Information Portability for Construction

Unlike many other industries, the construction industry is, by nature, required to be highly mobile and portable. In major commercial construction projects, hundreds or thousands of workers converge on a specific geographic location for a period of time lasting from a few months to a few years. Then, everything is packed up and relocated to a completely different location. Due to the dynamic nature of industry relationships and projects, many of the workers will actually be spreading their time across multiple job sites at any one time.

As a result, information portability is critical. How do the team members ensure they have access to project information when they need it, regardless of where they are physically located at any given moment? In the past, construction information portability typically meant carrying giant rolls of plans and a box or two full of spec manuals with you in your car or truck wherever you went, along with maintaining copies of the same documents in a job site trailer if possible.

Traditional "information portability" in construction

With today’s technological advances, additional options are now available for design and construction team members. Web-based Integrated Project Collaboration (IPC) software provides a central location for project team members to share information and documents needed for their project. The information is then available any time from any location for all team members who need it.

Many examples of the value of this portability of information can be seen by talking to customers of Submittal Exchange, the web-based construction communications solution that I started seven years ago out of frustration with limits of traditional industry communication processes during construction. Today our solution has grown to be in use by thousands of design and construction professionals worldwide, demonstrating clear benefits and savings for their projects. Recently one Submittal Exchange client, Adam Hahn with Knutson Construction, met with us to discuss how information portability is critical for the projects their company manages where the parties are spread across the U.S. in different states along with other benefits of IPC software. Click here to watch the four minute video.

Project managers with Knutson Construction, Iowa City discussing their

use of Integrated Project Collaboration software (click to view video)

In another good example, I recall talking at some point in the past few years to one of our clients, a construction administrator for an architectural firm, who shared a story about driving to a project site several hundred miles away in a neighboring state. He talked about receiving a phone call with a question related to the project. He had his laptop in the car, and he was able to pull open the Submittal Exchange website while driving to quickly lookup the submittal or RFI information needed to answer the question. (I’m assuming he was not behind the wheel while this was happening, that someone else was driving, but he did not say.) In previous years, answering a question like this may have required waiting until he had returned back to his office hours or days later. Today, web-based IPC software can put all of your project information at your fingertips when you need it, embodying the potential of true information portability.