Punch List App For the Smart Phones: Bringing Your Punch List Into the 21st Century
Well, Chris Thorman at Software Advice suggests using a smart phone application - an "App" on an iPhone or Blackberry - to do it. And he shares his ideas in Bringing Your Punch List Into the 21st Century. Pretty much everyone in the construction business knows that the "punch list" identifies the final items of work that must be done after substantial completion before a project is finally complete and the contractor gets fully paid.
Punch List App Benefits
Chris suggests that a punch list App will benefit prime and subcontractors. I think it could benefit lenders, owners, and design professionals too. The benefit for all can be faster, more coordinated, and more efficient:
- Identification and valuation of punch list work
- Communication to those who must perform the punch list work
- Evaluation of punch list work to confirm proper completion
- Payment for properly completed punch list work
The Ideal Punch List App
The
App would have 3-D
plans and models of the project. You could navigate using your fingers
to move around to different locations and zooming in and out to focus
on particular places. When you see piece of work you think should go
onto the punch list, you tap its location on the screen.
Traditional punch lists are recorded separately, usually using different recording media - some with pen and paper, some dictated into an audio recorder, others in still photographs or videos. But using different media to share information slows the process down because it has to be converted from one medium to another. And converting data from one medium to another increases the odds of errors and omissions in translation.
Effects on Contracts
It's too early to identify all of the ways a punch list App could affect construction and design professional contracts. Here are some that come to mind:
- Take a picture
- Write a narrative about the work needed, or dictate it into an audio file
- Select who needs to perform the work from a menu of subcontractors. Or, if you see the punch list work is finished, click a box that will show it's finished
- Draw on the model or a picture
You can capture all of this information a lot faster than with pen and paper and store more. And you can rapidly communicate in pictures and video, as well as in words.
Improvement Over Current ToolsTraditional punch lists are recorded separately, usually using different recording media - some with pen and paper, some dictated into an audio recorder, others in still photographs or videos. But using different media to share information slows the process down because it has to be converted from one medium to another. And converting data from one medium to another increases the odds of errors and omissions in translation.
Effects on Contracts
It's too early to identify all of the ways a punch list App could affect construction and design professional contracts. Here are some that come to mind:
- Contracts will need to obligate everyone dealing with the project to use the same App. The same way a North American plug won't work in a British wall socket, you'll need to avoid different Apps that can't communicate with one another. Of course someone will then go off and make a plug-in that allows different Apps to communicate with each other
- As the App makes the punch list
process faster and more efficient, punch list work payment terms in
construction contracts could be changed. Traditionally, owners don't
pay for punch list work until all of the punch list work is finished.
This means that some subcontractors wait for payment while other
subcontractors finish their punch list work. Or the prime contractor
advances payment to the earlier finishing subcontractors. With a punch
list App helping get punch list work finished sooner, maybe some owners
will consider breaking with tradition and paying for punch list work as
certain subcontractors finish particular sub-parts of a punch list?
Maybe some contractors will even agree to pay extra fees for a design
professional to make more than one trip to observe punch list work to
confirm it's finished. And maybe the photographic, audio and video
features of the App will mature so well that it's unnecessary for a
design professional to make a trip sometimes.
Construction Law Today is a legal blog about construction contracts, disputes, finance, and the people whose job it is to deal with them.
I highly recommend the construction software from Jonas Construction - it is really good with management and accounting purposes.
Joshua this is a great article about punch lists. Punch list apps are available in most construction management applications but few support it on the iPhone or make it a collaborative process.
With EADOC you can create the punch list item, attach a picture, and reference a project location. The idea of geo tagging and picking the location within a 3d model are definitely features we will consider in the future. We also recommend the app be available for the entire team since the punch list process usually involves the Architect, Owner, Contractor, and subs.
^ @Eric Law:
Thanks for your remarks and and suggestions about smart phone punch list apps. I'm eager to see your application that uses a 3D model. And I enthusiastically agree with you about making the app available to everyone on involved in the project (e.g., designers, owner, prime contractor, subcontractors, lenders).