The Close Out: Finding Efficiency with Construction Management Software

How leveraging a CMS can save your project considerable time and your budget considerable money

The equipment’s been all packed away. But the contractor still wants to play. And now it’s time to go. ‘Cause the next project is just down the road.

There are many phases to construction projects, but the least discussed always seems to be the close out. Yet, this phase can often be one of the most labor-intensive and costly for a public project when it comes to inspection and recordkeeping. Unlike the contractor who has bid the construction phase work and is locked into unit pricing, the construction inspection and recordkeeping is often based on a budget number that public works hopes to adhere to at best, and will likely be caught (significantly) short on at the worst. Yet it is in this process that we see the most delayed and underutilized transition to a digital delivery environment. Sure models are fun and digital delivery of those models through online bid platforms streamlines efforts. However, I submit that a greater financial impact is felt by using a CMS system, not just through the project operations, but more significantly, at close out.

Consider the typical case we see. A municipal project with a full-time inspector (maybe two at certain times) requires a decision: watch the work, or do the paperwork. Projects are complex beings during construction with records of daily work, measurements of daily quantities, testing of materials ahead of time to ensure payment for placement, and so on. Negating the other impacts like traffic control, meetings, administration, requests for change, or conflicting plans and site conditions, an inspector’s attention is drawn in many different directions as the sole member of the team and can lead to the recordkeeping looking more like a piecemeal effort. Record just enough to remember what happened, and be onsite to view the work. I once asked a DOT municipal program oversight officer what to do and their response was telling: If it comes down to watching the work or doing the paperwork - watch the work.

With CMS systems having now been in place for over a decade, the adoption of such systems has been painfully slow. Some due to costs and budgeting, some due to competition, but mostly, due to a lack of awareness, understanding, and translation to savings. So let’s break down and try to quantify that savings in terms of hours. On average, an inspector takes 1-2 hours of “daily OT” to complete paperwork AFTER the field work is completed. By using a CMS like Appia on a tablet or phone, that documentation can be completed in real-time, while watching the work and being available for questions by the contractor. More importantly, paperwork requires backchecking and secondary (sometimes tertiary) signatures verifying that at least someone has performed quality assurance on the documentation and computations, and has acknowledged having reviewed the records in general on some regular interval. Yet in a paper-based system (even a spreadsheet-based system) this work is typically left to the ubiquitous “close out” to occur.

This ignores other issues like delays in receiving paperwork from the contractor, administrative oversight and review time, DOT and Federal auditing that may occur, and corrections. Appia satisfies all of those requirements in real time with its federally compliant audit trail and its design which guarantees a single source of truth. No more duplicitous actions. Built-in quality assurance. And time eliminated at the end of the project by removing the need to go back through all those paper records to put everything in order and reference everything through. Furthermore, Appia significantly reduces the audit process by eliminating many of the actions typically audited and instead providing direct, clean data for a simpler review. Have an FHWA CAP audit? How much easier than simply providing a short tour of the system to show that the project meets the requirements of recordkeeping? More importantly, using a CMS like Appia says to the auditors and DOT officers alike that the progressive nature of recordkeeping is a step out of the system in which much oversight is required, and a step toward simplification and streamlining, which saves money and serves to give a measure of ease that everything is above board.

In closing, studies have shown that the use of Appia for project inspection has reduced closeout times from 600 hours (2 people, 4 weeks), down to 60. And that doesn’t include the reduction of those 1-2 hours every day to catch up. So I ask you, how much is your consultant’s hourly rate? And what could you do by reappropriating all those funds from your annual projects back to other projects? Another bridge? More road paving? Perhaps something else. So go ahead, jump in, see how CMS systems like Appia can save you time. You’ll be surprised at what you find, and just how much you can save.