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The construction industry generates a significant proportion of the world’s waste. With worldwide digitisation in full swing, going paperless is not only achievable for construction projects, it’s the least we can do to join the quest for a more sustainable future.

Consider this example:

A $200m project runs for two years.

This is how much paper is generated each day of the project:

• 8 site engineers: 80 sheets
• 4 project engineers: 20 sheets
• 8 supervisors: 40 sheets
• 2 safety reps: 40 sheets
• 2 quality reps: 40 sheets
• 1 environmental rep: 10 sheets
• 1 project manager: 5 sheets
• 4 administrative/accounts personnel: 100 sheets
• resources: 100 paper dockets

Based on these estimates, this project will amass a whopping 208,800 sheets – 1 tonne of paper – by the end of its two-year lifespan.

Time to talk about digitisation? We think so.

Going paperless: who are the losers?

No one! Literally everyone benefits from paperless construction projects. Beyond the obvious environmental wins, all stakeholders stand to gain from digitisation.

Construction teams win

Useful, real-time data. Mobile and electronic forms allow you to capture data on site and instantly make it available to everyone on the project.

No more double handling. Pen and paper are time-consuming and prone to human error, and written documentation and photographs have to be typed, scanned and collated in spreadsheets or Word documents later at the office.

No more lost documents. Pieces of paper get lost, particularly when they have to travel between locations. If documents such as permits disappear, work has to stop until they’re found or replaced. Store them digitally and this risk no longer exists.

Better storage and searchability. Filing paperwork is a headache, and scanned files take up much more storage space than electronic documents. In a digitised system, data can be stored and sorted in multiple ways (e.g. by discipline, sub-discipline, status, etc.) and documents can be found in a matter of seconds. The value of this is crystal clear if we consider these stats, published by Construction Business Owner:

• It takes an average of 18 minutes to find a paper document.
• 70% of businesses would fail in three weeks if they had a catastrophic loss of paper due to a fire or flood.

Clients win

At the end of a project, rather than receiving a truckload of paperwork (which then requires additional resources to sift through, scan and organise it), clients can be handed a digital record that is already organised, coherent and useful.

Future projects win

Related future projects benefit from easily searchable, high-quality historical data. This saves both clients and construction companies significant amounts of time and money.

Talk to the experts

The global imperative to reduce, reuse and recycle grows each day. At siteoffice.mobi, we’ve made it our business to improve data management and real-time communication, boosting efficiency, increasing transparency and saving you money – while working responsibly to reduce our industry’s environmental footprint. Talk to us today to find out more.