Setting a schedule is one of the most critical components in residential construction. It gives your project direction and helps turn your estimate into an actionable plan. Because no two residential construction projects are exactly alike it’s not intuitive how to save time in your scheduling process. But just because two schedules aren’t identical doesn’t mean that the underlying milestones and processes aren’t the same. In fact, you’d be surprised how similar projects are when you boil them down to their base phases or project milestones. For example, any new build will always require excavation and framing, even if project to project the details differ. Leveraging this continuity with construction project management software allows you to save time, money, and resources in your residential construction scheduling process.
Why schedule templates?
Behind your estimate, your schedule is one of the most time-consuming processes of residential construction projects. It also is something that everyone is interested in seeing. Clients want to know when things are happening, trade partners want to know when they are needed, and team members need to know what tasks need to be completed by when. Plus, if multiple contributors are updating one schedule, things can get complicated very quickly.
In short, schedules become very important and widely used documents across a company. It makes sense for you to put in the time to get your schedule right, but often residential construction companies reinvent the wheel for every project when they don’t have to. CoConstruct’s scheduling features allow residential construction teams to create and update schedule templates. This means new projects don’t have to start from scratch but from a solid starting point where you can then customize to meet a specific project’s needs.
One template or multiple templates?
If your business performs multiple different types of projects on a regular basis then schedule templates become an even more valuable resource. Having schedule templates built out for new construction, full remodels, kitchen remodels, bath remodels, or whatever other types of projects your business tackles will allow you to quickly get the right schedule set up no matter what kind of project it is. This allows you to get even more time savings by using templates set up for your specific project needs. Conversely, even if your business only handles custom home builds you can still set up multiple templates to accommodate different types of custom home building projects. The goal is to not start with zero and instead start as close as possible to your finished schedule as you can get.
Schedule templates, in fact, don’t need to be for entire projects but can be built for specific phases of construction projects. For example, you could build out a schedule template for preconstruction to use on projects prior to breaking ground. CoConstruct’s scheduling features allow you to start with a schedule template that only covers a portion of your project and then pull in additional templates with more robust scheduling built out. This flexibility helps you customize and optimize your scheduling process to best fit with your workflow and to adjust to any individual project needs.
Change a template or add a new one?
Another advantage of schedule templates is that they can be updated to continue to meet your scheduling needs. For example, if your rough-in is historically run a day longer than scheduled, you can edit your current schedule template to give your projects more time to perform the task. This way you can keep your templates up-to-date with your current project needs or the realities of the current economic conditions. Alternatively, if you find yourself changing multiple components of your schedule templates, you can save your updated schedule as a template to use for the next similar project.
Saving time in your scheduling process by using scheduling templates will pay back dividends with more accurate schedules, faster scheduling communications, and greater scheduling flexibility. Learn more about CoConstruct’s construction scheduling software to see how automating your scheduling process can help your residential construction business.
