Over the past year and a half, all industries have experienced unexpected changes and challenges, but none so peculiar as the construction industry. The industry has seen a historic rise in the price of materials due to a myriad of factors. International tariffs on trade and the pandemic have caused disruptions in the supply chain, and natural disasters and lockdowns have led to the depletion of standard building materials. The shortage of materials has led to increases in the Producer Price Indexes of commodities across the board. Most notably wood, steel, and copper have seen 62.9%, 40.1%, and 44.2% increases of their PPIs in just one year from March 2020 to March 2021.
Along with the growing costs of a scarce supply, projects are seeing serious schedule delays as they await their long-over-due materials. At the same time, Congress is looking at a 2.3 trillion-dollar infrastructure improvements bill and Associated Builders and Contractors has forecasted a need for 430,000 new construction workers in 2021, which suggests that demand for these already scarce materials is will continue to go up. Between increasing demand for construction and an already limited supply of material, those in charge of managing construction are left with the difficult task of keeping their construction budget under control.
With the rising cost of construction, Owners need a solution that will assist them in managing costly project delays and cutting out any unnecessary expenditures. Here are three ways in which Projectmates can keep your costs contained:
- Projectmates has saved our clients an average of $32.9k by eliminating the need for paper bids and submittals, $7.5k per project by switching to a digital bidding process, and over $100k annual ‘interest’ savings for late invoice payments.
- Nearly 50% of RFIs are responded to in less than 1 day with Projectmates, which has led to a 74% reduction in delays caused by RFIs. And Change Orders are reviewed and approved within an average of 6 days, which is 4.75 fewer days than the industry standard. Reducing these timeframes keeps your projects on schedule so you’re not adding delay costs to your budget.
- Projectmates provides a place for you and your team to collaborate from initial planning to closeout, so you can be sure everyone is working from the very latest version – keeping mistakes and rework to a minimum.
Projectmates is a tried-and-true solution proven to save its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. From eliminating the need for paper to increasing productivity, Projectmates enables you to automate your construction program so you can always deliver on time and within budget.