Some recent research from the Connected Construction SmartMarket Brief series caught our eye. Their latest report outlined how construction professionals like architects, engineers, general contractors, and specialty trades increasingly turn to digital workflows and tools to manage project information. The report interested us because we made this leap in the past few years, and it’s been a tremendous boost to our company. So we wanted to share a few ways our business has benefitted from embracing digital tools. In the report, Peter Large says, “teams and projects utilizing digital workflows saw a substantial increase in project quality, supported by faster delivery and decreased delays related to rework.” Have we seen this happen at UMC, Inc.? Yes, we have and here’s how.
You may remember a recent blog interview we shared with one of our former employees Ricardo Legarburo. You can read that article here. Ricardo has since moved on, and we wish him the best, but while he was here at UMC, his role was to help us monitor our quality management. Utilizing digital management tools, Ricardo tracked metrics of our project management to help us maintain a culture of safety and quality work. This tracking and data collection has been an invaluable tool on our project sites and has helped us identify areas of improvement and areas of strength.
Another way we utilize digital workflow tools is in our project management team. Our projects are mainly large-scale, commercial multi-unit projects, so there are a lot of parts and inventory to keep track of. Our project management team maintains various spreadsheets and workflow tools to help us stay on top of our inventory needs. These tools are a great way to manage our ordering, stay on budget, and track where we are with each project. In the past few years, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led to supply and ordering delays, we’ve relied heavily on these tools to keep our projects on time and on budget, even with ordering delays.
One of the digital tools that has helped our company grow in the past few years is our revenue forecast system. We recently shared more about this in a blog highlighting a new hire, Bryatt Stoker, who works on this project. You can read it here. We believe this project has been a key indicator of our success and planning. Using this tool, our team records and manages all the big-picture items for UMC, Inc. It gives us a really good idea of where we are as a company and where we would like to go in the future. Using this tool, we know if we have the resources to take on new projects or try new things.
These are just a few of the digital workflow tools we have embraced here at UMC, Inc. There are plenty more we look forward to sharing with you in time. Our team believes that investing in these tools and processes helps us stand out from our competitors and deliver quality work for our partners. As the Connected Construction report showed, specialty trade contractors like us benefit from utilizing digital workflow tools and tracking that help with construction operations and crew management. We’ve certainly experienced that benefit here at UMC, Inc.!
