RFIs (Requests for Information) are an important information handling process on engineering and construction projects or programs. The turn-around time of RFIs is a key driver of both productivity and the ultimate quality of a project. The faster project participants can turn around RFIs, the sooner they can make decisions and move the project forward.
Research by Harvard Design School in 2006* identified typical industry RFI turnaround times of 14 days using traditional hard copy and email processes. There is no doubt that web-based collaboration systems reduce that turnaround time – in fact, on Aconex we see an average RFI turnaround time of 8 days. Considering that there are over 600 RFIs on the typical project on our platform (and many projects managing thousands of RFIs), this represents a significant saving in both activity and schedule time.
Even more promising for project managers is that the top quartile projects take almost two thirds less time than the industry average. Consider the project-wide impact of shorter RFI review and approval times to your schedule and budget when RFIs are handled in a third of the time.
In addition to reduced turnaround times online project collaboration can also:
- Reduce the time taken to administer each RFI
- Maintain a full audit trail of RFIs
- Deliver faster and more accurate searching
RFIs are just one example of how a process is significantly improved with web-based collaboration tools. How much could you save on your projects and programs if all your communication and decision making processes were improved by 40% or more?
