In response to private and public stakeholders’ requirements and amid technological developments, many aspects in connection with construction projects have changed. However, the key principles of such projects have not – including the way they are organised, which is still exactly the same, entailing a design stage, a construction stage and a handover stage. This means that it is crucial to opt for a construction project management tool that has been designed to cover all these stages, rather than attempting to adapt other non-specialised tools.
Main contractors are well aware of the need to hand over the buildings with their clients, the project owners, with the fewest possible defects. This aim for minimum defects is a key factor in ensuring complete satisfaction on the part of project owners, who will then deliver the assets to the end buyers. If no shared digital solution is used, each company, each participant, will resort to conventional office automation tools to plan the construction, track its progress, record problems and defects and compile the handover report. In most cases, on the day of handover, the main contractor makes a note of the defects it observes while the project owner and project management team do the same on their own documents.
Once the handover is complete, the stakeholders return to the office and produce a concept note summarising, often in table format, the defects of each housing unit for example. These documents are emailed to each participant and several phone calls are made to ensure everyone has clearly understood the nature of the defects, their precise location and their preferred processing date. Companies must then go to the site to carry out the necessary repairs or adjustments on the defect, before calling on the main contractor to come and confirm on-site that the defect has been processed. As the main contractor, after conducting the inspection visit, you are personally going to contact your client who will also travel to the site to resolve the defect. In short, this amounts to an excessive amount of uncoordinated and time-consuming exchanges, generating a risk of misunderstandings and dissatisfaction for all teams involved.
By using a collaborative platform like Kairnial, you can centralise all the data and gain exhaustive traceability as regards the list of defects, their processing and closeout.