4 Good Reasons To Do Digital Quality Assurance
Why would we ever think about developing an app for quality assurance and punch lists? What is wrong with using pen and paper, going back and forth from the site to the office to prepare reports, like the old days? We asked ourselves this question and the answer is wrapped up in main 4 reasons.
Productivity has lots to gain, nothing to lose
Completing punch lists influences productivity in a negative way, because it’s a time-consuming process. But it is also necessary part of the quality assurance work. A mobile solution fights with this negative score of productivity, because it significantly cuts the time used to complete a punch list. Just think about the activities that you have to go through: take pictures on site, takes notes on paper, go back to the office, copy-paste pictures, rewrite notes in a report on your laptop, send e-mails, then keep track of questions and comments, go back to the site to solve the issue and so on.
READ: What is a Punch List or Snag List ❯
With a mobile solution, you easily use the same device for all these activities, without having to leave the construction site. More valuable hours spent on-site, more time fixing issues and getting quality assurance done. That’s huge improvement for us.
Quality Assurance doesn’t take ages
Generally, the developers of a project will have requirements of “good quality” that needs to be documented and worked upon. Then, good quality of any construction project assumes that there must be continuous quality assurance on site and that all errors and omissions are documented and dealt with immediately. But this process is the most time consuming and it is usually not prioritized by those involved in the project, resulting in postponing deadlines because of not fixed issues or worse, in losing money and clients because of bad management.
A mobile solution for quality assurance will make this job a lot easier, enjoyable and less time-consuming, because you can have all the tools in one device. The pen, paper, digital camera, laptop and e-mail that you need to take notes, photos, make endless phone calls, write a report and send it to your colleagues, will all be replaced with a smartphone, saving hours of travelling back and forth and thousands of neuronal synapses for your happy and frustration-free workmates.
Collaboration is better within the project
If it ever happened to forget to send the report to a key person in the project and that had consequences on the work, the money or the general atmosphere within the team, than you might wish to have a more efficient communication tool. Even worse, you might have experienced that you needed an urgent answer, but the person in charge couldn’t reach their laptop to see the e-mail until it was too late.
Situations like these can be avoided when you work with a mobile punch list app, like IssMan. Your project team is always on the right list, and they are much more likely to answer your urgent request when they see the message on their smartphone. That can make a difference for quality assurance done on time, on budget and with a happy face.
Documents stay safe and sound
If I should think about fields where you need to document every step of your work, construction industry will be a definite Top 5. Especially in Quality Assurance, paperwork is beloved king and there are tones of things to be documented. Computer storage is too risky to be trusted. Weeks and months of work can disappear in a second if your computer crashes. A kilometer of written paper, folded in archives is not the solution either, but good thing that “the cloud” came around.
With a mobile solution, your information is saved “in the air” every few seconds, where it is safe, clash-free and you can access it from any device you own. That should help giving you a good night sleep.
