How No-Code Solutions can transform the Engineering and Construction Industry

Quixy Editorial Team

August 11, 2023

This article (No-Code: The digital foundation Engineering and Construction Industry needs!) was first published on Nasscom Community

Project Managers in engineering and construction companies lead a tough life as it is. Being on top of everything right from inspection to procurement to finances is more difficult than it sounds. They are expected to manage a plethora of functions with eagle-like precision as even the slightest of issues might lead to major hurdles going ahead in the project. And for years, this is how the engineering and construction industry functioned. But not anymore! Digital transformation has led to a change in the way processes are carried out.

But what is the best technology one can choose? Today each organization is unique with its own unique processes and requirements. One-size-fits-all ready-to-use COTS software may not be suitable for every size of an infrastructure company. Plus they are hard to customize and may not address all the business needs. On the other hand, getting custom software developed can be a very time consuming and costly affair.

No-code platforms, as a much preferred alternative, provide an easy-to-use visual interface that empowers business users to automate their processes and build applications to meet their unique needs wthout writing a single line of code.

Learn More: What is No-Code? How is it different from Low-Code?

In no-code, project managers and engineers have found a much-needed messiah in the form of workflow automation that can reduce inefficiencies and hassles from their processes. All without having to write a single line of code.

No-code for engineering and construction is without a doubt the biggest disruptor that ensures the success of complex projects under the time and budget prescribed. In fact, Gartner suggests that despite cost optimizations due to the pandemic, remote development will push more and more organizations to adopt no-code/low-code tools. The benefits that no-code solutions bring to the table are immediate and important. This should come as no surprise because no-code interventions like speed, flexibility, iterability, and democratization are the need of the hour for the engineering and construction industry.

No-code software development drives innovation, preventing you from having a disadvantage over your competitors. No-Code Workflow automation is becoming the norm of the industry, and we are sure you don’t want to be left behind. No-code innovation drives revenue growth, enhances your processes, and increases the speed and quality of your project delivery.

Benefits of No-Code in Engineering and Construction Industry

Let’s take a look at exactly how your organization stands to benefit by adopting the no-code approach:

1. Site inspection for Engineering and Construction

With no-code tools, you can customize your site visit forms to capture key parameters, photos, videos, and all other data you need to create a detailed and accurate project plan and pricing. This leads to enhanced productivity, as the speed of collecting substantial and precise data with apps that deliver instant data updates to a secure central location is greatly increased.

Make delays a thing of the past with the power to automate status updates from inspections and share them with your team in no time. By using flexible workflow automation to route data for approvals, you can greatly enhance the speed and efficiency of decision making. Another benefit of no-code for the engineering and construction industry is that it reduces the dependency on inspectors and operators to gather information and produce reports by instantly recording data. These records are rich, insightful, and allow you to dig deep into inspection processes.  

2. Project estimation

Project managers are required to find the right balance between the six constraints of scope, time, cost, quality, resources, and risk to arrive at the accurate estimation of a project. Enabled with the power of rich and precise reports, you can estimate and finalize your Bill of Quantities based on the insights gathered from the site survey and budget. As a result of workflow automation, you have every piece of data you need to successfully estimate within the given constraints and execute the most complex of projects with ease. 

3. Quotation management

Quotation management requires a myriad of considerations to be taken into account right from the quantity of work to contingencies. Even the slightest of misestimation can have major consequences going forward and might hamper the overall success of the project greatly.

Lucky for you, no-code takes care of it all! No-code for the construction industry uses data from field surveys and project estimation to streamline quotation management. It allows you to generate and deliver automated quotations to your clients right through the platform. An added benefit? Elimination of any and all errors that might creep in through the manual method, ensuring that absolutely nothing hampers your project going forward.

4. Project management for Engineering and Construction Industry

Project management is the trickiest of the lot as it requires juggling multiple projects having varying levels of priorities, deadlines, and resources. Project managers need to constantly track timelines, progress, and results in order to ensure the successful completion of projects. Like we said before, this is where workflow automation using no-code solutions act as a boon. No-code solutions can help you glide through all the stages of the project management lifecycle, i.e, project initiation, project planning, project execution, project monitoring and control, and lastly project closure.

We hope you are not under the misconception that no-code platforms lead to the development of only simple and basic apps that aren’t complex enough to suit your project management needs. This is completely false, as the top no-code platforms have the power to help you build end-to-end enterprise applications without writing a single line of code.

So what are you waiting for? Plan your resources, time, assets, and set precise daily targets for on-time execution of the project and ensure customer satisfaction with no-code solutions. Easily allocate tasks, check on the progress, and make every project a roaring success through the intervention of automated workflows.

5. Procurement management

No-code digitization brings unmatched visibility and control to engineering and construction processes. Such solutions help you in simplifying the purchase order processes with apps to collect orders, manage purchase requests, and much more. You can also track and oversee purchase approvals anytime, anywhere.

Wait, there’s more! With the aid of analytics, you can also monitor and oversee all your purchase requests in real-time. Observe trends and use them to your advantage to better your processes through actionable insights. 

6. Project execution

Project execution is the third step in the project life cycle and undoubtedly one of the most crucial phases. This includes taking a stock of the deliverables and presenting them to customers and stakeholders. For project managers, this is naturally the longest phase of the project life cycle and is highly demanding in nature. How no-code helps you here is by letting you track the daily installation status, material dispatch, and track your on-field workforce to attain greater visibility in the project. It also allows your field staff to enter data that includes videos and images from anywhere using any device.

Common gaps like ineffective governance over the project or limited visibility over final goals can be easily eliminated by employing the benefits of workflow automation. To ensure that all elements of the project are visible, project managers can be enabled to communicate their data-driven projections regarding the progression of the project, within the relevant process maps.

7. Asset management and maintenance

Inculcating an asset management solution into your organization ensures that all on-site and off-site workers have the power to collect and access critical asset performance data, that too in real-time. As you can collect and store this data, you can maximize the usability of assets that are integral to your day-to-day operations across various project sites.

The ease and applicability of this solution are enhanced further through the use of no-code solutions. Without a single line of code, you can create an online asset repository that manages the maintenance of equipment through pre-configured preventive maintenance schedules (with inbuilt reminders and notifications) and subsequently minimizes emergency repairs and reduce operational costs.

Learn everything about No-Code here including FAQs, resources, and how different departments and industries can benefit.

8. Engineering and Construction Health and safety

Health and safety is a multi-step process that includes the on-site staff, people in the surroundings, supervisors, and managers, to name some. Stringent overview of activities and effective site supervision is the key to maintain high health and safety standards. With regards to construction activities, the higher the risk, the greater the degree of hazard control, and required supervision.

No-code tools can help project managers enormously in this regard. Active use of EHS checklist apps reduces the chances of any accidents. Incident reporting apps let field staff report any issues while capturing GPS location along with video or images. Project managers can also speed up the incident resolution by connecting the right people at the right time. 

9. Engineering, procurement & construction CRM

As mentioned above, having a data repository in place brings an unmatched level of advantage to engineering and construction companies. No-code tools help you set up a central database to save, organize, access information about prospects and clients. This app can also enable reminders and tracking for all important dates, activities, appointments, tasks, meetings, etc. with prospects and clients.

Takeaway

To sum up, if you are a part of an engineering and construction industry and want to leverage a digital technology that is flexible and agile, then the adoption of no-code tools is a no-brainer. As you empower your staff to use no-code tools to automate business processes and build applications, increased collaboration amongst the sales, operations, and marketing teams will be a given. This would lead to better visibility over projects, higher synchronization with project goals, and substantial results when it comes to project delivery. 

Read More: 15 Questions you must ask No-Code Vendors

Quixy is a leading no-code application development platform that is being used by businesses in various industries to develop software without writing any code. Don’t miss out on the chance to elevate your processes. Take the first step and get started with Quixy today.

Transforming your future is just one decision away.