It is Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a busy week. You just received a call about an emergency job that needs attention. All your gangs are currently out at other locations around the region, but it needs scheduling fast.
Fortunately, you have scheduling software for construction crews. You quickly locate the best crew for the job in real time, rejig work schedules, and get the problem fixed fast. You can even find the best route based on the latest traffic data.
A growing number of firms are using scheduling software for construction crews. From road maintenance to facilities management, it is allowing project managers and schedule planners to become more adaptable and boost efficiency.
What is this technology, and why is it growing in popularity?
What is scheduling software for construction crews?
Scheduling software for construction crews is a type of job management software used to create schedules, manage jobs, and organise jobs both in advance and on the fly. It combines a mixture of mobile phone software, mapping tools and job management technologies to improve how businesses plan out work schedules.
Typically cloud based, it allows the scheduler to get greater control over how they manage gangs while they are out on the road, monitor performance and improve how you use employee time.
Challenges with traditional crew scheduling
In the traditional approach to designing work schedules in the construction industry, planning professionals design a plan for the upcoming, month, week and day using either project management software, a spreadsheet, or a whiteboard in the office.
They then allocate jobs to individual crews depending on their availability, location, and skills. This approach to job management is effective, yet it comes with multiple well-established limitations:
- It is a highly manual approach to job management
When designing the project schedule, the manager must do most of the planning in their head before getting it down into a computer system. Mistakes can easily be made leading to over or under allocation of jobs.
- Hard to adapt
Project managers know that things change, and schedules must adapt. However, responding to change with the traditional approach is slow. If you have an emergency or unexpected job to be allocated, it can be tough to figure out if you have people with the right skills, where they are, and whether or not they’re available.
- Under or overuse of resources
A common problem with manual job management is over or underuse of resources. If your crews are spread out visiting sites across a large area, it is likely some crews will be allocated more jobs in a close geographic zone, while others will have more downtime.
This inefficient use of resources is costly and can also lead to mistakes if one team has too many jobs.
- Lack of accountability and visibility
Without a real time view of where your crews are and what they are doing it can be challenging to know if they are being productive. Of course, trust is vital in any business, yet you sometimes need additional evidence to justify labour costs.
Due to these drawbacks with traditional job management, a growing number of firms are opting to use scheduling software for construction crews.
How does scheduling software for construction crews work?
Scheduling software for construction crews gives you multiple features that boost productivity and efficiency, while reducing waste.
Here are just some of the ways it can help maintenance crews in sectors as diverse as road, facilities and building maintenance:
- Assign jobs digitally
Whenever your project manager needs to assign a new job to a crew, they get a notification in the app which tells them where the job is, what it involves, and how much employee time it requires. The crew’s leader can then acknowledge receipt of the job, and come back with any queries.
- View crew location
One of the key benefits of scheduling software for construction crews is that it uses mobile phone or telematics data to locate where each crew is. Using Google Maps, the scheduler can assign jobs to crews based on their GPS location and ensure that the closest crew is send to the job to resolve any issues.
- Match skills to the job
On scheduling software for construction crews like Causeway Maintenance Management, all of your crews are given a skills profile. This way, you will only assign jobs to crews that have the appropriate abilities.
For example, if assign a job to someone who knows how to complete risk assessments, you cannot accidentally send an incapable team.
- Get progress updates
Using mobile and cloud-based scheduling software allows you to get real time updates about completed jobs. This helps you to better monitor progress against the wider project schedule.
- Reduce dead time
Smart scheduling software for construction crews can support you in finding the most appropriate use of resources. Our app, for instance, uses Google Maps to plan the best routes for multiple project crews each day. That means less downtime and more productivity.
See it in action: How Causeway Maintenance Management is used on highways
Boost results with scheduling software for construction crews
Think back to the scenario we introduced at the beginning of this article. By using scheduling software for construction crews, you quickly resolved the ‘crisis’.
Causeway Maintenance Management switches what you normally consider an emergency into a routine job. You can find the closest crew and verify they have the equipment to do the job with no hassle.
Once the job is confirmed, he then sends a notification to the head of that crew who responds in moments agreeing to take on the job. A couple of hours later, the gang leader sends a photo via the app to confirm it is complete.
Could scheduling software for construction crews help your business? Learn more about Causeway Maintenance Management and begin your journey to improved job management.
