How Inspection Software Saves Your Business Time and Money

Looking to implement inspection software to increase your workforce productivity? There’s never been a better time to embrace technology for the construction job site and office.

As we have seen to date in 2021, there is no shortage of obstacles and challenges facing construction firms. Some of the top challenges include:

• Labor. 81% of construction firms are having a hard time filling some or all positions (AGC)
• Productivity. 1% productivity growth annually for the past two decades in construction (McKinsey)
• Safety. 20% of deaths each year occur in construction even though it makes up only 5% of the workforce (OSHA)

• Supply Chain. Issues in the supply chain are increasing material costs and resulting in longer lead times (Construction Dive) 
• Regulations. 10.9% increase in regulatory costs over the past five years (Construction Dive)

With all of these challenges to manage, technology can make an impact on the organization by saving you time and money through productivity and efficiency gains. This article provides real-world examples to help explain how construction businesses can use technology to help reduce costs and create a competitive advantage. 

How Inspection Software Saves You Time and Money

Need to make the business case for inspection software? Here are the top reasons why construction companies go digital with inspections versus managing them with paper forms.

#1. Streamline Your Operations and Improve Workflow

Managing inspections on paper forms requires a great deal of manual effort and redundant work. Paper sheets used in the field must be returned to the office and then require manual data entry to copy the information into a computer. Inspection software eliminates the back and forth, by allowing field employees to leverage their mobile devices to collect and share information back to the office.

Inspection software also gives the office tools to dispatch and assign jobs, or hand off inspections to multiple employees at a time. All of this leads to greater productivity for workers when they are able to share information in real-time and automate manual processes.

Example:

True Homes, a building construction company, found that their business growth was causing paper forms to pile up. With inspection processes at each construction site, the amount of paper forms was slowing down their business and creating manual workflows for employees to deal with on a daily basis.

After implementing inspection software for building inspections, they were able to save 450 hours per month for their office staff and they were able to increase communication with clients by having information available in real-time from their inspections.

Overall they found that by eliminating manual processes and workflows, they were able to see an increase in customer satisfaction, employee productivity, and better processes for their data collection and reporting. 

Follow this link to read the full story from True Homes and to learn more about building inspection software designed for the construction industry.

#2. Standardize Data Collection

Paper forms can lead to some data collection challenges. For example, you may have someone skip over a question or you may have illegible handwriting that makes it difficult to interpret. Both of these require rework and going back to find the required information.

Inspection software is built with features that enable best practices for data collection. You can make certain fields required and ensure that the data submitted is in the proper format to keep your information consistent for reporting.

You can also leverage dynamic forms that reduce the number of fields based on certain criteria. For example, if you select “Condo” as the type of building in a home inspection, you will only see the relevant boxes and can cut out any of the fields that aren’t relevant for that type of inspection.

Companies have found that standardized data and digital processes enable them to move faster with inspections and avoid rework or manual workarounds to fix messy data.

Example:

Lincs, an Electrical Contractor in the UK, found it hard to scale their business with the growing amount of paperwork. They decided to implement software for inspections, saving their field staff 15 hours per technician on a weekly basis by eliminating manual processes.

Once they deployed software for safety inspections, they were able to collect, share, review, and submit reports all in real-time.

With their new digital inspection software, “Required Fields” helped to ensure that field technicians always complete their reports with the necessary information. 

Reports are now completed much faster than on paper, and they have standard practices to ensure that reports are generated quickly and accurately. Investing in better data practices with digital technology for inspections has helped their contracting business to realize significant cost savings and increase in overall productivity.

Follow this link to read the full case study from Lincs and to learn how construction management software can help digitize inspections.

#3 Effortless Reporting and Analysis

Paper forms make it difficult to have immediate visibility into the data being collected and require additional work to turn the information into reports. With inspection software, reports are generated automatically and sent via email to the appropriate parties. Sign off on documents digitally and have them stored in a central cloud location to reference any time you need the information.

This level of real-time information sharing is a key reason why companies invest in software for inspections. Instead of relying on paper forms that can be lost or damaged over time, inspection software brings a modern and digital experience for your business. Go one step further and use the information collected using inspection software for advanced analytics to spot trends and gain greater visibility into your field or job site operations.

Example:

US Inspect, a leader in residential inspections in the US, found that their paper-intensive processes hindered their efficiency. They implemented software for home inspections with the goal of saving their technicians time in the field and to create a competitive advantage for the business.

They found that inspection software helped their teams in the field save time and produce better reports. Forms that used to take them thirty minutes now only take them five minutes, with required fields helping to ensure data accuracy.

They also found that the home inspection software helped them streamline their reporting and allow them greater insight into their data. With better data visibility they are now able to more accurately understand how the business is doing and where there are opportunities to improve. 

Follow this link to read the full case study from US Inspect and how software can be used for residential and home inspections.