Whether it’s design changes or snags, there are many things that need to be tracked in construction. Usually trackers come in the form of an excel spreadsheet on a shared drive which is the primary source of information for a number of different people. Read on as we reveal how to use BaseStone as a tracking tool and how we’ve made this easier in the latest release. We found that many construction teams were using BaseStone as an information tracker (or alongside an existing tracker). They told us that it would make their lives a lot easier if they could view, search and filter issues across all of the projects.
New Issue Tracker Tab This is exactly what we’ve done in the new ‘Issue Tracker’ section which you can access from the main menu bar. Use the filters, search, tag and sort functions to display what you need. Clicking an issue will open it on the relevant drawing.
Using BaseStone as a Tracker : Case Study To highlight how to use BaseStone as a tracker, here’s an example of how the Costain Skanska Joint Venture (CSJV) track Field Change Requests (FCRs) on Crossrail’s C405 Paddington project. Using BaseStone as a tracker, the right people have access to the most up to date information including their designers, WSP, and subcontractors Fourway and SRW. Firstly, when a Field Change Request is raised by the site team, a new Issue is created on BaseStone. The drawing is marked up to show where the FCR is, the title of the issue is set to the FCR number and a description is added in the description field.
The FCR form is scanned and attached to the issue so that all of the information is in one place. Photos and additional sketches are also attached to the issue. Next, the FCR is assigned to the responsible designer from WSP to review. The assignee will receive an email notifying them the details of the issue. The designer will add a comment to the issue if they have any questions.
Fourway keep an excel spreadsheet of the FCRs outside of BaseStone for their own assurance process. As the project is in the later stages, they are working to close out the FCRs and need to locate them quickly on BaseStone to then mark them as closed on the system so that everyone can see the status. This is where the new Issue Tracker feature comes into play as the FCRs are across multiple project folders, set up by location and discipline. The Issue Tracker lets you search and filter across all issues in the organisation.
When all of the assurance information is attached to the issues, each FCR is exported in the form of a BaseStone report which includes the photos, comments and marked up drawing. This is given to the main contractor’s assurance team to sign off.
Implementation Manager, Malcolm Simpkin from the CSJV team said ‘finally a joined up way of working for the construction industry to emerge from the dark ages. Easy to use but powerful and effective project management collaboration tool’.
The importance of trackers in construction cannot be understated. As a common point of both information collection and retrieval for multiple parties, they have big part to play in the progress of the project. Trackers are most commonly held in Excel spreadsheets which can cause problems around versioning. Using a technological solution like BaseStone eliminates the risk that people are using outdated information and is the best alternative to using Excel trackers.
As well as tracking FCRs, BaseStone can also be used as a:
NCR Tracker (Non-Conformance Reports)
TQ Tracker (Technical Queries)
ITP Tracker (Installation Test Plan)
The new issue tracker is now in the web application. It will be available soon in the iOS app in the next release (3.7). We will be working to make further improvements to BaseStone’s tracking functionality. Please do let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can make your life easier.