In a recent American study, ‘The state of construction management report’ helps appreciate a better 
understanding of what their industry successes, challenges, products, and trends are in 2017. While it should be noted that this is an American study, some parallels can be drawn with the UK’s experience in adopting new technology in this sector. So let’s have a look at what they found out.
Daily reporting was at the top of the list of biggest industry challenges, followed by deadlines and resource management. Supervisors, Subcontractors and General Managers all listed Daily Reporting as one of their main industry challenges indicating a growing concern regarding their ability to keep track of critical information. As you would expect deadlines was up in the top 3 along with the managing of staff. Health and safety came at the bottom of the list.
They asked each stakeholder what their biggest daily challenge was in construction management to gain better insight into what each position in the industry identified as their challenges.
Management:
Finding new business was their main concern by far. Maintaining margins, staff issues and health & safety followed on from this:
Contractors & sub-contractors:
Resource management significantly lead the way for contractors who see it as their biggest daily challenge. This is followed by staff management and deadlines. Health and safety fell mid-way down the list of priorities for contractors and even further down for sub-contractors.
Supervisors:
Meeting deadlines is the biggest issue for time-pressured supervisors, followed by health and safety and daily reporting. They work extremely closely with contractors and their own workforce on site and therefore are more likely to be involved with daily health and safety issues. Hence it being further up their list of priorities at number 2.
Technology adoption:
The trend toward adopting technology to improve efficiency is very evident, with the majority of respondents saying they were already using between three and five technology products to support them in this aim. A small percentage of respondents were companies who had really embraced technology, use up to ten technology products on every project. Project management was the main use for technological support, with no mention of Health & Safety in these applications.
However, when asked what the business priorities were, construction management professionals view safety as the top business priority with efficiency as a close second. Gratifyingly, safety is deemed the main priority, thus ensuring that all employees are kept safe during the construction process.
While the majority of respondents view their construction management technology solutions as effective to very effective in the final question on the survey, there seems to be a disconnect in terms of technology assisting health and safety on projects – yet all this was cited as a main business objective. This begs the questions, ‘What innovations could be used to address this scant use of applications for safety reasons in the US?’.
Mosaic is used by the biggest names in the construction industry to manage a range of safety critical and competency issues on major infrastructure sites and projects. Indeed, Mosaic is sometimes mandated by companies due to the significant role it plays in reducing site health and safety issues, security, improved productivity and time saved.
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