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On the eighth episode of the Construction Industry Podcast I share with you the power of using time-lapse videos as a tool for project management.
Take a listen by clicking the orange “play” button above.
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Episode Notes
What’s Time-Lapse Photography?
Regular movies are recorded by taking around 30 shots – or frames – every second. The video is also played back on the same frame rate.
Time-lapsed videos record less frames per unit of time, but are played back at a faster rate. As a result, you can watch videos that were recorded over long periods of time in just a few minutes.
The draw back of this method is that you lose content – what happened between frames is not captured.
Why is Time-Lapse Photography is a great fit for Construction Projects
Construction projects, typically have 5 phases:
- Initiation
- Planning
- Executing
- Monitoring/Controlling
- Closing
There are many tools and best practices available for most of the phases, but “Monitoring and Controlling” is the phase that can benefit the most from a visual archive or record.
Time-Lapse video is a great fit for many reasons:
- Construction projects move at a slow pace, even the quick ones.
- Activity duration is measured in days, sometimes months
- To effectively record progress, it is not needed to collect several images per second.
- Construction projects take a long time
It is virtually impossible to watch a real-time recording of construction projects, unless you’re willing to sit down for a few months.
Time-lapse takes advantage of the fact that construction projects don’t require several frames per second of recording, and as a result delivers a video that is only a few minutes long.
Sure, it’s great to watch your project being built. But what’s the value? Pure entertainment?
A simple time-lapse video of your project is not very useful. Sure, it looks great in marketing materials, on your website, but there is so much more that can be done with it.
How can TIme-Lapse videos help in monitoring and controlling?
We have been producing time-lapse videos for the construction industry for 10 years now, and I can give you countless examples of how it can be useful.
A simple Time-lapse video:
- Provides a visual record of everything that went on your project
- It helps settle claims
- It helps with security concerns
Time lapse videos really show their true purpose when you associate it with your project schedule.
By associating your time-lapse video to the gantt chart of your project, you enrich both your visual record AND your scheduling experience.
Most projects will have a schedule that is created as part of the planning phase.
During execution, measurements are usually taken in order to gauge project progress and to pay the contractor and subcontractor based on how much they’ve done.
The power of time lapse videos is really unleashed when we can link it to the as-planned and the as-built schedule.
So this is what we’ve been doing at Remontech. This is a lot easier to see than it is to hear, so I suggest you go to our website at myconstructioncamera.com, and click on what we do, and then dynamic scheduling.
By using the time lapse video, the schedule, and the as-built information, we create a visual tool for keeping track of your project.
There you can easily see when you start falling behind on your delivery. You can then easily assess which activity is to blame for the delay or cost overrun. Then you can use the video to go back in time to the day said activity was supposed to take place and investigate the issue
All of a sudden your time-lapse video becomes a powerful tool for making sure your project is being delivered on time and on budget.
The examples I have to share are numerous.
Some of our clients use the project schedule and time lapse video, or DYNAMIC SCHEDULE to settle claims and disputes. Many times claims won’t even happen when all stakeholders know that this tool is being used to monitor and control the project progress.
We have had a number of clients who build big box stores. These stores are all built the same way with pretty much the same planning involved, meaning the schedule is very much the same each time.
By using this method of keeping records, they have a record of the progress of each store, information that can be used to streamline their building procedures.
Time lapse video also shows equipment usage. This is especially useful when you’re renting equipment by the day or by the hour. You are now able to tell how long your equipment was actually used for and plan accordingly for next time.
Listen to the entire episode by clicking the orange “play” button above.
Enjoy!