Rework in construction projects refers to correcting an on-site activity or process that was done incorrectly.
The main factors behind construction reworks can be poor communication, lack of connection between site and office, planning changes, omissions, lack of standardization and use of tools or materials unsuitable for the purpose.
According to 2018 research, reworks and the conflicts that accompany them cost the US construction industry around $177 billion per year.
What's more important, though, is that most of these redesigns could have been avoided if the following three elements were combined in the right way: people, tools, and processes.
What rework means for your project
Before we delve into how you can reduce rework on your construction projects, you need to take a closer look at what rework can mean in practice for you and your teams.
Let's start our discussion with an honest disclaimer. Almost every construction project will, sooner or later, face an unavoidable delay. In most cases, this delay will mean additional pressure on your budget and several changes to your short-term planning and, most likely, your master planning as well.
But that's not the only thing you need to worry about. Every delay in a construction project can open the door to a series of costly claims or penalties, depending on the type of your project and the agreements in place.
That said, it is clear that rework can quickly make your project much more expensive and delay its delivery. Furthermore, the number of administrative tasks that follow in such situations is something that cannot be ignored. From one day to the next, you can find yourself lost in a sea of disconnected information and laborious administrative tasks.
In the long term, this can have a strong impact on the prestige of your business. In other words, rework can actually harm your company's reputation and profitability.
How to reduce rework in construction
By now, it is clear that reworks are a dangerous area for all construction projects, regardless of their type or size. On the positive side, however, there are ways to reduce rework on your projects and ensure faster, cheaper delivery without compromising quality.
But, as we mentioned above, people, tools and processes must be perfectly aligned for this to happen.
To help you escape the nightmare of rework, here are the five steps you need to take to increase website visibility and regain control of your projects:
1. Set high quality standards
Every construction project generates a multitude of on-site checks and tasks. Digitizing and automating your quality and safety processes will help you establish high quality standards in your projects and improve defect management.
More specifically, with the right tool, you can link your quality checks and SMS directly to the plan. This way, you will always have full control of your project and resolve non-conformities much faster. This approach can make your transfers much smoother and ensure less downtime on your projects.
2. Use construction-specific tools
Many project and site managers tell us that they used to rely on tools like WhatsApp, Excel, and email to share information with other project stakeholders. As good as they are, these tools are not enough to effectively manage your construction project.
The reason is simple. They are not designed for construction and, as a result, cannot provide the necessary context when receiving critical site updates.
Without a connection between your programming and the latest information in the field, you can easily become confused, making your processes extremely slow and prone to errors.
That's why you need a tool that can provide unique on-the-ground insight and empower you to make informed decisions faster.
3. Bring all communications together into a single source of truth
This appears as a natural continuation of our previous point. Many project managers may have to spend up to 40% of their time every day writing reports, attending unnecessary meetings and searching for updates across the construction site.
This can quickly lead to fragmented communication and leave everyone involved in the project feeling lost and disconnected. And this is how costly mistakes can arise. For example, just deliver a wrong message and you may find that the materials needed for today's task have been lost or misplaced.
By establishing a single source of data you ensure that the right people have access to the correct information so that errors can be avoided or at least corrected before they become a real threat to your project.
Furthermore, a single source of truth can also function as a single source of proof. Simply put, everyone can easily see who is responsible for what and errors can be attributed to those who are actually responsible for them. This is extremely powerful considering the number of complaints you can avoid on your project.
4. Reduce administrative work
It's no secret that excessive administrative workload is one of the main problems of almost all construction projects. We already mentioned above that many project managers spend most of their time on site manually searching for updates because they don't have a clear view of the status of their project.
But not only that. In the case of a complaint, they have to spend weeks or sometimes even months to find that email or photo that can prove whether the delay is their responsibility or not.
Also add to the mix the ongoing frustration of having to create reports that are out of date by the time they are issued and you understand why cumbersome administrative processes can lead to many errors in a construction project and, by extension, can pave the way for expensive and time-consuming processes. -consuming rework.
5. Standardize as you go
Last but not least, introducing repeatability into your projects can make a big difference in your effort to reduce rework. Despite what many may think, 80% of the construction process is always the same.
This represents a great opportunity for project teams as they can standardize their processes and minimize errors with the help of data collected in the field. Especially in the case of residential contractors, such a standardized approach would lead to a significant reduction in the time required to complete one project and move on to the next.
Ready to build cheaper and faster?
Avoiding rework in your works depends on a series of factors, as you can see. However, now that you better understand what could delay your project, it's time to take action!
