News & Media Coverage

Contractors have their hands full today managing people, processes and projects across multiple jobsites—each with their own unique sets of contractual, procedural and environmental challenges. Since contractors often operate with razor-thin profit margins and unsteady cash flows, having an accurate understanding of job costs is vital to success.

There is a data transformation occurring in the construction industry as emerging technologies and solutions are empowering contractors to collect increased detail on their projects—and do more with this information. These technologies are changing the very way contractors across all disciplines operate, leading to smarter, safer construction projects and higher profit margins.

Caldwell Marine’s construction software system by Viewpoint helped keep the project on schedule by centralizing and providing complete visibility into the project’s financial data, giving both on-site and out-of-state team members easy access to project data.

While there's no doubt that many building companies have been affected by the downturn in the Australian residential housing market, most industry experts agree that exciting new opportunities are presenting themselves elsewhere. And contractors that are modernizing their operations to driver faster, higher-quality projects stand to benefit the most from the continued growth in commercial, civil and industrial construction spaces.

The construction industry is in the midst of a significant technology transformation as contractors adopt the latest cloud technologies to help enhance operations, automate workflows, streamline data into single streams and extend collaboration beyond the walls of the office. Yet, for an industry that has historically struggled with change, many contractors who have yet to modernize may not know where to start—or how to integrate and maximize their technology investments to get the most out of new solutions put in place.

As environmental awareness becomes an increasingly important social and political issue, we've seen a corresponding rise in the number of laws here in Australia that govern the construction industry. Not only is the regulatory framework detailed and complex, legislation is constantly changing, laws differ by state and even local councils have their own particular regulations and requirements.

While it's important for construction pros to stay up to date on the latest trends and technologies, who has time for a class or book? Another form of learning — podcasts — lets listeners absorb insights and tips on the go.

A new report from Dodge Data and Analytics provides some interesting insight into how contractors are collecting and using data from the field. The report, “Improving Performance with Project Data: How improved collection and analysis is leading the digital transformation of the construction industry,” is based on interviews with 187 construction industry players, mostly general contractors and specialty trade contractors.

For contractors, the lifeblood of their business is the construction project itself. How projects are managed can make or break the company. Project managers are often the most important—and most scrutinised—role in the construction organisation.

While the good old spreadsheet may have launched and sustained many a construction business, contractors are increasingly turning to the cloud and more advanced software to update, access and analyse their records. That’s the findings of a new survey from Dodge Data & Analytics in collaboration with Viewpoint, a construction management software provider owned by Trimble.