Tips to Keep Your Construction Project on Schedule
Meeting a deadline for construction projects is no easy task. Things like bad weather, costly rework, unavailable resources and subcontractor failure can cause the timeline to be thrown off course resulting in damage fees that hurt your company’s reputation.
Here are five tips to help you keep your construction projects on schedule and within budget:
Review Plans, Specs & Project Documents
To ensure that your construction project stays on schedule, you need to carefully review and understand the scope of work. This includes going over every detail in the drawings, spec book and other documents related to this particular job. Having a thorough understanding of these materials will allow you to create an accurate timeline for all upcoming tasks so there are no unexpected delays at any point during its execution process.
The use of site drawings will help in determining layouts by providing optimal performance through efficient allocation of time/resources during construction activities such as laying down area for material purposes or coordination between suppliers & manufacturers etc.
A useful tip would be using historical data obtained from previous experiences so that one can plan appropriately while taking precautions not repeating the same errors again.
A site layout is designed to optimize the performance of a building project. This includes determining where equipment storage, material laydown areas, jobsite trailers and break areas are located on-site as well as coordinating with manufacturers for proper materials quantities. Historical data can be used to allocate times and resources properly for each activity or task in order to maintain an efficient schedule throughout construction.
Create & Coordinate a Master Schedule
To deliver your project on time, you need to create a master schedule that outlines the main phases of work. This will guide your project through to completion by providing clarity into how long certain tasks are expected to take and which ones might spill over from one phase into another.
Breaking each major task down further using sub-phases enables greater focus within this larger grouping so breaking projects down allows for better management overall as it provides more specific direction towards progress being made or not along with suggestions about what is causing any delays in meeting deadlines if they should arise.
It is important to create a timeline for each task and work activity in order to determine the time required. You must then allocate resources, labor and equipment necessary – such as people or machines – needed to complete them on your scheduled timeline.
To make your project efficient, sequence out tasks and trades during each phase of the project. Keep in mind which tasks must happen sequentially and which can be performed concurrently with other tasks- maximizing your timeline is key.
Ensure that your supplier will be able to provide the materials you need on time, and involve subcontractors in creating a master schedule so all trades can work together smoothly.
Create Contingency Plan
A project can easily get off track, so it’s important to carefully review your master schedule and identify potential risks that could disrupt the schedule. Crafting contingency plans that are easy for everyone involved will go a long way in mitigating issues before they escalate out of control.
To make sure you stay on schedule, think of all possible delays your project could face. For example, what if the weather prevents employees from getting to work? Or maybe someone injured themselves and can’t help out for a bit. Discuss these situations with others who are part of the team so that they know how to handle them when (and if) it happens in real life.
Construction projects are prone to derailment by lots of minor issues rather than one huge problem. To keep construction on schedule, it requires a high level of attention to detail when analyzing daily progress reports, looking at the budget and keeping an eye out for risks.
Communicate & Collaborate
Good communication is an essential part of managing projects and staying on schedule. Establish procedures for your subs to alert you when they’re falling behind or experiencing delays, so that you can start adjusting schedules before issues snowball into something unmanageable.
As a result of the project, there is work to be done. The process will include communication between all parties involved; this includes sharing information about progress that must occur on set days and times in order for it to run smoothly.
Problems should not arise but if they do, troubleshooting with subs can increase productivity at jobsite as well as improve teamwork overall among individuals working together on said projects.
Successful project collaboration involves building relationships with all stakeholders based on trust and respect, working together to successfully complete a project. Being able to cooperate and coordinate efforts is essential for maintaining your construction schedule.
Common themes in successful projects were the importance of communication, trust between team members and not working against each other. To maintain these commonalities through collaboration is essential to achieving success with teamwork on any project.
Monitor & Document Progress
One way you can monitor the progress of your team is to keep track of detailed daily reports. This will show how well you are sticking to your schedule and watch for any red flags that might indicate a delay in completing tasks on time.
You should also measure how closely together the actual timeline matches up with the master schedule every day, week or month so this helps prevent delays from happening unexpectedly at random times throughout each project’s life cycle.
Determine the causes of any discrepancies with your master schedule so you can improve planning and scheduling for future projects. Compare this project to past performances on similar projects.
Reviewing daily reports can help you identify aspects of your project where you are falling behind schedule. It’s common for a project to diverge from the master plan, so it’s helpful to have this evidence in front of us as we adapt our plans and work even harder towards success.
It is imperative that you keep your team up to date on the status of projects, as it may require adjusting tasks downstream. This will impact their work and should be communicated immediately with everyone involved in order for them to continue working smoothly.
At JeBailey & Co, we manage commercial and industrial projects in a wide range of markets. We specialize in construction management services, so you can trust us to deliver the best results possible for your project.
Contact JeBailey & Co. today at (407) 559-6412, or email us at info@jebaileyandco.com to learn more about our other services or request a quote!
