How Construction Data Management Improved Arpada’s Construction Safety by 75%

How Outdated Construction Data Management Creates Safety Problems

Historically, like many similar organisations, Arpada managed construction safety with disconnected tools such as email, instant messaging, and spreadsheets with no traceability for issue management. In their previous workflow, the safety manager would handwrite construction safety issue observations, take photos in the field during the snagging process, and then enter the issues in an Excel spreadsheet to aggregate the information and send it to the field. The lack of a transparent digital process, and the inability to collaborate with project stakeholders lead to data loss, miscommunication, and overall inefficiencies.

“We rapidly identified that safety management onsite was cumbersome and needed to take multiple steps to manage issues on time.”

–Cristina Calderón Gallo, Safety and Sustainability Director

A Common Data Environment Improves Field Collaboration and Communication

To better connect the field to the office and increase field collaboration and communication, Arpada adopted BIM 360. Arpada’s goal was to digitise and streamline safety management across a unified platform to achieve safer execution in the field, and enhance the production capacity of its technicians.

Leveraging their partnerships with the Autodesk extended Account and Construction Customer Success, Cadlan, and Tech Data teams, Arpada created a training program for their BIM Champions to increase adoption. Through weekly virtual engagements, the team on-boarded BIM 360 to 25 different projects across Madrid.

“The main challenge to overcome was changing how our employees performed their work. By providing onsite training with close follow-ups and constant technical support, led by a change champion onsite, we were able to standardise the safety issue management process, streamline safety tracking, and increase adoption in the field.”

–Cristina Calderón Gallo, Safety and Sustainability Director

Stronger Field Collaboration and Communication Consolidates Strategic Market Position

By implementing an issue management program for safety inspections, Arpada gained more than 100 hours per month and 3000€ per month in savings due to digitisation of safety inspections across 25 projects.

The safety managers have also developed key performance indicators to detect Arpada’s improvement points. During construction safety inspections, onsite workers can resolve issues in real time using mobile devices. The construction safety team is responsible for taking pictures and changing the incident status to “resolved”.

With the new process in place, technicians can address issues 75% faster, leading to safer job sites and generating a single closure report. The new way of issue tracking with BIM 360 has also reduced reporting time by 95%, since issue status is traceable in real time.

The success of Arpada’s cloud-based safety management program, and its positive impact on every aspect of Arpada’s delivery process demonstrates how digital construction safety programs can transform the industry.