Technology continues to shape the way we work. From smart devices to cloud computing, technology changes workflows, teams, and outcomes for companies in a wide range of industries.

Regardless of whether it’s in a large corporation or a startup, digital tools can help teams complete tasks more efficiently.

By successfully implementing digital technology into work, many industries are able to reap the time-saving and productivity-boosting benefits allowed by modernizing the way they work.

However, in construction, many teams still aren’t using technology. This effectively hinders them from attaining higher levels of productivity.

With the numerous capabilities of modern digital tools, there’s no question as to whether they can help construction teams perform better. If teams can use them on-site, in planning projects and communicating with clients and subcontractors, they can accomplish more in shorter amounts of time, as well as produce better work for clients.

Let’s have a look at the different technologies that can be of great use to construction teams.

Time and location tracking apps for easier team management

Due to the nature of the work in construction, time and location tracking go hand-in-hand. The two features combine to produce unquestionable proof of work and make the managers’ jobs easier.

Tracking each hour worked by team members

Monitoring the hours worked by each crew member has been one of the biggest management problems for contractors. Finding ways to accurately track where and when crews are working is a challenge that team leaders have been dealing with for a long time.

A lot of teams are still using paper-based timesheets. While they can provide project managers with a general idea of how long the team members have worked for the day, they can be easily manipulated.

This leads to time wasted on investigating discrepancies in the recorded hours.

Accurate time tracking software eliminates this problem. With time tracking apps for mobile devices, every minute worked by the team is automatically recorded and stored. Both managers and business owners can access this information at any time.

Know where the team has worked throughout the day

Keeping an eye on each crew member in a construction team is inefficient, not to mention physically impossible. It’s important to make sure that everyone is doing their job, but the more relevant tasks should always be the priority.

GPS location monitoring makes an otherwise impractical task simple. With location monitoring features, team leaders can get insight into what the crew has accomplished for the day. The data gathered also serves as proof that the work has been done, for both contractors and clients.

The latest update to GPS tracking is geofencing, which automatically starts and stops time tracking as someone enters a job site. It’s a simpler way to keep track of team hours so that estimates and invoices are easier to generate and more accurate.

Building information modeling: seamless project planning

Project failure can be caused by many factors, but poor planning has always been one of the leading culprits. Proper planning provides the best foundation to a successful project. It should be executed very carefully, and all factors surrounding the project should be considered. Otherwise, future complications like reworks and additional costs are inevitable.

Building information modeling software is excellent for construction projects. BIM apps make sure that team members are in-sync so they can plan and work together effectively. Other benefits of BIM software include risk mitigation, reduced errors, and prefabrication.

The main feature of BIM software is 3D modeling. It is used to detect structural problems in the early stages of the project. However, BIM software comes with other useful features like cost estimation and scheduling, as well. These features can be integrated into the 3D models to make sure that plans are as detailed and accurate as possible.

Virtual reality: Improve training quality and client communications

When talking virtual reality, entertainment and media are often the first applications to come to mind. However, VR’s impressive capabilities make it a valuable asset to have in a construction team.

Better training, better output

Providing in-depth training to crew members is crucial in a time when a large part of the workforce approaches retirement. Stepping in will be the newer and less experienced generation.

Virtual reality allows the crew members to understand and navigate around the site better than floor plans and blueprints. It gives them a clearer understanding of the project and helps them operate on-site more effectively.

Communicate with clients more clearly

In addition to being excellent for training purposes, virtual reality also helps client and contractor communicate better. Ineffective communications, per Coreworx, is the primary contributor to project failure a third of the time.

With virtual reality, clients can see the projected output early on so they can inform the contractors of misunderstandings, and if any adjustments are necessary. This greatly decreases the possibility of reworks—and in the worst case scenario—project failure.

Artificial intelligence: the next frontier

Significant leaps in artificial intelligence have been made in recent years. With the wide range of capabilities AI has, it has the potential to be a fully reliable support system for construction teams.

AI can affect construction in a variety of ways. When fed with information about the project, AI can aid architects and engineers in creating construction plans. Robotics can help crew members perform physically demanding tasks easier.

Further, AI also has administrative capabilities to assist team managers. When workers input absences into the system, the AI can automatically assign the task to another crew member to keep the flow of work going.

The future of construction

New and more advanced technologies are being developed by the day. Despite being slow in adopting technology, a change in the way construction teams work is inevitable.

Construction teams can look forward to a more streamlined work process, with support from the latest digital tools. Technology moves improvements forward, and if teams can take advantage of this, they can discover more efficient ways to perform their jobs.

Author’s bio:

Dave Nevogt has created several million-dollar companies, and is the co-founder and the current CEO of Hubstaff, a time tracking software for on-site work crews with online timesheets, scheduling, billing and invoicing.

Dave Nevogt

Co-founder, Hubstaff

https://hubstaff.com

@hubstaff

California residents who want to know how to become a general contractor in California must first understand the definitions, exemptions and mandatory requirements. Any business or person who works to construct or alter a building, parking facility, roadway, excavation, railroad property or other structure must be licensed by the CSLB, or Contractors State License Board. This requirement holds for any project where labor and materials cost $500 or more. Reasons to get a contractor’s license in California include:

• It’s the law.
• Contractors can sue customers in court when they don’t pay.
• You can qualify for discounts from suppliers.
• Licensed contractors can join builders’ associations that offer job postings, group insurance plans and planning rooms.
• Contractors can legally advertise their services.
• You can pull building permits.

In California, there are four licensing classifications:

1. A: General Engineering
2. B: General Building
3. C: Specialty Classes
4. D: Limited Speciality Classes

The mandatory requirements for contractor licensing include being 18-years-old or older, having a valid Social Security number and demonstrating the skills and experience to manage the daily activities of a construction business. Both individuals and business entities can be licensed.

Journey-Level Experience

Contractor licensing applicants must have four years of journey-level experience within the last 10 years. Journey-level experience includes work as a journeyman, foreman, contractor, builder/owner or supervising employee of a general contractor. You can also receive credit in the following ways:

• Up to 1.5 years credit for receiving an Associate of Arts degree from an accredited institution.
• Up to two years credit for receiving a four-year degree in economics, business, math, physics or degrees related to trades or crafts related to construction.
• Up to three years credit for a Certificate of Completion of Apprenticeship in a contacting-related field.

The Application Process for Becoming a General Contractor

Individuals, partnerships, LLCs and corporations must complete and submit “An Application for Original Contractor License.” If you were already licensed within the past five years and remain in good standing or work with a qualifying individual, you must also complete and submit “An Application for Original Contractor License,” but the exam requirement is waived. A processing fee, licensing fee and classification fee are required when you apply. The classifications are general contractor, building contractor and specialty contractor. There are many specialty classifications, which can be found at www.cslb.ca.gov.

You can also qualify for licensing by entering an apprenticeship in California. These are run by trade unions and local employers and last between three and five years. It also helps your employment prospects if you earn optional certifications from the Construction Management Association of America or The American Institute of Constructors. These certifications include Certified Construction Manager, or CCM, Associate Constructor, or AC, and Certified Professional Constructor, or CPC. You could also enter an apprenticeship, which are administered by trade associations, trade unions and local employers.

Passing the California Exam for Becoming a General Contractor

Contractors can qualify with related work experience or education, but there are no requirement for continuing education. The state’s contractor’s exam has 100 questions that must be answered within 2.5 hours. A score of 72 percent is required to pass the exam. You can access study guides at www.cslb.ca.gov. These guides include general contracting and specialty guides for all kinds of building and designing issues such as landscaping and working with sheet metal, ornamental metal and structural steel.

New applicants must first pass an open-book exam on dealing with asbestos. Passing this exam doesn’t qualify you to work with asbestos but simply shows that you’re aware of the problems that asbestos creates. Those who want to qualify to remove or install underground storage containers must be certified in this work. You may only apply for one license at a time, and you must have the required work experience before you can take the exam.

Other requirements for licensing include putting up a $15,000 bound or leaving a cash deposit with the CSLB. This bond can be used to satisfy claims of defective construction or to pay employees who weren’t paid for their work. A license can also be denied for certain criminal convictions.

Exemptions to Contractor Licensing

There are exemptions to mandatory licensing in California, and these include the following situations:

• Minor Work – Work and repairs that cost less than $500 for both materials and labor are exempt from licensing.
• Public Employees – Those public employees who work on projects are exempt from licensing.
• Owner Builders – People who own property can work on it without a license.
• Business Employees – Employees can work on projects where they are wholly directed by others. Those who can direct this work include licensed contractors and property owners.
• Structural Improvements – Owners can repair or improve their property without a license if they don’t intend to sell the property within a year.
• Manufacturer Exemption – Manufacturers that produce or install finished products that don’t become a part of a finished structure care are exempt from licensing.

Online Assistance

You can find information, study guides and online forms that are easy to fill out at the CSLB’s interactive website. Downloadable forms are also available at Uslegalforms.com.

Attending carpentry trade school prepares you for a potentially lucrative career in a growing industry. I’d like to provide you with an overview of what to expect from trade school, how to find a good program and why taking this route is a smart choice for learning a hands-on vocation.

In a society where service industries dominate, carpentry remains an essential trade. When you go to carpentry school, you develop skills in high demand and differentiate yourself from a large part of the workforce. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Why Choose Carpentry Trade School?

I know how frustrating it can be to wade through two years of prep courses in a college program before delving into the subject you want to study. Trade schools, however, get right down to business. If you’re there to learn carpentry, you start right away with relevant academic courses and practical application. Classes are taught by people with experience in the field, so you spend your time learning from the best.

Trade school programs are often shorter and cheaper than four-year degree options and offer impressive career opportunities. Many people who attend trade school make just as much as or even more than college graduates without the additional burden of excessive student loans. Getting into carpentry gives you the added advantage of having skills not likely to be taken over by machines and with applications in a variety of industries.

What to Expect in Carpenter School

It’s not an exaggeration to say learning carpentry is hard work. If you’re not ready to apply yourself to a hands-on program requiring attention to detail and a head for numbers, my advice is to find another trade. However, for those who love working with their hands and being productive on the job every day, training to be a carpenter should be a delight.

As you go through a carpentry program, you’ll attend a combination of courses involving both book learning and actual building projects. Master craftsmen will show you how to avoid small errors with the potential to cause big problems in real-world situations, and you’ll become comfortable working with a variety of tools and materials.

If possible, I recommend attending a trade school offering an associate degree. This gives you the option of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the future, and degrees can make your resume stand out to potential employers.

What are Carpentry Classes Like?

Although it’s not as diverse as a traditional college program, carpentry school packs a lot of information into just a couple of years. You can expect to take classes covering subjects like:

• Math and science, including algebra, geometry and physics

• Tool selection, use and care

• Understanding principles and procedures of construction

• Architectural drawing

• Blueprint design and reading

• Building codes

• Choosing and measuring materials

• Framing and roofing

• Interior and exterior finishing, including siding and molding

• Door and window placement

• Machine woodworking

• Project management

• Making accurate estimates

• Technology and mechanical systems

Each of these courses provides you with some of the tools you need to become a skilled carpenter. The best way to put it all together is to seek out an apprenticeship where you can see how what you learn in school works when you’re out on the job.

The Benefits of Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships have been around since the Middle Ages when young people learned trades from masters in local craft guilds. This practical method of on-the-job training has endured for so long because it plunges participants right into the careers they want to pursue while providing skilled guidance every step of the way.

To become an apprentice carpenter in the U.S., you must be 18 years old and have at least a high school diploma. Coming out of trade school and into an apprenticeship or overlapping your apprentice work with classes gives you a chance to become much more familiar with the trade. It also provides the experience employers look for when hiring carpenters, giving you an advantage over those who opt to go straight into the industry. Your transition to a career will be smoother, and you’ll feel confident in the skills you were able to refine as an apprentice.

Taking part in an apprenticeship can also serve as guidance for your future job. In my experience, the longer you work at something, the more you realize what activities you like and what you’d rather avoid. Fortunately for aspiring carpenters, there are plenty of interesting niches in which to specialize. Your time as an apprentice can point you toward your particular specialty and simplify your career path.

After You Graduate

Upon graduating from trade school or finishing your apprenticeship, it’s time to decide how to use the skills you’ve learned. Prospects are good for those who have attended carpenter school. The industry is expected to grow 6 percent between 2014 and 2024, and the median annual salary in 2015 was $42,090. Many carpentry jobs also include benefits, such as health insurance and retirement savings plans, and careers in the field are fairly secure.

Other options after graduation include:

• Framing and residential construction

• Commercial construction

• Industrial construction

• Crafting wood products

• Restoring furniture

• Assisting other carpenters

• Working from home

You can also take what you learn in carpentry classes and apply it to a different type of job requiring the same skills. Any career in which pattern recognition, keen visualization, precise calculations and an understanding of how to translate drawings into physical objects is a possibility for students of carpentry.

As you consider carpentry classes, I advise you to look into several trade schools and apprenticeships. Talk with people already working in the industry for their opinions on the available opportunities, and carefully review the course materials for the programs you’re considering. When you find the right trade school, be ready to work hard and apply yourself to learning the craft so that you have access to the best career opportunities after graduation.

Some time ago I was approached to do an interview by a major online publication, but for whatever reason they never actually used the material.  I spent a good deal of time putting together my answers for the questions, and have decided that instead of the whole thing being a complete waste of time that I would instead publish it here at Rich Contractor.  Have a read…maybe you’ll actually pick up something helpful:

What is your top advice for a beginning contractor to get his or her business started on the right foot?

For those just starting out, it’s imperative that they have all their legal and administrative ducks in a row before they even think about swinging a hammer on somebody else’s property.  This protects both the contractor and the consumer.  Specifically, he or she should register with their state as an LLC or S corporation, they should secure a license if required, and they should be fully insured and bonded.  It’s surprising how many aspiring contractors skip one or more of these very basic steps in the beginning, but those who do are playing with fire in my opinion.

Is there a fast track to success for contractors? If so, how does one get on it?

In order to ramp up quickly you absolutely must have a presence on the internet.  Consumers continue to move away from more traditional forms of marketing (like the phone book) and are instead looking online for service providers.  A good-looking business website is critically important, and it should also have a built-in blog that is routinely updated.  Smart contractors also leverage Google My Business, the Google Pay-Per-Click program, and social sites like Facebook to completely flesh out a web presence that will pull in leads over and over again.  Many new contractors are reluctant to take this route and would rather just bang on doors, but marketing online is the way things are headed.  Those who embrace this reality will leap over their competitors in a relatively short period of time.  I’ve done it myself and I’ve seen it done by others countless times.

What is the best way to distinguish yourself as a contractor in the eyes of a potential customer?

The most common trait I’ve noticed with the contractors who find success is that they excel in communication with their team and with their clients.  They articulate well during the bidding process, they return calls and emails right away during the work phase, and they follow-up after completion to ensure that their customers are thrilled with the final product.  Homeowners love this kind of attention, and it tends to result in repeat work and lots of free referrals for the contractor.  Most service providers aren’t very good with this aspect of their business, but that opens up huge opportunities for the ones who are.  For those who have amazing construction skills but simply aren’t good with people, I would advise that they partner with someone who IS – perhaps a spouse, friend, or trusted associate.

What are the most common mistakes that beginning contractors make?

Aside from not communicating well and not leveraging the power of the internet, perhaps the most common rookie mistakes are wasteful equipment spending and under-pricing work.  It’s a double whammy that can doom a business from the very beginning.  For example, the new contractor who runs out and buys a brand new $40,000 work truck on credit is kneecapping himself from day one.  The $1000 monthly payments will seriously hamper his ability to buy other necessary tools and products, and he’ll be scrambling to stay afloat from the get-go.  A perfectly good, no-frills, used F-150 can be purchased for under $10,000, and this can free up all kinds of cash on a month-to-month basis.  Perhaps unexpectedly, this is quite often the same kind of contractor who will lowball his estimates in a desperate attempt to get work so that he can keep up with his bills.  It becomes a slippery slope where he makes less and less money for his time but his costs continue to climb.  It’s just a matter of time before he has to throw in the towel and call it quits.  This can all be avoided by keeping costs as low as possible while charging a fair market rate in the beginning.  As the business proves itself and becomes larger then increased spending on better equipment becomes a more viable option.

Success story?

Just in a general sense, what I’ve discovered is that my efforts to improve my businesses have had the unexpected side-effect of improving myself.  The occasional issues that have arisen with customers and vendors have forced me to get better when it comes to conflict resolution, communicating effectively, and negotiating.  I feel it’s made me a better all-around person, and these are improvements I’m not sure would have happened otherwise.  So it’s been a story both of financial and personal success.

Horror story?

One of the first jobs we had seemed like a horror story as we experienced it, but in retrospect I see that it taught us some valuable lessons and forced us to get better.  What was supposed to be a one-week project turned into three weeks of misery.  The homeowner questioned every single thing we were doing, she watched over our shoulder almost the entire time, and she complained about everything from dust in the air to the noise of our tools.  To cap it off, she accidentally sideswiped my truck in the driveway one day, causing thousands of dollars of damage.  We couldn’t wait to finish it up and get out of there.  Yes, the customer was kind of nuts, but I see now that we did a lot to fuel the problems.  The difficult clients are the ones who make you better, oddly enough.

What does the contractor industry look like today versus 20, 30 years ago? Any big changes?

I think the big thing is how technology and the advent of the internet has forced contractors to evolve and to work more on managing their reputation.  It used to be that hiring a contractor was a roll of the dice.  Now, prospective clients can go online and get a more transparent look at your company from the likes of Angie’s List, Google reviews, and the BBB.  It’s great in the sense that truly great services and companies tend to be rewarded for their efforts.  There’s never been a better time to be a contractor if you’re honest, competent, and professional.