How to Avoid Delays in Home Construction

CPM Establishes a System for Clear Communication and a Centralized, Detailed Schedule

Every day spent on a home building site is hectic. Part of your job as a builder is preparing for the unexpected and having the flexibility to adapt to changes while keeping projects on track. While it’s a testament to your skill as a custom builder to navigate changes and mishaps, so is eliminating surprises altogether. Avoiding surprises will ensure that you stay on schedule and on budget to maximize your profitability on each project.

Missed deadlines, slow contractors, materials arriving behind schedule, and a lack of clear processes all lead to breakdowns in communication and completion delays. Sound familiar? As you know, these are just a few of the many daily issues that can throw home building projects off schedule.

Poor scheduling stems from a combination of factors: relying on memory to meet deadlines, not promptly informing impacted parties of a schedule change, and having to manually follow up with subcontractors to confirm they can perform the scheduled work when timelines are adjusted.

The root of all building breakdowns – poor communication

Poor communication is a common cause of disorganization and inefficiency. And it’s not just on you – everyone involved can be responsible for delays and misunderstandings. It could be a subcontractor who doesn’t communicate finished tasks, a client who doesn’t remember what they requested, or a project manager without a centralized project management system for effectively managing people and tasks.

As a result, money gets lost, the pace of the project slows down, and deadlines are missed. An influx of schedule changes can cause multiple ripples downstream, resulting in confusion, finger-pointing, and delays. Ultimately, this disorganization could hurt your reputation and affect your relationships with partners, vendors, and customers.

Construction project management is the foundation for solid project planning and execution

Surprises are part of our industry, but establishing a proven process with a construction project management (CPM) solution goes a long way. CPM software designed for home builders and remodelers standardizes industry best practices for efficiency as part of your project management process. It automatically sends alerts to each contributor notifying them of any decisions or actions that affect their work and triggers the next steps in the process. In doing so, it guarantees effective communication and accountability.

A centralized scheduling solution optimizes communication and efficiency

A CPM solution centralizes the schedule details and all the project details each member of your team, subcontractor, or client needs in one database.. If a rainy day, a late permit, or missing materials causes delays, all relevant resources are notified and the project is adjusted to ensure final quality delivery, even if that means extending the schedule by a few days. An always up-to-date schedule keeps you from wasting time putting out fires and manually communicating last-minute adjustments.

Progress reports keep clients in the loop and up to date on their action items

Creating a weekly report will help keep clients up to speed with project status and reduce the need for time-consuming status calls. Weekly reports should include the current status of the project, customer financials, latest project pictures, and approved change orders or those that still require a signature.

Creating these weekly reports on a digital platform makes distribution and documenting all items much easier for both your company and your client. Digital documentation also increases transparency, so your team knows what they’re responsible for.

There are countless other ways that CPM software benefits custom builders and remodelers. By giving you more time back in your day, you can be more efficient. This means focusing more on quality control, following up on delegated tasks, and avoiding mishaps like a client showing up to a site where no one is working.

With a central hub for communication, your crew can post questions and comments, and view responses in real-time. Disagreements or misunderstandings can be quickly resolved through group communication using digital tools. Leveraging technology allows home builders and remodelers to centralize communication across an entire project, ensuring everyone is always on the same page.

With these tools and features at your disposal, you can finish projects on time and under budget, and exceed client expectations. You’ll be well prepared to tackle the common problems that builders face on a daily basis.

Communication is critical to a successful project. Get more tips and best practices for increasing transparency and accountability across your business. Find out how technology can help you communicate better with our ebook, How to Improve Communication During Custom Projects.

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