Avoiding rework in capital construction  

Explore how effective document control in capital construction can help minimize rework and enhance efficiency  

Contractors pour nearly $180 billion every year into rework and other avoidable tasks that fail to move work forward. Capital construction projects generate hundreds of thousands of documents that must be tagged, organized, distributed, reviewed, revised, approved, and handed off throughout the project timeline. Delayed approvals, lost documents, and project disputes drain valuable resources and make future rework more likely. Those challenges can be resolved through robust document controls, and yet, organizations continue to underestimate its strategic potential. 

Capital construction needs more capabilities, scalability, and flexibility in its document control solutions than other industries do. Unfortunately, most familiar document control solutions only address a small subset of the industry’s challenges. The right document control for complex construction streamlines processes so that teams can find what they need, navigate conflicts, simplify workflows, and get their tasks right the first time.  

Fast to “file,” faster to find 

Construction professionals spend hours searching for specific versions of key documents – sometimes in vain. Document controllers work diligently to make it easier to find what’s needed – that’s the purpose of their ongoing efforts to tag and organize project documents. However, attention to detail and the manual nature of the traditional approach to uploading, tagging, and distributing documents comes at the cost of valuable time.   

By automating repetitive tasks, a robust document control system frees users to focus their efforts on higher-value responsibilities. With automated document tagging, teams can:  

• Improve document recall  

• Reduce the odds of referencing an outdated asset  

• Scale operations to accommodate a high volume of materials  

• Reallocate the staff time required to tag and digitally file assets   

Sophisticated streamlining for accuracy 

With document tagging and organization resolved, improving the process for comments, reviews, and approvals is the next target for minimizing rework. Billions of dollars in rework could be avoided by ensuring teams all worked from the same final documents. Far too many errors occur when teams work from incorrect or outdated versions stored in a general file repository and circulated by uncontrolled email. Even excellent processes are vulnerable to human error, with costly results. 

Sophisticated document control solutions appropriate for capital construction rely on technology, rather than processes, to avoid variant files. Linking stakeholders to a single document stored within the solution funnels stakeholder reviews and approvals to a single source of truth — the same source of truth that in-field specialists reference. Instead of distributing files via email and consolidating feedback, review managers can invite key stakeholders into a shared document environment where users can comment on and interact with a drawing — and other project participants can monitor those interactions.  

A linked document environment automatically compiles notes into a single source while showing document controllers and project leaders which stakeholders have provided their notes, and which have not. Together, visibility and access accelerate the approval process and give project teams confidence that a document has accurately been declared “final.” 

Flexible automation for rework avoidance 

Even with an innovative document register and in-system collaboration, the complexity of capital construction requires project teams to build or modify processes for document review and approval.  

Many tools offer limited approval paths. They might require an inflexible workflow for a particular business process or allow only a linear approval process. Instead, a robust document control model promotes a flexible, multi-directional workflow. Review managers should be able to set parallel approvers and define processes for re-review or question responses. Reviewers should feel confident that their notes are captured in real-time, ensuring that each user has access to the same deliverable and can view their peers’ markups.  

While ensuring teams work from an approved, final document reduces rework, the added flexibility of a document control solution with configurable workflows ensures teams have those documents faster. By cutting approval times from nine days to five or even three, in-field contributors have more room to focus their efforts on doing the job the right way, the first time.  

Better data, deeper learning  

At its core, the next generation of document control expands how organizations think about their project artifacts. Instead of treating each piece as a single deliverable, isolated to a specific task at a distinct point in time, document control transforms static assets into an interconnected network of relationship data that can help organizations better understand their customers, their work, and themselves. The consolidation of document data from one project to the next can help organizations identify instances where rework is more likely to occur and address those shortcomings before they’re ever an issue.  

Rework doesn’t have to be an inevitability. Explore how document control sets up your capital construction projects for speed and accuracy at ineight.com.