Are you in the 20%of all construction businesses still using paper for your quality and compliance systems?

According to a recent survey, in Australia, as many as one in five businesses in the construction industry are still using paper-based systems to manage their compliance and quality control on their construction jobs. 

Larger companies are embracing industry-specific software, but the smaller companies are getting left behind.  

Conducted by ACA Research for construction management software provide Procore, the survey of 153 industry leaders throughout construction found that whilst digital uptake for critical project management tasks in construction was growing, a minority of builders are lagging in their efforts in this area.

23% of all survey respondents have implemented specialist software to handle their quality and compliance processes. In comparison to this, 58% use generic office software systems to do this – these systems are not designed for construction and the industry’s complexities.

Leaving 21% of construction businesses handling their compliance and quality systems on paper. 

Paper-based systems and no longer practical and increase the likelihood of errors and data re-entry. There are so many problems with paper-based systems. They can be lost; someone needs to spend time bringing the paperwork in to the office, then another employee has to re-enter the information into another system. None of this is automated. All of it is a waste of your resources.  

An apparent gap has appeared in this survey between small and large businesses.  

Whereas nearly half of the larger businesses (100+ employees) surveyed use specialist software for quality control and compliance processes (49percent), this number falls to just 11 percent of small businesses (<10 employees).

There is a growing trend in recognising how vital technology and data are in running projects and managing businesses.

Some survey responses of note are:

• Fifty-three percent of respondents agree it is difficult to effectively monitor QA without an integrated data management platform (up from 45 per cent in the previous survey last year).
• 61 percent of respondents agree data analysis delivers insights that are crucial to QA outcomes
• Sixty percent say defects are less likely to occur in sites where data analysis guides processes.

This survey highlights the pressure construction companies are facing to improve their quality and compliance outcomes. With the availability of news and social content, any incident is now being seen by millions of people, causing a much higher level of company scrutiny.  

This report has also brought to light the importance of capturing and managing real-time data on construction projects. Current systems in the industry are siloed, meaning data is captured by different parts of the team and not managed across the company as a whole. This leads to disjointed data that you can not rely on.  

The importance of up to date, real-time, correct data, can be the difference between business success and closing your doors. Without reliable data, you can not make informed decisions, and you will not have the opportunity to make changes before a downturn in your finances takes too big a hit to your bottom line.

Tom Karemacher, Vice President, APAC at Procore, said the importance of addressing data challenges should not be underestimated. “Technology and data will play a central role as the Australian construction industry continues to transform and focus on uplifting building quality,” Karemacher said.

“With an increasingly complex network of stakeholders to report to, and an urgent need for data accuracy and ease of reporting, it’s crucial that companies understand and address the barriers to better data capture and analysis.”

If you want to get your business off paper and working from a single source of truth, we can help you get data that will mean something to you. Give our team a call today, we are the construction industry experts and will find a software solution to fit your needs.

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