The Value of Milestone Trackers for Construction Project Teams

Congrats, you’ve just landed a brand new project. Spirits are up, and the team is buzzing with anticipation to get moving.

Your project manager, however, is quite clearly contemplating the daunting task of having to keep track of every single significant event in the new project’s timeline. The task ahead involves meticulously tracking numerous milestones. They know from experience that doing so manually can be a logistical nightmare, involving Gantt charts, spreadsheets, wall charts and critical milestone dates lost in site diary entries.

Oh, but this time, there’s no need for concern. Thanks to our specialised quality management software, our new Milestone Tracker will put your team at ease knowing every key moment of the build will be effortlessly tracked and managed live from the field.

What is a Milestone?

In Visibuild, a milestone is a significant programme event that marks a point of progress or completion.

The most common milestone on your project will probably be “concrete pour” so we will use that as an example in this blog post.

The biggest benefit of using milestones on your project is to ensure that quality assurance completion keeps pace with the actual onsite progress.

The Value of Milestone Trackers

Linking Inspections to Milestones

The most impactful value of the milestone in Visibuild is the ability to link each milestone to the inspections required to be actioned before completing a milestone onsite. For instance, tracking a concrete pour involves coordinating 7-10 subcontractors, each with their own inspections. A single concrete pour milestone helps senior management understand the status of each of these subcontractors and ensures all quality checks are completed before the pour. This dual insight into project and quality progress is crucial for effective project management and timely decision-making.

Milestone Trackers

Milestone trackers help you visually identify the status of all key project milestones (including the concrete pour) and compare them directly to the status of the linked inspections.

Ease of Actioning Milestones

Milestones are easily actioned from the construction site via the Visibuild mobile app in the same workflow that the quality inspections are being completed. For instance, as inspections for subcontractors involved in the concrete pour are completed, updates are sent in real-time to management in the office on the web app, ensuring up-to-date information is always available for decision-making.

Target & Completion Dates

Milestones can have target dates, indicating the timeframe within which they are expected to be achieved. For instance, setting a target date for the concrete pour ensures that all involved trades understand when the pour is scheduled to occur.

Each milestone also has a completion date and corresponding status, indicating whether it has been achieved or is still in planning. This status is updated when completion dates are entered, helping to streamline communication and coordination among trades.

Standalone Milestones

Not all milestones need to be linked to a template. Milestones can be created without any inspections attached, allowing you to report on progress confidently, even when quality assurance needs are not present. For example, you could track a milestone for facade stillage loading independently of the facade installation milestone which would be linked to the facade installation quality inspection.

Creating and Customising Milestone Trackers

In Visibuild, you can have multiple milestone trackers running at one time. These allow you to report on individual blocks, towers, or locations within your project. The trackers automatically link to milestones currently created or to be created in your project. These trackers are accessible to anyone on your project, but only new tracker views can be set up by your project admins.

 

To sum it up, Milestone Trackers provide construction companies with a powerful tool with a range of benefits. By centralising milestone tracking and linking them to inspections and tasks, they offer a dual insight into project and quality progress, which is crucial for effective project management and timely decision-making.

Ultimately, these trackers enable construction companies to deliver better quality outcomes on projects, satisfying clients and ensuring their continued growth and success in the industry.

Want to learn how to create a Milestone Tracker?
Now that you understand the importance of having a milestone tracker, the next step is to build it!

Reach out to our team for a 1 on 1 demonstration on how to link milestones to your project quality records today!