Safety Management
Compliance Management: The Key to Successful Construction Projects
Managing construction projects is challenging; managing many at once is a juggling act of precision, safety, and legality. The physical construction aspect is just the tip of the industrial iceberg. Beneath the surface also lies monitoring project costs, managing materials/manpower, as well as complying with safety guidelines and all government, legal, and contract requirements. Specifically, managing contractors requires a great deal of skill in compliance management.
Contractors are crucial to every successful construction project. One way to keep track of your contractors is to ensure they have complete documentation. From qualifications to contracts to insurance to work completion status, keeping updated and accurate information on your contractors provides the safety net you’ll need if something goes wrong.
Contractor compliance is a matter of guaranteeing that all contractors and suppliers adhere to your company’s rigorous standards, as well as industry, safety, and legal requirements. Ensuring compliance means maintaining thorough documentation of all contractor activities related to their role in the project.
Due to the complexity and risk of construction work, it’s one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. Aside from making sure that every task complies with contractual agreements, companies need to follow other highly specific guidelines. This includes building and fire codes, insurance liabilities, material handling, worker/contractor contracts, union rules, finance and credit checks, and safety regulations.
Unfortunately for many construction companies, overlooking any of these regulations is enough to suspend the project. Regulators, inspectors, lawyers, accountants, and others will now need to determine if the violation warrants voiding the contract or not.
To ensure full compliance from contractors, construction companies need complete compliance criteria. Every minute aspect of a project must be agreed upon and put in writing well before construction ever begins.
With so many legalities to abide by, relying on paper-based documentation is risky. It’s also highly inefficient, impractical, and time-consuming. Unfortunately, many construction companies still opt to use-paper based documentation. This is particularly concerning, as 70% of construction companies rely so heavily on paper that they wouldn’t survive a natural disaster—not because the disaster harmed workers, but because it destroyed paperwork! Yeah, read that again!
Thankfully, modern technology provides a better solution. Given the need for a medium that can keep records and allow users to annotate the contents, a cloud-based construction management software is the best choice. The cloud storage feature means users can access the documents anytime, anywhere.
The software should be user-friendly and convenient. Search functions can easily find regulations or agreements. Supervisors can open a copy of a compliance agreement document and have workers sign the form on-site. Once they sign, the supervisor can save the document over the cloud, which the project manager can immediately retrieve at the office. Most construction site requirements won’t allow a worker without complete documentation to work onsite. This solution speeds up the process and prevents idling due to administrative delays.
Using construction management software can help increase efficiency in compliance management tasks. Instead of taking up valuable real estate, documents can now reside in the cloud, which users can access remotely via software log-in.
Additionally, creating a digital document of all compliance tasks and agreements makes it highly portable and convenient. Instead of lugging around heavy folders or boxes of documents, users can simply display documents on their company-issued tablets. Editing and form features allow stakeholders to sign digital forms directly. Completed forms can be filed at headquarters within minutes, which then allows construction to start/resume. Operators drafting or editing compliance forms can also benefit from file sharing and collaboration features. This means that teams far and wide can now collaborate on a single file remotely.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has proven itself to be an incredible asset for many industries. AI dives deep into data compiled from various sources and processes information to gather insights. The more AI analyzes the data, the more it learns about the process—thus producing even deeper insights.
In the construction industry, AI can learn from the trove of data gathered from workers who request information, submit issues, or apply for change orders. Artificial intelligence can sift through the thousands of data entries received by construction companies to develop insights. This can lead to earlier detection of commonly reported issues. It can also improve safety monitoring by learning from the events that trigger or precede an accident. Finally, AI can track compliance management issues in all areas of the construction site, based on the reports submitted to project managers. It can then gather insights on how teams can improve their quality, compliance, and completion times without sacrificing safety or other requirements.
Contractor compliance is absolutely imperative to protect the company—and the worker’s safety—from project delays or even full shutdowns. By specifying the contractor’s duties, responsibilities, and obligations, they have a better, more complete understanding of the regulations they are legally obliged to. Adhering to these commitments is the first step to ensuring your workers make it home safe, day in and day out.
Providing a digital format for compliance management documents makes it convenient for everybody. Instead of wading through mountains of paperwork, digital copies can relay the information in real-time. Sharing, transmitting, and filing digital compliance forms signed by workers also becomes far easier. The faster companies fulfill compliance, the faster they can get to work!
When considering reliable top-tier construction management software, consider Salus. We offer a streamlined approach to construction safety management by providing the tools to efficiently facilitate compliance management. With Salus’ safety software, you can foster real-time communication between your on-site workers and office staff.
Call us today and we’ll be glad to tell you more about what Salus can do for your construction company. If we haven’t sold you yet, book a free demo! No harm done, just safer, more efficient working conditions for you and yours.