical documents, plans, drawings and other assets among the project participants at the right time is essential for proper coordination and execution of construction activities. Also, any revisions in the plans, designs, and schedules are to be updated to relevant personnel in real-time to get the job done as intended. 

Linarc’s project workspaces bring project teams across contractors and stakeholders together, organizing project information in one central hub. Online repositories enable team members at different locations to securely share and access plans, drawings, plan markups and more as and when required without any delays. Cloud-based schedulers inform team members at the office and the site about any schedule revisions. In addition, members can use the in-app messaging tool for instantaneous communication for queries, clarifications, announcements, and discussions in any context. 

Context-specific collaboration

Linarc boasts of a context-specific real-time messaging and a general messaging tool. Team members can initiate conversations particular to items like a scheduled task, RFI, change order, punch list item etc., to discuss that specific item. The conversation automatically imports only the members of different teams involved in that item as discussion participants. The feature ensures that the discussions are shared among all responsible persons for the item and no one is left out. No more worrying about missing critical participants, forwarding emails or tracking response. At the same time, the entire conversation, the sensitive information and the digital assets shared in it are secured from being compromised or leaked, as no external persons can barge into context-specific discussions. 

Automated Processes

Linarc’s process automation eliminates the need for manual steps and data updates and lets your team spend more time focussing on the work, ideas, clients, and projects’ progress.    

For example, the payroll module directly collects the attendance information of each employee from their digital timecards. The module automatically calculates the wages for each employee depending on the number of hours they worked, overtime, and base wage rates at the end of each payroll period. Next, the platform automatically emails the payroll report to the approvers.

Opens real-time communication

Successful collaboration depends on effective communication among the team players. Linarc’s cloud-based secure collaboration system presents intuitive web consoles and mobile applications for office staff and field workers. The field team members have access to the required documents, plans and files from the cloud storage and receive updates from the office. The apps also allow field personnel to communicate in real-time with the office staff, generate RFIs, punch list items, etc.

Informed Decisions

Linarc’s informative and intelligent dashboards and automated reports provide insights into various financial and schedule factors, key performance indicators, analytics and risk forecasts as and when data changes. These metrics and charts help project managers and executives to make informed decisions and steer the project to completion within budget and schedule. Real-time migration of data as they change means decisions can also be made real-time.

While the above is interesting and exciting for your project management team, we have more to share. Book a demo today with Linarc.