Digital Construction Checklists: A Project Manager’s Best Friend
Hats off to construction project managers. You all are the ultimate multitaskers — handling everything from project planning to resource distribution to team management to client relationships. Phew, that’s a lot. It’s also the reason we’re highlighting an important tool for project managers: digital construction checklists and forms. More specifically, we’re going to explore how digitizing your data collection process with a mobile forms app can facilitate three major aspects of your role:
- Tracking project status
- Mitigating risks
- Reporting to clients and stakeholders
Tracking Project Status
Let’s look at just some of the tasks that roll into this overarching responsibility:
- Monitoring daily job progress
- Keeping tabs on materials inventory
- Coordinating multiple teams
- Managing project budgets
This is where the ability to easily build customized construction checklists and forms becomes a huge benefit. Forget paperwork. Here’s what you need: a low-code, drag-and-drop mobile form builder. And here’s why: you can recreate your existing checklists or forms with enhanced components that are only available in digital formats. For example, let’s look at daily job progress reports. You can integrate images, timestamps and geo-tags as required portions of the report submission. This type of rich data will deliver enhanced visibility to your project status.
Mitigating Risks
Now this is a loaded responsibility, as construction project risks present in a variety of areas. Perhaps the most important mitigation step is putting measures in place to keep your employees safe on the jobsite. These measures can include site safety analysis, near miss and field incident reporting, equipment and PPE inspections, the list continues.
This is where data error reduction and real-time updates are not only huge benefits, they’re critical. Again, a mobile data collection tool is your go-to resource here. The key is using one that offers intelligent form field integration. This functionality allows you to incorporate hints and answer validation to prevent errors. Additionally, drop-down options can automatically populate from your own live resources.
The live resource connectivity has been a game changer for BriggsAmasco, a commercial roofing and waterproofing company in the UK, since partnering with Device Magic. It has enabled the input of all 33 sections of their complex safety checklists into a single resource file. Now, whenever a form needs to be updated, they’re able to implement it within seconds.
Reporting to Clients and Stakeholders
Here’s where a digital data collection is really going to help you shine at work. All those checklists and forms you’ve created to assist with project status tracking and risk mitigation, well, that information is delivered instantly with the simple click of a button. And here’s the best part: with the right tool, you’ll be able to select and automate the data workflows, formats and destinations. Simply stated, project reports will get to the right people, at the right time. So you’ll be able to keep your boss, clients and/or stakeholders informed without the hassle or extra time it would take to manually process paperwork and develop reports.
Add Digital Construction Checklists to Your Tool Kit
From easy-to-build, customized checklists to data error reduction to instant reporting, a mobile data collection application could be the next best addition to your digital tool kit. While there are several options available on the market today, the trick is finding one that meets your professional needs. That’s why we always recommend doing thorough product research and demos. Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Device Magic to explore all the features our platform has to offer and see if it’s the right fit for your company.