Lessons Learnt Series - What can we learn from A.G Coombs around internal and external collaboration

Buildings are where our we live, shop, and work. For construction companies, these considerations around safety, insurability and longevity mean there is no room for human error. 

However, human error can be difficult to minimise when it takes a village – from project owners to builders and suppliers - to design and build new infrastructure and facilities. While parts of the industry may have embraced digitalisation for the sake of going digital, the trend is necessary for the future of construction.  

State legislation, such as the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020, highlights digitalisation as the key to a higher standard of operations, safety and project delivery expected of the industry. At a time when profit margins are squeezed and companies are competing for projects, any incremental productivity or profitability gains is vital to gain a competitive edge. 

Innovative organisations have embraced cloud-based tools and methodologies to increase their Return on Investment (ROI) – for both internal processes and client services alike. Cloud-based project management platforms, like Smartsheet, eliminate time-consuming manual data entry and duplications. This improves transparency and access to real-time reports for important decision-making. 

More importantly, it lays the foundation to empower 360-degree team collaboration to stay focused on strategic areas of the project, even in the face of disruption. 
 

A rising tide lifts all boats

At the heart of leveraging technology is its collaboration potential. Digital tools that support communication needs – from email and file-sharing to sharing project updates from wherever in real-time – are key to running projects efficiently and at scale. In the era of remote work, this is even more important. A flexible cloud-based platform not only restores the natural communication that usually happens on-site or in physical offices, but keeps businesses operating as usual across different locations and activities. 

It’s also important to invest in training and skill development for all users, as a team is only as strong as its weakest player. This, as well as data being available in a user-friendly and accessible format, is more likely to be more impactful to user adoption. Smartsheet recognises this, and provides content and training online in its Learning Center, where customers can gain the knowledge required to achieve the full value of their cloud-based platform. 

A.G. Coombs, a leading specialist provider of building services, was able to unlock full employee collaboration with the support of Smartsheet – with nearly 100 licensed users able to share information with more than 1,000 external collaborators. 

Improved collaboration leads to better safety and documentation 

Large or small, it is important for all construction organisations to have the capabilities to meet their reporting obligations. To meet standards and safety requirements often requires capturing and tracking a wide variety of data, such as aggregate signals from sensors and data from onsite observations. 

It is here that technology is key, helping project managers manage and automate processes to support compliance needs, including developing a standards repository that will provide a single place for essential information. 

For A.G. Coombs, the challenge of managing worksite safety and meeting Australia’s COVIDSafe public health requirements was mitigated by having a system in place - visible to all parties involved. Data was captured in a simple and fit-for-purpose dashboard that enabled managers to monitor the status of their teams, as well as sending automated reminders for people to complete surveys and checklists required for their roles. 

With the support of Smartsheet solutions, this reduced the team’s daily COVID survey to around an hour and gave the HR team the visibility to follow up appropriately on confirmed cases among staff members if required.
 

With Smartsheet – the enterprise platform for dynamic work – you can make the move to more efficient project management today with our 30-day free trial that comes with access to many pre-structured and customisable templates. Streamline your projects by following these best practices to increase consistency, from project initiation to completion.