Four drivers for efficient information management in construction projects

Information management is critical for the smooth operation and delivery of construction projects. To implement effective information management, it is vital that construction practices adopt standardised processes, ensure convenient access to project data, maintain information accuracy, and streamline internal review workflows.

1. Standardisation

Construction projects are always highly complex, with many stakeholders involved and large volumes of documents produced throughout every project stage. With hundreds, or even thousands, of individuals being responsible for different aspects of a project, there is potential for language and documentation inconsistency. Since inconsistency wastes valuable time, delays processes, and adds unnecessary costs, project teams must adopt standardised approaches to effectively manage information assets and ensure projects are delivered on schedule and within budget.

The ISO 19650 series of standards is now considered the internationally common standard for information management over the whole life cycle of built assets, from strategic planning to operation, maintenance, refurbishment, and end-of-life. In a globalised AEC industry, ISO 19650 allows stakeholders to talk in the same language, removing barriers in collaboration and enhancing process consistency across multiple touchpoints throughout the delivery of construction projects. Atvero supports the adoption of ISO 19650 standards, ensuring compliance across all project documents and drawings.

2. Simple information retrieval

For any construction project, information visibility is essential. Project team members must have rapid and convenient access to any information at any point during a project to stay on track with timelines and fulfil clients’ requirements. However, if there is inconsistency in the locations at which team members save their files, there will be potential delays in information retrieval, causing disrupted collaboration and reduced productivity. This challenge becomes even more critical when teams must juggle between multiple projects or meet tight deadlines.

In Atvero, all file names are enriched with metadata that follows ISO 19650 standards or companies’ custom naming schemes. Therefore, teams can find any project-related information in an instant, since Atvero’s powerful metadata-driven searching and filtering allows for quick and easy discovery of documents.

3. Optimised revision control

Construction projects can be exposed to potential risks caused by information accuracies when team members fail to locate the most current document versions to collaborate on. In addition, if duplicated copies of a file are saved in various locations, it can be difficult to access the latest document. Moreover, to maintain professionalism and reputation with clients, it is important that project teams always issue the correct, most up-to-date versions of documents and drawings.

As the project information gatekeeper, Atvero helps project teams track every version of all sent or received documents and drawings. Complete version histories of files are always readily available, allowing team members to easily access the most recent document versions to work on. During issues of revisions, Atvero always selects the latest revision to issue by default, helping eliminate traditional human errors. Additionally, file numbers are automatically validated in Atvero to ensure they are unique in the system, thus avoiding duplication.

4. Quality-assured approval workflows

To maintain project quality, every piece of information must be validated by senior staff before being sent out of a project. It is vital that documents are checked by the appropriate reviewers in a project to ensure absolute accuracy. During the internal checking process, reviewers usually provide comments or mark-ups to add in-depth insights about why a document is approved or rejected. These insights need to be kept closely alongside the original document for easy reference.

Atvero allows project team members to request specific individuals or multiple reviewers to validate documents, in which assigned reviewers will receive email notifications of the documents they need to check, thus making sure there are no omissions in reviews. Reviewers can download the original drawing or document, add mark-ups using a range of PDF editing tools, and provide written comments. The resulting file will then be stored alongside the original one, and Atvero will show marked-up files alongside their corresponding revisions for intuitive access to comments and mark-ups.