A Contractor's Guide to Digital Construction Drawings and Documents

The construction industry is experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Driven by global population growth and an increasing demand for sustainable solutions, breakthroughs in construction, design and engineering technologies are redefining possibilities in our building projects. The resulting complexity in design pose new challenges to small to mid-sized firms, which often find themselves struggling to keep pace and properly allocate resources to address their clients’ needs.

According to a recent McKinsey & Company report, the average commercial construction project takes  20% longer to complete than planned, and ends up being upwards of 80% over budget.

On a related note, when the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America stated in its construction employment statistics report for August 4, 2017, that while employment rates are steadily climbing, contracting firms are still struggling to fill job vacancies, even with hourly rates exceeding the national average by 10%.

Amidst these obstacles and managing more complex contracts, many firms find themselves in a constant struggle to bid competitively while remaining profitable.

While it is true that some of these changes are outside the control of individual companies, there is one key resource every firm has at its disposal that, if used strategically, can dramatically level the playing field and, in some cases, turn a company’s apparent disadvantages into robust competitive assets.

The good news is that powerful time-saving technologies do exist in today’s construction software marketplace, and while more and more firms are reaping the benefits of these solutions with each passing year, the rate of adoption is still surprisingly low...