5 Ways to Improve Your Projects With Construction Analytics

From project delays to budget overruns, the construction industry has often grappled with inefficiencies. However, the introduction of data analytics has revolutionized how contractors manage projects.

Construction analytics has emerged as a game-changer. Analytics provide valuable insights and can help to streamline construction processes.

This article will serve as a guide to construction analytics. We’ll cover what construction analytics are, their applications in streamlining construction, the benefits they offer, and how Avvir's solutions leverage data and analytics to transform the industry.

Understanding Construction Analytics

Data analytics is the practice of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. Construction analytics give stakeholders the ability to uncover patterns, identify risks, and make data-driven decisions throughout the lifecycle of a construction project.

Generally speaking, construction businesses may use four types of data analytics:

1. Descriptive analytics: Help users answer questions about what happened on construction projects.
2. Diagnostic analytics: An analysis of why something happened on a construction project.
3. Predictive analytics: Help answer questions about what will happen in the coming months of your current project or on future construction projects.
4. Prescriptive analytics: Help answer questions about what action to take at a certain stage of the project.

The types of data sources used in these efforts may include:

• Sensors, including LiDar sensors for light detection and ranging
• Drones
• Building Information Modeling (BIM)
• Project documentation, like as-builts

The increased adoption of construction technology and data collection has changed the way general contractors run their job sites, allowing them to become more efficient. 

5 Ways to Streamline Construction with Analytics

Construction businesses can use data analysis in a variety of ways. Here are five ways construction data analytics can help make projects faster and more effective.

1. Improved Project Planning and Design

Construction analytics enables project teams to simulate and visualize designs before construction begins. By integrating BIM models with real-time data, such as material costs and labor availability, construction professionals can optimize designs, evaluate different scenarios, and make informed decisions that minimize risks and improve project outcomes.

2. Enhanced Resource Management

Optimizing resource allocation is a crucial aspect of construction management. With construction analytics, project managers can accurately forecast material quantities, monitor equipment utilization, and efficiently allocate labor resources. This data-driven approach helps prevent delays, reduces waste, and enhances overall project efficiency.

3. Real-Time Monitoring and Quality Control

Construction analytics provides real-time visibility into project progress and quality control. Sensor data, such as LiDar devices and drones, can monitor construction sites, capturing data on factors like temperature, humidity, and structural integrity. Contractors can create digital twins to monitor building progress. By analyzing this data, project teams can identify potential issues and ensure that projects meet quality standards.

4. Predictive Maintenance

By leveraging historical data and analytics, construction companies and facility managers can implement predictive maintenance strategies. Organizations can predict when maintenance is required by monitoring equipment performance, tracking maintenance schedules, and analyzing data patterns. This, in turn, can reduce downtime and optimize equipment efficiency.

5. Improved Estimates

Construction companies can compile data to improve future projects. For instance, companies can refine estimates for metrics like the footage of pipe installed per man hour. Accurate cost estimates allow both contractors and owners to set reasonable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for capital projects while simultaneously reducing the risk of cost overruns, thereby protecting the bottom line.

The Benefits of Construction Analytics

Streamlining construction projects via data analysis offers numerous benefits, including:

• Cost reduction: By leveraging construction analytics, companies can identify areas of inefficiency, such as material waste or suboptimal resource allocation. These insights help reduce project costs, improve budgeting accuracy, and increase profit margins.
• Time savings: With construction analytics, project managers can identify bottlenecks, optimize workflows, and mitigate risks proactively. By streamlining processes and minimizing delays, construction projects can be completed more efficiently, increasing the likelihood that projects are completed on time.
• Improved decision-making: Data-driven insights from construction analytics enable informed decision-making. Project stakeholders can evaluate alternative strategies, assess the impact of design changes, and make decisions based on accurate forecasts, leading to better project outcomes.

Utilizing analytics tools could pay dividends for construction companies as they look for ways to improve efficiencies on their projects.

Avvir's Solutions — Transforming Construction with Data and Analytics

Avvir is at the forefront of leveraging data and analytics to revolutionize the construction industry. Avvir's platform offers a range of innovative features that enable construction professionals to streamline projects, improve decision-making, and enhance overall project outcomes. Let's dive deeper into Avvir's solutions and explore how they leverage data and analytics.

Automated Progress Tracking

One of Avvir's key strengths lies in the automated progress-tracking capabilities. Traditional methods of tracking construction progress rely on manual measurements and visual inspections occurring on-site, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Avvir's platform takes a data-driven approach, leveraging advanced technologies such as laser scans and point cloud data.

Avvir's platform automatically compares as-built conditions captured through laser scans with the original BIM models. By analyzing the discrepancies between the two, the platform generates detailed reports that highlight areas where the construction deviates from the intended design.

The ability to automate progress tracking not only saves significant time but also enables project teams to identify issues early on and take corrective actions promptly. By minimizing rework and ensuring that construction aligns with the design intent, Avvir helps keep projects on schedule and within budget.

Quality Assurance

Ensuring quality control throughout the construction process is essential for delivering successful projects. Avvir's platform employs advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze the point cloud data obtained from laser scans and other sources. By comparing the as-built conditions with the design intent, Avvir can identify potential quality issues and discrepancies.

For example, Avvir's platform can detect if walls are not plumb, ceilings are not level, or structural elements deviate from the intended specifications. These insights enable project teams to address quality concerns promptly, reducing rework and ensuring that projects meet the required standards.

By leveraging data and analytics, Avvir empowers construction professionals to maintain high levels of quality control and deliver projects that exceed client expectations.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

Avvir's platform goes beyond automated progress tracking and quality assurance by providing construction professionals with comprehensive insights into project performance. By aggregating and analyzing data from various sources, including laser scans, BIM models, and other sensor data, Avvir enables data-driven decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.

The platform offers a centralized 4D dashboard where stakeholders can access real-time data on project progress, compare actual construction with the design models, and monitor KPIs. This data-driven approach allows project teams to identify trends, spot potential risks, and make informed decisions to optimize construction processes.

Whether it's evaluating alternative design scenarios, assessing the impact of changes, or predicting potential issues, Avvir's analytics capabilities provide valuable insights that enhance project outcomes.

Collaboration and Communication

Avvir's platform also facilitates collaboration and communication among project stakeholders. By providing a centralized platform for sharing project data, Avvir enables seamless collaboration between architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, and other team members. 

Streamlined communication amongst all stakeholders can improve coordination, reduce misinterpretation, and foster a collaborative environment where everyone is working towards a common goal.

Avvir's platform also supports the integration of data from multiple sources, including external software and IoT devices. This integration ensures that all relevant data is captured and analyzed, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions based on comprehensive and accurate information.

Construction Analytics Can Improve Project Delivery

Data analytics is transforming the construction industry. Embracing the functionality of analytics allows construction professionals to deliver projects more efficiently than ever before.

At Avvir, we push reality analysis to provide actionable insights during the life cycle of large-scale projects. These actionable insights are one of the first critical steps to providing business intelligence and construction analytics to owners, GCs, and subcontractors on each project.

For further reading, download our Construction Analytics e-book to learn about leveraging business intelligence and analytics to drive the construction industry forward.