Introducing digital management

- Let's look at even more reasons to go digital and improve productivity in the field at the same time. One of the things I touched on as I showed you these different pieces of software was the ability to include other users on your digital project. Now once we decide to go all in and make everyone use the digital version of these drawings, if I store the drawings in the cloud and keep them updated, it keeps everyone in sync. We should all be using the same versions of the drawings because if I'm the project manager and I'm doing my job managing the information flow on the project, every time I receive new drawings from the designer I'm slip sheeting them into the digital set and then pushing this update into the software's cloud storage system. I no longer have to run around making sure that every printed version of the construction drawing that exists has the new version of a sheet physically inserted into it. In fact, if everyone takes advantage of the collaboration features in these digital tools, I don't even have to email the new files to everyone. Now think about it, even if I did have to email drawing revisions to everyone on the job site, that's still way easier than the old way. I can just put everyone in an email distribution group, open the email to the group, attach the PDF file and then with one click they've been distributed. Versus the old way of receiving those paper drawings from the designer, making who knows how many copies for my subcontractors, my project management team and my field office. Then I used to have to write a cover letter to everyone, attach those and then call the runner to get those all out to the companies working on the project and then hope that they make copies and get them into the hands of the people actually doing the work in the field. Even though emailing a digital drawing to everyone at once is a huge improvement, we're ready to skip over that process too because these digital tools that I've shown you all have built in sharing and collaboration features. So now if I'm the project manager, I keep a single digital file up to date in my cloud-based system and that's the copy that everyone should always go to for reference. Digital combined with cloud collaboration means we should all be working from the same file. If I look back at my days running a large concrete trade contractor, I used to have an entire annex building in our construction yard, or actually two of them, one on each side of the city that housed all the drawings for the 5,000 single family residential home foundations that we built each year. They were all kept in binders and I had to have multiple copies of each project binder. My crews had to know exactly which projects they would go to each day so that they could load the correct binders into their trucks. If there was a change mid-day on which projects they would work on, it meant somebody had to physically get the right binder out to them in the field and if a revision had come in the day before and that hard copy hadn't quite made it to the binder yet, they'd be working from the wrong drawing. Using the tools I showed you earlier, this should be a thing of the past. The instant those drawings are received, the revisions can be slip sheeted into the digital drawing set or I can then continue to work on them for things like pricing revisions and schedule updates but in the meantime if my foreman views the drawings for the project they see the latest version and we're all working from that latest set. Or if they end up being diverted to a different project halfway through the day, all they need is a data connection, cellular or wifi and they can view the drawings that they need. Keep in mind, this is where each of the tools that we've looked at begins to tackle the issues in a different way and there's a big array of features available that varies from product to product so you have to spend some time to evaluate what works best for your individual or company situation. Some of these digital tools incorporate modules that handle not only the drawings, but things like change orders and request for information and they can flag these issues right on the drawings so people viewing the digital drawings can all see what's happening. I know, I just threw a bunch of new concepts and ideas at you so let's recap. Step one is make that leap from paper drawings over to digital drawings. What I'm telling you now though, is that once you make that leap, the tools that you're going to use to help you work with those digital drawings have already advanced way beyond the simple ability to just view and mark up those drawings so be ready to embrace those tools to really leverage your switch to digital. And when I say those tools here's what I'm talking about. First, mobility. Don't just make the leap to digital and leave those digital files on the hard drive of the computer in your office or even the hard drive of that laptop you carry around. All the tools we looked at for working with digital drawings have the ability to store and work with drawings in the cloud. Use them so that you have all of your drawings available to you at all times. Next, collaboration features. As soon as you go digital and put those files in a cloud-based system, get ready to embrace the ability to have the entire team working from a single digital source file all at the same time so everyone always sees the same thing. And then finally, digital workflows. Advanced markup and tagging features can really change the way you handle the flow of information on a construction project. Since almost everything we do in construction revolves around those construction drawings, once we go digital on the drawings, it really is time to start rethinking all of our processes that are associated with those drawings. Think about it, RFIs, redlines, change orders, punch lists, do we really need to generate a paper form for each issue that arises? Probably not, because the tools that we're going to use to work with our digital drawings, probably include one or more features that allow us to initiate these processes right on the drawings themselves and since they're stored in the cloud and everyone's collaborating from the same digital set, why not just stick with a workflow that stays digital?