5 Signs It’s Time to Up-level Project Information Management at Your AEC Firm

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Does your architecture, engineering, or construction (AEC) firm have tools in place that provide your team with access to the most current project information at all times? Explore how implementing a project information management (PIM) solution provides next-level document and email management – empowering your team, improving accuracy, and reducing risk. Read on to discover five key benefits.

1. Find Project Information Faster

When a client calls with a project-related question, can your team quickly find the right files, or do you need to call them back after you locate the information? Considering that 19% of an employee’s time is spent looking for information (McKinsey) and 25% of poorly filed documents will never be located (Gartner), without the proper tools in place your team may be spending more time on this than necessary.

With a PIM system, AEC firms can find drawings or documents completed yesterday, last week, or last year, in a matter of minutes. All project information is accessible from anywhere in one secure location – including emails, documents, and drawings. So, when it’s crunch time, your team will have all the necessary information at their fingertips!

“Having all of that information in one place and to be able to easily share it with clients where needed has made collaboration much easier."

JPE Design Studio

2. Take Control of Your Email

Email is not a project management tool, but for the majority of AEC firms, it’s one of the primary ways they manage projects. And, did you realize that employees spend 28% of their day managing email (McKinsey)? That’s almost a day and a half each week!

With hundreds of emails to manage every day, implementing a solution that supports efficient email management produces big wins. All project emails will be available anytime, anywhere in one integrated and secure location with no duplicates – so your team can spend minutes, not hours on email management. You’ll even have access to project emails for employees that are out of the office or no longer with the firm!

"PIM usually saves a couple of hours through automatic document transmittal alone. If we do this once or twice a week across five or six different sectors, we’re looking at roughly 24-hours a week saved. There are other time savings too, even email filing – if you save a minute every time you file an email, over 100 staff, 20 times a day that adds up. This means our people can spend more time focused on the things they do best."

DesignInc Syndey

3. Improve Information Accuracy

Are your project drawings, correspondence files, submittals, etc. stored in multiple locations? Do you have files that are still stored physically and electronically for the same project? Are team members wasting time working in an outdated version?

According to Tech Crunchies, 83% of workers struggle with version issues daily. Firms with PIM can proactively manage projects through the entire project lifecycle, instead of waiting until the project is complete to start organizing files.

“One of the biggest improvements we’ve seen is in the collaboration across our teams. We’ve standardized where templates and files are stored, everybody has access to the documents they need, and it’s easier for team members to pick up from where others have left off.”

HB Projects

4. Make File Sharing Easy

Design files can be huge and sharing them across offices and with external teams should be easy. Is your team struggling to find a platform that works for everyone, is secure, and doesn’t bog down servers or require expensive data storage?

Ninety-two percent of organizations believe that something needs to change and that they must modernize their information management strategy (The Association for Intelligent Information Management). With PIM, file sharing and workflows are streamlined, making teams more efficient.

"We needed a system that can cope with the demands of our business both now and in the future. Data needs to be securely managed yet also easily accessible by multi-disciplinary teams."

Britplas

5. Reduce Firm Liability

Your organization’s intellectual property is one of your greatest assets. Are all your drawings, documents, and emails secure? Can you easily find what you need to protect your firm during a dispute? Are you clear on what information needs to be retained and for how long?

IDC found that 76% of companies experience significant business risks and/or compliance incidents as a result of broken document management processes and that an effective document management strategy could reduce costs by 30% and lower risk by 23%.

“Previously, we worked in a shared network location, but it was difficult for our teams to work on the same files – there were risks around ensuring they were working on the correct version. But now, we have robust version control, which ensures accuracy and reduces risk,”

HB Projects

Do You Know Where Your Project Information Is?

With Deltek PIM, your team will be able to get up to speed on projects quickly and respond to clients faster – improving the client experience and helping to increase repeat work.