Why a Good Daily Status Report Is Necessary?
A daily crew status report is an important daily reporting mechanism for the project manager and the superintendent of a construction project. The information provided by the foremen allows management to make informed decisions based on the actual progress, risks, and issues facing the crew. The daily reports are a way to document the progress, labor, vehicle and equipment usage, and the potential risks experienced by the crew that can impact cost, quality, or time.
Daily crew status reports can aid your project manager in preparing and supporting change orders, customer required progress reports, and project cost reports. The daily status reports tell a story of, and are a historical record of, the work competed by the crew. This aids in justifying change orders, meeting contractual requirements, and aids in communicating with project stakeholders. Skipping the daily construction report can lead to communication, transparency, and justification issues with the client and the overall success of your project. By documenting the risks as they occur and are identified by the foremen, you reduce the chances of small issues becoming larger issues that can effect the relationship between you and the client. More importantly, daily status reports provide the foundation for defense in the case of missed payments or challenges by the owner/operator.
What Information Should a Daily Crew Status Report Contain?
The daily report should be a standardized reporting mechanism across all crews. The report should explain the details of the site and the job while providing a record to help keep stakeholders informed. They allow stakeholders to know what happened on the job site, and the project’s status at that point in time. Plus, anytime a delay occurs, a daily report will document the circumstances that caused it – so there’s less room for challenging the work performed by the crew.
Date: What day, month, year was the work accomplished.
Crew and foreman’s name: What crew was responsible for the work and who lead the crew.
Location of work: Give station numbers, or cross streets where the work was performed.
Unit Items completed: What key performance indicators where completed? KPI such as mainline welds, weld repairs, shaded pipe amounts, or other items deemed important by the superintendent or customer.
Unit Price Items used: For items that are contractually reimbursed such as fencing, or environmental control devices, how many linear units were used and where were they installed?
Crew Member time: Start to end time for each of the crew members.
Weather and site conditions: What was the weather like hot, dry, wet, snow, cold, etc. How’s the site condition? Describe the challenges of the site in the comment section to provide management with a context of the working conditions.
Comments: Briefly describe the work completed on that day. This is a description of the major tasks perform and additional information about the work. “Subcontractor was not present to perform final NDE of welds.” This field is also a good field to record the safety toolbox talk conducted on that day.
Risk identified: Risks identified by the foreman can be used to identify potential issues facing the cost, quality or effort of the crew. It can be as simple as “Snow storm expected tomorrow.” or “Missing customer supplied valve assembly.”
Daily Reports is Evidence of Work
Daily reporting provides the proof that you have performed the work. Disputes concerning payments or amount of work performed arise on construction projects, with well documented cases in the news. With consistently recorded daily reports, you can potentially resolve issues early and at the very least, you have documentation to support your position if litigated. Your daily reports should contain the information stated above. This is particularly helpful if challenges to your work quantity, quality, or timeliness ever arise. If your foremen hate to fill out daily reports, remember that the number one reason for non-payment, is no evidence that the work occurred.
Best Practices For Using Daily Reports
Describe the work
It is important to use the appropriate detail to describe the work completed. The comment section of the daily report should be brief, to the point, and provide context of the work and the environment. It does not need to be a book-long description of the day’s activities, but long enough that when read two months in the future, there’s enough information to see what the crew did that day, the progress made, the challenges, and the risks.
Timing
Reports should be submitted daily by the foremen. This is important for the project manager(s), Superintendent, Customer and Stakeholders. It provides a mechanism for scheduling material delivery, subcontractor support, and other scheduled and time sensitive efforts. Have the foremen fill out their reports at the end of their shift as memories are short when there are a lot of moving parts. You are looking for accuracy and timeliness of the report to build confidence with the customer, stakeholders, and management.
Standardize
Standardizing your reporting requirements, the method of recording and the details of the report go a long way in demonstrating competence, professionalism, and completeness, especially to third parties that may be involved in reviewing or receiving the reports. Use software to record the information in an easy manner. Tools such as Jobsight360’ Daily Crew Progress reporting feature allows you to standardize, consolidate, and report on the crew’s daily progress. Using technology reduces costs, provides consistency, accuracy, and timeliness of your construction efforts.