Stuttgart 21, the Berlin airport BER, or the Elbphilharmonie.
Almost everyone knows these projects. And almost everyone associates them with massive cost overruns, delays, and complex challenges.
Of course every major project has its own story. There are political, technical, economic, and organizational reasons for problems and delays.
But on closer inspection, one thing stands out:
The handling of information.
Because regardless of industry, company size, or project volume, the success of a project depends largely on whether the right information reaches the right people at the right time.
This is exactly where digitalization begins.
Digitalization is more than software
When digitalization is mentioned, many people first think of:
Emails
Microsoft Teams
ERP systems
Excel files
Digital documents
These are important tools. But digitalization doesn't just mean converting analog processes into digital ones.
Digital transformation primarily means making information available faster, more transparently, and more reliably.
The crucial question is therefore not:
Which software do we use?
Instead:
How quickly does information travel from where it originates to the people who have to make decisions?
Where most information is generated
Many companies initially focus their digitalization initiatives on office work. Yet the bulk of relevant information often originates somewhere else:
on construction sites
in production halls
in the warehouse
in the service vehicle
on-site at the customer's
in workshops
That's where decisions are made, problems are identified, and progress is documented. That's where actual value is created.
And that's precisely where the data needed later for planning, control, and management are generated.
The information problem on construction sites
A construction site is a complex network of people, machines, materials, and decisions. Every day, information is generated about:
deliveries
working hours
material inventories
work progress
schedule changes
If this information is not captured and communicated promptly, so-called friction losses occur.
The consequences:
delays
A problem is identified or communicated too late.
wrong decisions
Decisions are made based on outdated information.
duplicate work
Information must be recorded or reconciled multiple times.
higher costs
Downtime, planning errors, and rework cause additional costs.
The real problem is often not a lack of work; it's a lack of information.
A real-world example
In a customer project we faced a situation that will likely be familiar to many companies. The relevant information was spread across different systems:
Excel spreadsheets
paper forms
phone calls
Emails
Isolated solutions in individual departments
This resulted in considerable organizational effort.
Read the case study for the project here.
Conclusion: Digitalization doesn't start in the office.
When we talk about digitalization, we often first think of desks, computers, and software. But real digitalization begins where information is created.
On construction sites. In workshops. In production halls. In the field.
Making information available faster, creating transparency, and intelligently connecting processes lays the foundation for increased productivity, better decisions, and more successful projects.
#Construction site digitalization#Construction process optimization#Construction site time tracking