Projects failing to be completed within the allocated budget have negative consequences for the client and the contractor and impact the project’s progress, cost, quality, and overall success. In this article, VisiLean looks at how they back SMEs to streamline operations, enhance communication, and ultimately ensure the success and sustainability of their construction projects in an ever-evolving industry
The construction sector is embracing rapid developments vertically as well as horizontally. While some of these prime constructions are undertaken by small and medium-scale enterprises, they face unique challenges to keep abreast with the evolving trends in the world.
To scale their operational costs, and invest in growth, they must weather economic downturns or unexpected expenses.
Projects failing to be completed within the allocated budget have negative consequences for the client and the contractor and impact the project’s progress, cost, quality, and overall success.
The construction industry is resource-intensive in nature. As opposed to its nature, many SME projects undertake resource allocation very loosely.
This often creates a shortage of labour, equipments, materials, and sometimes subcontractors or specialised services during projects.
Reports suggest that the cost of one of the crucial elements in construction projects labour has risen by 8.3% in 2023.
However, to meet the ongoing development needs, budgets of SMEs in construction are often exploited leading to cost overruns becoming a status quo for the projects. To trace back to the root cause of this cost escalation, let’s scrutinise the reasons for it.
These challenges for cost escalation are tied down to ineffective construction management practices. The absence of real-time communication of the issues only exacerbates them and hinders the smooth progression of projects.
It may seem that digital tools such as Excel™ and WhatsApp™ streamline the management of your data but in reality, it creates fragmentation with critical files scattered around various locations.
This leads to limited visibility of your project, making it time to identify the areas that require improvement. Late interventions being deployed at the project site, led to cost overruns in the mean duration.
At VisiLean, we’re certain that you know the best about your project. So, while you drive the project forward, VisiLean will mould as per your versatile requirements. As a comprehensive construction management platform, you can communicate with stakeholders or trades over a centralised platform.
With on-time communication in place, our software will streamline your project workflow on the basis of the execution on-site. This robust transition will minimise miscommunication, reduce rework, and help in optimising resource allocation to take actual control of your project. Here’s how we deliver construction cost overrun prevention plan.
Plan effectively
Start with a detailed project plan and budget that includes all foreseeable costs. Then in your lookahead, you can allot the costs to your tasks and estimate the costs.
Consider potential constraints and contingencies in your plan to account for unexpected expenses. VisiLean allows you to track the actual cost of activities vs the planned in real-time.
This will always give a clear view of your project’s financial status; you can quickly identify cost overruns and deploy mitigation strategies promptly.
Manage your lookaheads efficiently
Deploy an integrated construction management platform to monitor progress, expenses, and timelines closely. Implement a robust change management process to adjust the required processes and increase productivity.
Our VisiLean software provides structured constraint management for dealing effectively with change orders and variations.
It also helps in identifying and assessing the project risks to reduce unexpected cost escalation from variance on the ground.
Ensure quality at each step
Ensure that the project adheres to high-quality standards to avoid costly rework or defects that can inflate costs. With VisiLean’s auto-triggered checklists, you will be able to adhere to the standards of each task for qualitative results in the entire project.
While the quality check is completed, evaluating the cumulative reasons through the integration of a checklist with Microsoft Power BI will visualise clear reasons behind your quality concerns. It will reduce the rework of trades and associated costs attached to it.
Maximise the efficiency of your skilled workforce:
Invest in cost-effective VisiLean software which delivers 2X productivity taking ½ the time of your workers. The software bridges the gap between inflation and labour spending by reducing your labour spending by up to 45%.
It also facilitates collaboration and communication among project stakeholders. Effective communication helps in avoiding misunderstandings and disputes that can lead to additional costs.
Effective data management
No more being helter-skelter in terms of retrieving task-related attachments or reasons for rejected quality checks. The VisiLean software provides integrated data management capabilities, ensuring that all project-related documents, such as task-related information, checklists, drawings, and cost specifications, are easily accessible and up to date.
This eliminates the need for paper-based reels. Moreover, this data is useful in making decisions for future projects and preventing cost escalation.
Performance analytics
Sometimes evaluating a certain aspect of your project is a matter of concern. A manually calculated report demands extra hours from your workforce for the compilation of the document. Despite the efforts, it is prone to both voluntary and involuntary errors leading to incorrect results.
Through the VisiLean software, your project benefits from dedicated dashboards created on the basis of the project requirements. With a detailed task workflow in place, you can swiftly generate daily progress reports.
This document provides visual insights into project performance, productivity, quality standards and other key metrics to make informed decisions.
Mobile accessibility
VisiLean is accessible at the fingertips via the LiveSite app. It relieves the project managers and teams from updating numerous spreadsheets. They can bank on click-of-a-button updates after the completion of their tasks.
In fact, 74% of VisiLean’s clientele have reported breezy communication with their team members using the onsite app.
Legal Compliance and Reporting: For projects subject to regulatory or compliance requirements, VisiLean can help ensure that you meet these standards, avoiding potential fines or costly rework.
To put it into numbers, VisiLean has successfully reduced 60% of defects across our portfolio of projects.
Final thoughts
Cost increases can pose a myriad of challenges to the budget of SME projects. VisiLean offers a beacon of hope for them through a comprehensive project management solution.
The platform is tailored to specific needs and is useful to meticulously plan and budget the projects, monitor progress in real-time, manage changes effectively, mitigate risks, and drive control.
At VisiLean, providing training to our customers is the locus of our support for the implementation of the projects on our platform. This step-by-step training ascertains the fact that every team member is well-versed from the project initiation till the final completion.
VisiLean is here to back SMEs to streamline operations, enhance communication, and ultimately ensure the success and sustainability of their construction projects in an ever-evolving industry.
Build in Digital Stakeholder VisiLean delivers cloud-based project management software for construction that enables real-time communication and collaboration between teams.
If you are an SME in construction looking forward to deploying this multifaceted solution in your projects, visit us now https://visilean.com/
Image: VisiLean’s customised Checklist based on the project requirements
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