Benefits of data and visualization in a construction project

Building automation insights

• Communication can be a challenge for AEC firms and there are tools, such as dashboards and visualization software, that can improve transparency.
• Transparency is critical when there are requests for information (RFIs) holding up a project and no one knows what to do or whom to turn to. Resolving these issues go a long way to lowering construction costs and reducing delays.

In 2013, the Navigant Construction Forum published a study examining the impact and control of requests for information (RFIs) on construction projects. Recognizing how RFIs had morphed from a communication tool between the owner, construction team and designers to “a basis for claims of delay and productivity impacts,” the purpose of the study was to “identify ways through which owners can control the RFI process and diminish the abuse of the process through careful contract drafting, the use of technology, and the employment of best management practices.”

Researchers found there were about 10 RFIs for each $1 million in construction costs, the average cost per RFI review was more than $1,000 and nearly 22% of all RFIs went unaddressed. For those RFIs that received a response, response rates averaged 12 days in the U.S. Recommendations for mitigating the lag and costs for RFIs ranged from standardizing contract language to technology management improvements.

Today, advances have been made. Software programs enable organizations to manage RFIs more efficiently, while other programs provide data points that allow project managers to monitor various stages of the design and construction schedule. Yet, where standardization has advanced some communication practices, the amount of data teams now have to swim through coupled with an inability to link the data from a multitude of programs means owners, design teams and contractors still find themselves in tough communication situations.

Amplifying communication with data

Communication is a challenge in the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Even with design, building information modeling (BIM) and other software advances, project teams still struggle with figuring out what information people need to see and why they need to see it. In some cases, RFIs still go unanswered and, for owners, this means issues that should have been addressed during construction documentation or actual construction later manifest in problems post-construction.

Determining who is accountable then becomes a contracted process. With the tools available today, solid metrics on accountability and efficiency can improve project management and build owner confidence in the project by showing where problems are and quantify them even when resolutions are yet to be identified. By optimizing data and creating the right visualizations of that data, teams can make projects more efficient while also establishing mechanisms to improve practices.

While not solely an RFI issue, RFIs do highlight some of the communication challenges facing teams regarding data analysis and efficiencies. It’s difficult to track accountability for large project teams and pinpoint where and when responsibility needs to be assigned or distributed. RFIs in multi-phased projects don’t flow seamlessly.

Although programs can provide features that identify who created an RFI and when it was created, it’s difficult to track this information within large teams.

Figure 1: This dashboard identifies project issues, which reside in a cloud-hosted project environment. This quick-access dashboard is designed to be a single page to provide quantities of issues that are overdue and due in the near future. There are filters to allow viewers to see issues across the whole organization or drill all the way down to a specific user or project. Courtesy: SSOE Group

For example, if there are 300 people on a project and half are external, identifying the author of an inquiry (or who has ownership) may entail many emails and associated response time to discover who raised the query. In the meantime, work is delayed awaiting the response.

Lead architects, project managers, designers, contractors, subs and owners need to communicate about all aspects of a project, such as meeting code requirements or design intent. Information to answer an RFI must be available and accessible to everyone who needs it in a timely fashion.

The premium isn’t just on the availability of the information. It’s on the accessibility of it. Systems containing the data project managers and owners need can be convoluted. By putting data into one place where it can be visualized and made available for tracking, the project information can also be used to surface insights.

Figure 2: This is a software-centric dashboard, designed to give feedback and insight on the outcomes of computational design efforts. This is a multi-page dashboard focused on utilization, software integration and user insight. The page shown in the image shows the highest utilization by workflow and helps to identify the types of users and software most active with these particular workflows. Courtesy: SSOE Group

Visualizing performance and project management

One of the largest obstacles to effectively utilizing data is data access – lack of permission and licenses keep many project team members from seeing the same data as others. Dashboards help circumvent these issues by not only collating data in one location, but also providing access based on different permission sets, either overviews or more specific data sets, without exposing sensitive data. These interfaces allow project team members to review information based on their company or role. Data can be cross-checked, questions answered, and performance analyzed without exposing non-pertinent information.

Where such dashboards build value is in the analysis of the information. Dashboards allow stakeholders to analyze parts of the design and construction process, such as design automation, to better understand the benefits of that program and how much input was required to achieve the result. They can also be used to provide insight into which department is utilizing software tools and resources with the greatest return on investment. The same dashboard can also allow project teams and owners to look at multiple projects or similar phases of different projects, analyze the same metric across those projects or phases, and gain a better understanding of how to make the process more efficient by identifying deviations from standard operations.

Dashboards also allow users to filter what they need to see, such as a discipline, a project phase, or even protect team members, to see how many RFIs are being generated by whom and if those RFIs are due to design documents or an indication for better construction administration. This allows team members to course-correct efficiently by addressing problems sooner and with more accuracy. With data laid out and available, project teams can now investigate systems to determine how they are functioning and ways to improve them if needed.

Many efforts have been made to find ways to coordinate programming and predesign as well as design and construction. Being able to track what happens and when has been challenging. By categorizing the number of issues found in the data and linking this information to other data, team members can learn why problems occur within a project and address them in an efficacious manner.

Figure 3: This image is pulling software tool usage data, data from the accounting system and calculated investment and return against specific initiatives in the company. Courtesy: SSOE Group

Mixing quality and quantity

The quantity of data available to AEC teams on projects can be overwhelming, but quantity does not always mean quality. Like data, more communication does not mean the communication is effective. With a better tool to gather all the data, make that data accessible to team members, and allow users to filter through the data to find what they need, teams can become more confident in the data itself to address the issues it uncovers, rather than blaming the tools that collect it. In every project team, there are champions who solve disconnects.

Having available data highlights which teams and processes are working effectively, as well as the types of projects that are particularly successful. This helps project managers to design prescriptive processes to boost efficiency while aiding leadership to make effective data-driven decisions. In this way, owners can take full advantage of data and visualization technology in their next manufacturing project.

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