2020Case7Ardmac

Contents Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2020 Case 7 How Locations Work in the FMS In our FMS, when one creates an observation, issues a submittal, or undergoes a quality inspection, that process can be assigned to a location to make that information more relevant. When a room is inspected, you want to have that location information included in that process so that other users can see where inspections have been completed and the photos you take can be associated with that location for future reference. A user can search a location which will display all the inspections, observations, RFIs, and so on, that have been linked to that location/room. From this, a detailed report of any location can be generated which will show all of the historical data and provide a timeline of events for that room. The Obstacles with the FMS Locations Pre-QR Codes The locations feature in the FMS is very beneficial; however, it does have a significant obstacle, namely the users. For example, person A might go into room 1001 on level 1 in building D, and complete an inspection and name the location “Building D > Level 1 > Room 1001” which is perfectly fine. The problem then is that person B might go into that same room and complete a separate observation and name the location “Building D > L1 > R1001”. The problem with this is that, even though it is the same room and both ways of naming that room are perfectly fine in and of themselves, the FMS does not recognise that location/ room as being the same location. The issue with this is that when other users search this location, they may only get the information that person B created depending on how the user searches for the information. If they search R1001, this will automatically rule out finding person A’s information on this location simply because it does not match with Room 1001. This makes information hard to find it is very time consuming to gather a report trying to match up two different locations even though both users completed their respective inspections/observations correctly. Another obstacle that can be found on larger projectsmainly, is that there are so many rooms you do not know what room you are in and therefore have to search through drawings and look at gridlines to determine where you are before even creating the inspection/observation. Linking QR Codes to the FMS The way to overcome the obstacles with locations is to generate QR codes. Ardmac’s FMS has a feature that allows a QR code to be generated in its software for each location. The QR code can then be printed and placed into that location. Now when Person A goes into Building D > L1 > R 1001 the first thing they do is scan that QR code that is placed in the room with their tablet or phone. When the person scans the QR code, all of the information that is associated with that location is now visible to them on the device, like, for example, punches, observations, and inspections, and you also know exactly what room you are in without having to look through drawings. Now they can see if an inspection has been completed in that room and they don’t double-up on the work and do the same inspection that has already been completed. They may want to then create an observation and it will automatically link it to that room. Now when person B goes into that room, they follow the same process and scan the QR code and they can see that an inspection and observation has been completed in that room. Before QR Codes Were Implemented Figure 1 illustrates how the same room can have two different names and therefore represent a doubling-up of the same inspection. However, if the QR code is scanned then the person doing the inspection would have seen what inspections had already been completed or were open for them to continue with. The only difference in the name used is that the second locaion has DK2 in front of it. Even though both are the same location out on the site, the FMS recognises this as being two different locations. Using QR Codes in the Field The process is to simply generate the QR Code for each location within the FMS admin page, print off the sticker and place it in the room with which it is associated. When you enter that room on site, you scan the QR Code within the FMS app which will take you directly to the information on that room. Figure 1. Example of Inspection Report Duplication Figure 2. QR Codes Placed in Each Room Figure 3. Post-QR Code Scan – all room information is in a single location