How to Increase Profit Margin in Construction with 3 Pieces of Tech

When managing construction projects,  you know you are going to have to manage razor-thin margins, the success of your project depends on your ability to control costs and preserve margin. Investors and managers want to keep costs low while yielding maximum value, 7 and contractors want to ensure they earn enough to do right by their company and crew. 

Fortunately, working smart can free up quite a bit of funding. Let's take a look at how to increase profit margin in construction with 3 high-powered contractor logistics solutions. 

Drone Site Scanning

Drones are quickly becoming a common sight out in the field, thanks to their unique abilities in recording location features and project progress. Many businesses now exist that offer drone site scanning services, using lasers and HD photography to document every detail of a job site. The scans captured by these drones are then processed to calculate all measurements and compose a drawing, map, or 3D model. 

Such work is gaining traction in the pre-construction process, cutting site surveying down to less than an hour, and allowing for some projects to be completed 10x faster than usual. And the data, maps, and models created through these drones can be used to further speed up other activities, which brings us to our next point...

BIM Software

Whether you're gathering the data manually or using drone footage, creating 3D models of your construction project, called BIM or building information modeling can bring huge benefits. You get a much clearer, more lifelike representation of your project's intended result, supporting more efficient planning.

BIM software allows for all project subcontractors to work from the same model and ensure that their plans for installations are compatible. This prevents the need for change orders and rework, which can quickly rack up costs in the form of labor hours, material returns/purchases, and project delays. 

Working with BIM doesn't just protect profit margins during the construction process, it also allows owners and facility managers to increase savings once the building is operational. Most software supports the simulation and optimization of the facility's energy performance in the design stage, enabling significant energy cost reduction during the building's use. Additionally, BIM programs can monitor installations and notify owners when maintenance is needed, preventing the excessive expense that comes with reactive repairs and preventable damage.

Transport Logistics Management Programs

It may seem like a small item on a very long list of tasks, but arranging the pickups and deliveries of your project's materials and debris can be a big cost sink without careful management. Transport logistics management software can help you ensure that your hauling is efficiently planned and handled.

Programs like TRUX use GPS tracking and analytics to spot which trucking companies are giving you the best value, and even gives you the ability to mark your “favorites”, so you can alert them of upcoming work first. TRUX also uses a digital punch-out/punch-in system that tracks trucker work time down to the second. All of this gives you the ability to choose the most cost-effective haulers, schedule your hauls to minimize labor time, and avoid giving away money via rounding-up on trucker time cards.

Using this type of software ensures that you reduce your hauling-related expenses, saving funds that can be allocated to other parts of your project, or pocketed as profit. Want to get started?