MoBuild®

Context

On construction sites there are a lot of events to manage. Those events are distributed on the construction site and occur often simultaneously. Project performance is increased with an improved communication about those events. For instance, schedule, task progress management, defect management, "recette" or conformity assessments need to communicate clear facts and statements with pictures of the site and textual or verbal instructions. In the case of unexpected events, such as defects, quick and effective communications are needed. For instance, performance analyses of defect management have shown the negative financial impact on the contract value and negative operational impacts such as increased delays and site safety. The usual way to communicate about those events is with hand-filled paper-forms or drawings that are sent by e-mailed scans of by fax.

Overview

Our solution MoBuild^® improves the communication of site events by using pictures as the main entry point so that the context of the event becomes obvious at first glance. The pictures can be easily tagged with key-words or can be annotated with vocal, graphical and textual information. Simple mobile computing devices, such as a smartphone, can be used by professionals working on the construction site, as well as by clients. The application has been designed for all types of construction sites (residential, building, commercial, industrial or institutional).

The design of MoBuild^® is based on the feedback from surveys and interviews of professionals, and the use of the application in several construction sites.

Benefits

Events are quickly captured with pictures, categorised with tags and then reported with additional vocal, graphical and textual information. Efficient retrieval is obtained with the use of tags and pictures as the main entry point. In addition to classical retrieval, tags and pictures allow searches with semantic zooming. Near instant and secured communication is achieved with emails.

The information is electronic from start of capture and does not need any further data entry or paper-based processing. Tags can be used to satisfy an automatic processing according agreed classifications in addition to usual information such as date/time and creator. Predefined classifications are ready to use. Those classifications have been created with professionals of construction projects.