How to “Operationalize” Your Construction Handover Documentation with AkitaBox

You can have all of the documentation from your new building project in a format your maintenance team can start using on day one of operations. Yes, you read that right.

Technology has finally caught up to the need for better construction documentation handover. With AkitaBox, all of that valuable building data from the construction process can now be:

• Quickly transferred from construction management software to facilities management software
• Associated with specific locations and assets within the building
• Mapped to the building’s floor plans
• Easily searched and intuitively organized
• Accessible to everyone on the maintenance team

Your building data is “operationalized” – ready to support building operations, from day-to-day maintenance all the way up to strategic, long-term facilities planning.

And that’s just the beginning. Operationalized turnover documentation sets the stage for:

• More proactive facilities management
• More data-driven budgeting and capital planning
• A complete lifecycle of building data that can inform the next construction project

Construction Turnover Desperately Needs Transformation

Transforming construction handover is all about streamlining the flow of information from construction to facility management (FM). The transition of this facilities data impacts building operations for decades – so improving the process is crucial.

These days, the data always starts out in construction management (CM) software, which stores and organizes all the documents and other information collected throughout the construction project.

How does that data get from the CM software over to the operations team and their FM tools? Not very easily – or quickly. In fact, it’s often a mess from the building owner’s perspective.

Construction handover documentation is ultimately put on a thumb drive or online file sharing system, or even printed and delivered as a pile of paper. Technically, the handover process is functioning as advertised – it’s getting the data to the building owner. But it’s not in a format that makes sense for ongoing facilities management.

To make matters worse, data can be lost in the shuffle of this inefficient transfer process. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an estimated one-third of project data is lost in the handover process. Owners spend $10.6 billion annually to recover it.

Once you have the data, then what? There’s no centralized place to put it where your facilities team can interact with it. It’s not in an easily searchable or accessible format. Techs will struggle to find the information they need to maintain assets properly. In other words, your handover data isn’t operationalized.

Construction turnover needs an extreme makeover – and it’s technology to the rescue.

Read More: 6 Construction Handover Pain Points You Can Mitigate

AkitaBox: A Transformational Construction Turnover Solution

AkitaBox is specially designed to operationalize critical building data so that information can be transferred from construction to operations in a meaningful way.

By combining location-based asset mapping and information tagging, AkitaBox establishes a searchable information infrastructure where each piece of data is associated with specific locations and assets within a building.

That means your handover data is:

• Searchable
• Associated with the correct locations & assets
• Accessible from anywhere
• Easy to update

AkitaBox Connect bridges the gap between construction and operations. With just a few mouse clicks, you can migrate building data from CM software like Procore into the AkitaBox FM platform.

But it doesn’t end there. After handover, you can continue using AkitaBox Pulse as a comprehensive facilities management system for:

• Maintenance management
• Asset management
• Inspections
• Capital planning
• Facility condition assessments

Starting with the construction data you receive at turnover, you can continue updating the building’s data in AkitaBox—so you’ll always have an accurate view of your facility’s current state.

Read More: How Construction Turnover and Facilities Management Can Work Better Together

The Advantages of Operationalized Data

With operationalized facility and asset data, it’s possible to support more proactive management as well as more accurate operational and financial planning.

Maintain visibility: Your data doesn’t sit on a shelf or in a hard drive. It only takes a few clicks to find the information you need. Everything is digitized and organized for maximum accessibility.

Keep data alive: Every work order, inspection, and condition assessment you conduct updates the original handover data within your FM system. Know exactly what’s going on in your facilities at any given moment.

Plan proactively: More easily establish preventive maintenance schedules for each asset. Conduct better long-term planning, not just for maintenance but also for regular inspections, capital planning, and budget allocation.

Improve processes: Have the information and baseline needed to improve your facility management, asset management, and capital planning processes.

Decide with confidence: Understand what you have upon turnover and then make daily and strategic decisions on how best to maintain and optimize it. Base your decisions on real-time information about buildings and assets, their condition, and the continuing work being done on them.

Sustain the lifecycle of your building’s data: Operationalized information plays a key role in the roundtrip of your facilities data. In the lifecycle of data (as seen below), construction documentation is operationalized and turned over to your operations team. Your team continues to update and maintain the data as maintenance and management tasks are completed. You can then review this data and use it to make recommendations for future construction projects. This cycle continues and ensures you always have access to current information about your assets so you can plan for the long term.

Let Us Help You Operationalize Your Data

Handover is the first page of a new chapter in your building’s life. It sets the tone for the rest of the building’s existence. So it’s important to get it right.

With AkitaBox Connect, you can seamlessly migrate the construction documentation you receive at handover to our complete facilities management system, AkitaBox Pulse. It’s organized, accessible, and operational on day one. From there … well, the sky’s the limit with what you can do with your facilities data.

Interested in learning more? Looking for expert advice on tackling your next construction handover? Let’s talk!