20 Sep Why Construction Projects Lose Time When Everyone Works Differently

Most established construction organisations already have good foundations in place.

Their construction processes are supported by governance structure, management systems, ISO certification, documented procedures and technology designed to support their operations.

So why can the day-to-day process still become complicated, inconsistent and time consuming?

Often, the problem isn’t that there is no process.

It is that the formal process doesn’t always define what needs to happen at the operational level. In the area where people are actually doing the work.

This is where workarounds, spreadsheets, manual trackers and individual ways of working can start to develop.

Over time, those workarounds can become a second process running underneath the official one.

 

What is the difference between a documented process and a working process?

 

A documented process explains how an organisation expects work to happen.

But the people carrying out that work often need to deal with much more detail.

For example:

• What information needs to be available before the next step can start?
• Who provides it?
• Where is it recorded?
• What happens if the information is missing?
• How does someone know an action has been completed?
• What happens when another department doesn’t respond?
• What happens when the digital system doesn’t support part of the workflow?

If these details haven’t been properly defined, people still need to find a way to get the work done.

And they usually do.

 

How do Construction workarounds develop?

 

People join organisations and others leave. New team members may be shown how things are done by colleagues who have developed their own methods.  Others may bring practices from previous employers.  Sometimes people simply have to interpret what is expcted because there isn’t a clearly defined process for that particular activity.

This isn’t necessarily a problem with the individual.

In many cases, they are trying to track activities.  Someone else creates a log because information is difficult to find.

A manual form is introduced because another department needs information in a particular format.

An email trail becomes the way of confirming progress because the main system doesn’t provide a practical way of doing it.

These solutions can make perfect sense as individual pieces of work.

The problem is what happens when they accumulate.

When does a workaround become a problem?

A single spreadsheet isn’t necessarily an inefficient process.

A manual check isn’t necessarily unnecessary.

The important question is why the additional step exists.

If it exists because it is genuinely required, it may be an important control.

But if it exists because the main process, system or communication between departments isn’t working properly, it may be compensating for a problem somewhere else.

For example, a formal workflow might be designed to move information from A to B. In practice, the team may be doing:

A – spreadsheet – email – manual form – approval – tracker – system update – B

 

The official process still exists.

But underneath it, another operational process has developed.

And that second process may not be visible when someone simply reviews the formal procedure.

 

What does this hidden process cost?

 

The additional layers may seem small individually, but they can create significant operational overhead when repeated every day.

People spend time.

• Entering the same information more than once
• maintaining spreadsheets and trackers
• chasing responses
• checking whether actions have been completed.
• transferring information between systems
• correcting errors
• explaining different ways of working
• managing information that should have been available earlier.

It also creates dependency on individuals.

If someone leaves who knows how the unofficial process works, the next person may have to work it out again.

Over time, this can lead to inconsistent information, communication gaps and delays.

And eventually, those problems can reach the project itself.

 

A real example

 

In one organisation, a team was responsible for managing an operational workflow.

Technology was already in place to support the process, but it had not been fully configured to accommodate everything the team needed to do.

The team therefore developed manual methods to bridge the gaps.

Spreadsheets were used to track activities.  Manual forms were introduced. Additional checks and communication steps were created to keep information moving.

The team was doing what it needed to do to keep the operation functioning.

But when the complete workflow was examined, it became clear that a significant amount of the team’s time was being spent managing the additional layers around the process rather than carrying out the underlying operational activity.

Once those layers were stripped back, the core workflow required significantly fewer resources than the existing operation suggested.

The issue wasn’t that people were unnecessary.  They were doing the real work.

The question was how much of that work had been created by the process itself.

The consequences were not simply administrative.

The additional layers contributed to communication gaps and inconsistencies, which eventually resulted in issues such as incorrect materials arriving on site, materials not matching the required specification and material shortages that were only identified once supplies had run out.

The visible problem was with the materials.

The underlying problem was much further upstream.

 

Why adding another procedure isn’t always the answer.

 

When a process isn’t working, the natural response can be to create another procedure or introduce another control.

Sometimes that is exactly what is needed.

But not always.

The underlying issue may instead be:

• Unclear responsibilities between departments
• Missing information
• Duplicated checking
• Unnecessary approval stages
• Poor communication
• A system that doesn’t support the actual workflow.
• A process that was designed without enough consideration of how the work happens in practice.

Adding another document to an already complicated process can simply create another layer.

This is where construction process improvement needs to go beyond reviewing what is documented.

 

How can you identify where a construction process is breaking down?

 

Start by following the work rather than simply reading the procedure.

Look at what actually happens from the beginning of an activity to its completion.

Look for:

• Spreadsheets and manual trackers that sit outside the main system
• Repeated data entry
• Additional forms
• Unofficial approval routes
• Information being chased between departments
• workarounds created by employees
• Delays caused by missing or later information
• activities that are duplicated
• tasks that exist because the main system cannot support them.

Then speak to the people doing the work.

One of the most useful questions can be surprisingly simple:

“What do you have to do that the process doesn’t tell you to do?”

That can reveal the difference between the process the organisation believes it has and the process people actually have to operate.

 

Improving the process starts with understanding it

 

Strong governance, documented procedures, ISO certification and digital systems all have an important role to play.

The point isn’t to suggest that formal systems are unnecessary.

The point is that they don’t automatically tell you whether the operational process is working effectively.

There is a difference between:

What the organisation says should happen.

and

What people actually have to do to make it happen.

That gap is where unnecessary work, duplication, workarounds, and hidden costs can develop.

Effective process improvement starts by understanding why those gaps exist.

Then the objective is to remove unnecessary steps, improve the workflow, clarify responsibilities, address system limitations and put practical processes in place that people can actually see.

Don’t just review the process on paper.  Follow the work.

That is often where the real opportunities for improvement can be found.

https://www.qualitaz.com/construction-process-improvement/