Table of Contents
1 – Workers need access to mobile devices
According to Redshift, the construction industry needs to build 13,000 buildings each day between now and 2050 to support an expected population of 7 billion people living in cities. While these numbers are staggering, the immediate challenge is that 80% of construction companies can’t find the workers they need. In order to address this shortage, many construction firms are leveraging mobile technology to make their workers more efficient.
Thanks to mobile technology, rapid communication is now possible between workers, sub-contractors and vendors. Project leaders can communicate changes up and down the chain allowing, decisions to be made faster and more efficiently.
Mobile phones and tablets enable workers to share project details and improve safety with easily accessible apps. Workers across job sites can immediately access any information relevant to their responsibilities and get real-time updates from project leaders. Cameras allow workers to photograph and send pictures of design aspects of jobs in progress, enabling on-the-fly changes and avoiding rework. Additionally, mobile devices allow construction firms to improve safety by making it easier for construction managers to track training sessions, ensure regulatory compliance, and report incidents or near-misses.
For IT teams, the growth in technology means more devices to manage and deploy. Device lifecycle management must become a priority to ensure productivity is not lost while workers wait for the tools they need.
2 – Digital transformation creates powerful opportunities and raises new questions
According to the World Economic Forum, “Within 10 years, full-scale digitization could lead to savings between $0.7-1.2 trillion (13- 21%) in the design, engineering, and construction phases and $0.3-0.5 trillion (10-17%) in the operations phase.” From mobile phones to AI and drones, the opportunities that technology creates is immense.
But unfortunately, 38.2% of construction firms cite “lack of staff to support the technology” as a primary limiting factor to adopting new technologies. [JB Knowledge] So how can construction firms balance the need to become more efficient and leverage innovation against already strained IT resources? Answering the following questions is a great place to start:
- What is the primary goal of enabling this user or group of users with the technology in hand?
- What peripheral accessories will this use case require?
- What software technologies should be paired with this hardware to enable the employee outcomes we are targeting for this deployment?
- What is the expected lifecycle of this unit?
- What carriers will be enabled for these units?
- Are these units being deployed one-to-one or one-to-many?
3 – IT needs to manage an increasingly complex infrastructure
The influx of new construction technologies can be intimidating, which means IT support for field workers is critical. On-site workers may need to use virtual reality, wearable technology, or work with various applications and project management software.
For already overloaded IT teams, this means adding complex device rollouts across multiple job sites and a wide variety of technologies. After rollout, those devices must be managed as employees come and go and job sites change. Without the right support, this can be a daunting task and lead to more cost than benefit which could hurt future technology adoption.
brightfin’s robust device lifecycle management can help your teams better plan, prepare, and deploy devices so that your workers always have the tools they need, in the configurations they need them in.