Just like a conductor of a symphony, a construction superintendent’s job is to coordinate all the moving parts and pieces of a construction project.
It includes managing people, materials, and equipment to ensure successful job completion to deliver the final project.
What Is the Role of a Construction Superintendent?
At its core, being a successful construction superintendent is all about resource management. Critical tasks include:
- Coordinating cross-project tasks
- Monitoring work and verifying quality standards
- Ensuring safety and compliance regulations
- Identifying problems and resolving conflicts
- Coordinating materials and equipment delivery with vendors and suppliers
- Tracking schedules, project progress, and resources
Construction Superintendent With Tablet in the Field
Superintendents have long relied on detailed daily logbooks to document progress and manage project updates. A project’s success is all about data! In the past years, savvy and progressive superintendents have drawn on technology to not only ease the management of all the data, but also to gain better actionable insights.
Below, we break down a few ways that a centralized construction management digital solution can benefit a superintendent and simplify their day-to-day tasks…
SYNCHRO Field and Control connect real-time project data through mobile and web solutions
Benefitting from Real-Time Access to Project Data
Superintendents are the overarching eyes and ears of a project. It’s often their daily observations that will drive the success—or failure—of a project. Monitoring project progress and flagging issues or inconsistencies when they arise is essential for success.
When daily log notes are accessible in the same place as models, issues, geo-referenced site reports, inspections, and RFIs, a superintendent is far more likely to see and resolve project issues that could derail a project.
With a central source of project data, the right digital field solution brings all project data together so superintendents can gather, sort, and assemble data from the field and the office within project context. A comprehensive data resource center with the capabilities to shape clear insights will mostly certainly help successfully deliver a long, difficult punch list.
Simplifying Coordination of Construction Tasks
Perhaps one of the most challenging tasks of a superintendent is managing all the different groups working on a jobsite.
Superintendents must know what every subcontractor is doing, when, and where. They need to be hands-on, ensuring that tasks are being completed in a timely manner, to keep the project moving on target. Effective coordination and collaboration ensure the quality of craftsmanship and materials.
The right digital field software can help superintendents manage all task statuses, quickly oversee project updates from a micro and macro level, and coordinate subcontractor schedules to keep operations running smoothly.
With such a hefty task list, implementing connected and digital technology helps superintendents ensure an orderly flow of work, sequence of operations, and quality of task performances. All notes and updates to work operations in field feed back into the central source of project data, allowing superintendents and all managers on the project—whether in field or office—to stay connected.
SYNCHRO Control’s full project dashboard and map views
Ensuring Compliance with Jobsite Safety Requirements
Safety is crucial on every jobsite, a task that many superintendents are held accountable to enforce. Walking around a jobsite and performing daily safety checks is a routine priority, as is an inspection list.
These lists track everything from jobsite access and security, as well as hazard communications, to housekeeping and fire prevention. They also include ensuring that everyone on the jobsite is following outlined safety protocols.
Maintaining a safe and clean jobsite happens through clear communication with the project team, including having the digital resources to raise issues or warnings as soon as they are flagged.
Empowering Superintendents with Digital Field Tools
Leveraging real-time access to project data, simplifying team coordination and collaboration, and enforcing health and safety management are three critical tasks of a superintendent—and all activities well-suited to technology support.
To see how a digital construction management solution can benefit your workflows as a superintendent, we invite you to discover SYNCHRO. SYNCHRO is a complete portfolio of integrated applications from field to office purpose-built to help construction firms win projects, deliver projects more efficiently, and optimize decision-making, resources, and profitability.
- SYNCHRO Field – a mobile solution that enables field teams to access and capture the field data they need—when they need it. It’s a team’s digital clipboard to easily capture issues, photos, inspections, and progress.
- SYNCHRO Control – a project management solution for all project data, documents, analysis, and insights in one place, so project goals can be reached faster.
- …and more!
