New Study Shows Power of Site Organization Analytics to Boost Productivity

A new study from Dodge Construction Network and Versatile®, a construction technology pioneer using artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) to optimize construction processes, found using data-backed measurements and benchmarks is the most effective way to enhance site organization efforts.

A fundamental task of every construction project is site organization; however, various obstacles can prevent general contractors from improving their approach and execution. The study, “Measuring What Matters: Site Organization,” offers insights into how measuring site activities can drive real efficiencies to organizational processes.  

“Construction industry professionals are bursting with decades of deep technical knowledge and prowess. Data collection is the key to harnessing that prowess and creating repeatable, actionable insights that can optimize day-to-day execution for job sites,” said Meirav Oren, CEO and co-founder of Versatile. “Benchmarks highlight a team’s natural efficiencies as well as opportunities to hit new performance metrics. This study shows how presenting and using insights from CraneView informs the decision-making process for site organization — offering contractors a unique way to scale and even reduce unplanned overtime.”

To conduct the study, analyzed data was collected by Versatile’s AI- and IoT-powered CraneView®, an integrated system which leverages an under-the-hook lifting accessory to seamlessly collect data to automatically produce reports for field personnel. CraneView presented insights pulled directly from active job sites that reinforced the tangible impact of measuring site organization activity and crane utilization as well as identifying planning inefficiencies that ultimately affect project performance.

Key findings from the study include:

• Construction type can impact organizational benchmarks: On average, 18% of the overall crane activity on a cast-in-place concrete project is devoted to site organizational activities, compared with steel (11%) and precast (5%).
• Teams who organize in advance of a day’s work see a significant decrease in crane idle time: In one case study, organizing the evening for the next day’s activities cut crane idle time in half. Plus, daily installations were increased by 25% when at least three loads were organized the day before.
• Batching materials—setting up the crane for consecutive picks of the same load type and process—led to overall shorter cycle times: Across all construction build types, batching reduces cycle times by 20% to 30% on average.

“A lack of efficient site organization practices can reduce productivity, generate more materials wastes, and increase worker safety risks. This report demonstrates that data helps contractors to address those challenges by revealing better strategies for their site planning,” says Dr. Donna Laquidara-Carr, industry insights research director at Dodge Construction Network. “Contractors armed with useful and actionable data will be more successful planning and staying ahead of the unexpected.”

The study is the second in the companies’ ongoing series of reports highlighting the power of data and analytics on the job site. The first installment of the co-authored series, “Measuring What Matters: Overtime Efficiency,” was published on Jan. 11, 2022.

The full findings of the study are available for download at construction.com.

About Versatile

Headquartered in Los Altos, CA, Versatile creates technology that gives construction professionals unmatched visibility into their production rates.​ By delivering the right data to the right people at the right time while naturally fitting existing processes, a fragmented industry becomes a controllable manufacturing process. The result? Increased productivity, predictability and safety with the insights needed to manage and bid on future projects more competitively.