Material supplied by InEight
We’ve all heard the familiar saying, “Garbage in, garbage out.” In construction, we could rephrase it as, “Bad input, bad outcomes.” Because whilst there’s no shortage in the quantity of data being produced at any given moment during a capital project, what matters even more is the quality.
So why, exactly, does having clean data matter? The three key reasons outlined here go far beyond the expected administrative benefits of reducing the need for labour-intensive data cleaning.
Data Collection, Analytics and Insights Are Essential To Growth
According to the InEight Global Capital Projects Outlook published in June 2023, 49 per cent of owners and 47 per cent of contractors who took part in the report’s survey ranked “data collection, analytics and insights” among the top five opportunities for growth in the next 12 months.
Clean data supports better analytics, providing more valuable insights into project performance and where to address inefficiencies. Such data lessens the likelihood of mistakes and biases (including decisions inspired by bad data) that could lead to less-than-optimal project outcomes.
Data-Fed Industry Benchmarks Yield Project Predictability
Tech-savvy project owners are appreciating this more surprise-free approach and increasingly expecting it. That realism must come from actual data. The cleaner it is, the more realistic the bids are and the more predictive the project outcomes can be.
When sourced from clean, real-time data, performance metrics from similar projects or industry benchmarks can give contractors and owners a real-world perspective on what to expect.
Clean Data Is a Necessity for Efficient Management at Turnover
Managing a built asset takes a lot more than it did years ago. With completed structures incorporating designs, sustainable materials and digital technologies that are more sophisticated than ever, it requires more and better data to monitor and operate them.
That data should begin accumulating at the project’s start (not as the completion date approaches), telling a comprehensive story of the evolution of the build and all its facets. Delivering clean data at turnover assures owners their requirements were met and that any modifications or repairs during construction steered the project back toward meeting those requirements.
Despite its slow adoption rate in the industry, construction technology is alleviating and fixing many data quality issues plaguing projects. Software programs designed to collect, store, automatically update, calculate and analyse your data in real time can help deliver the clean data you rely on to manage projects and business growth.