Transitioning to a paperless workflow is a utopian concept, but is it realistic? The hospitality industry, despite its recent accelerated adoption of technology, is still home to boxes upon boxes of paper documentation. And no more is this more evident than in the design department.
For long, many have advocated the need to shift to a paperless construction management system. However, few have managed to manage this changeover.
Yukti Arora, Co Founder and CFO of Buildsys tells Vinita Bhatia, why a paperless construction management system for hospitality companies. She also elaborates why it is viable for all domains given the reduction in operational costs and increase in collaborative efficiency.
Why should hospitality companies consider going paperless?
Firstly, it reduces many operational costs. It takes away the costs of printing and storing of documents, while increasing productivity, as a result of a better communication management system. When one thinks about it, hotel projects involve a lot of drawings of repetitive nature, with technological backing like smart cloud-based storage platforms.
Due to social distancing norms at project sites and offices, shifting to paperless construction is a boon. Thereby, the limitation by location is no longer an excuse to halt work and one is well connected with the team in all aspects.
How precisely can this system help companies reduce costs, avoid lost documents and improve efficiency?
Traditional ways of operations in the construction industry involve a lot of printing and storage. This process is further complicated by revisions and rework documents.
The volume of paper increases to a number, which is difficult to track and locate in racks, drawers and cupboards. This adds on to the operational costs of running the business, which can be controlled by going digital. The process gets connected from there on. One is able to store and share all the important documents with their team members while ensuring a reasonably high productivity level at a uniform rate.
Documents like GFC drawings, site images, bills of quantities/ materials, are all available on the cloud-storage, enabling an increase in the levels of productivity. This reduces the requirement for enrolling a huge staff for the project team, further saving the recruiting costs.
By what percentage does this mitigate their dependence on physical and paper-based document management?
The intent for going paperless in operations provides a drive to evolve to a well equipped and well connected business entity. To manifest this notion, developers are now managing 80% to 100% paperless operations within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) domain.
Going paperless truly reduces the time wasted on answering mails, generating checklists and waiting on approvals. Monitoring progress and processes is more accurate and less time consuming. Building a database for crucial documents is also possible for future requirements. Both, the data clouds and the communication systems synthesise an efficient practice of office to site and vice-versa operations, increasing productivity from every individual on the team.
Can this shift also help them in faster location of documents and data?
Going digital allows a team to function in sync when it comes to data sharing and communication management. Construction management software like Buildsys works on cloud-based data storage. So, one can manage multiple drawings through their devices and assign revisions to multiple team members. One can set up multiple individual projects and store important project information like drawings, minutes of meetings, photos, tasks, RFIs, submittals as well as an account of all project team members. This becomes a one-stop data repository under a stack of projects, ensuring a swifter process to adhere to project schedules.
So, it can basically reduce administrative costs, improve communication and better document management, while reducing the speed of typically time-consuming processes?
Yes. Document management and communication in an efficient manner is a prime requirement for construction projects. Conventional methods of data storage by maintaining files, checklists, mailing excel sheets, acting upon delayed responses via those emails becomes a time consuming affair impacting the project schedules.
A high scaled construction project ranges from five to 10 year on an average and maintenance of documents is of prime concern. Digitising the whole process reduces operational costs as one can store and locate a hefty amount of data on cloud- based storage software. It saves the cost for printing and planning physical storage of countless sheets of paper varying by size.
How can hotel developers plan and map a seamless shift to a paperless operation?
Hotel projects are unique in their design and construction process. They not only require premium levels of handover quality but an efficient facilities management. At its core, shifting to paperless operations requires an ‘intent’ to go digital and limit the usage of paper for documentation and communication.
The advancement in technology has enough resources to back this notion and provide a seamless transition. The ERP systems have been developed as a user-friendly interface which allows you to build teams and share data with a degree of control that can be customised by project managers.
For hotel developers, the transition process will be gradual due to a barrage of project documents and project duration. The drawings and documents can be identical and require a smart cloud-based storage system which enables the ability to store data packages in a unique manner.
The project life-cycle ranges from a five to 10 year duration and proper documentation backed by project management softwares, is a must for aspects like facilities management and dispute resolution for any legal tussles.
What criteria should these companies bear in mind while selecting construction software and document management solutions to not just eliminate paperwork, but also streamline workflow?
Eliminating paperwork must be backed with effective decision-making of selecting the correct construction management software, which enables you to make this switch in a seamless manner. The ideal software must be well accessed from any location; so it must be operable on one’s smartphones as applications.
The software must be able to manage multiple projects of varied occupancies with a user-friendly interface. Its design must be self explanatory to users and ease of adding multiple members to your project team should be possible for real time project monitoring and receiving necessary updates as notifications.
Managing and building onto the database throughout the project lifecycle and addition of time-stamping to core documents such as drawings, minutes of meetings, site pictures, tasks, RFIs and submittals for archiving should be possible. Additionally, for every project, one must be able to track the project timeline, the project stats, the number of tasks creation, assigning of tasks and their completion stats. To manage a project effectively, the overall project workflow should be visible to a customised set of team members as decided by the project manager.
How can hotel developers decide which sections of the business should shift incrementally to a paperless business, since this transition can’t be done overnight?
With a vision to move to paperless operations, one can divert a complete set of their business operations to the digital platform, regardless of what they are working on in the AEC domain. The switch can be fast paced if one’s motive to save administrative costs aligns with those of the employees.
Design and management of construction projects has majorly switched to the digital platform with increased usage of BIM software. To name a few, various departments under a typical construction group such as Quality, Communications, Stakeholder Management, Project Finance, Legal department and the Facilities Management must make the switch.
For example, it is easier for a project team member, from the quality department, deployed on site to update the site images and gain compliances or a non-compliance and get all team members notified on the same. Requests for approvals, pop-up as mobile notifications and are answered 80% faster than an email, thus saving time and cost, effectively.
