QwikSpec: Digitalizing project site management

The real estate and construction industry is the second biggest sector in India, after agriculture. As agriculture, there is wide spread wastage, both in terms of material and labour, which hitherto has gone unaccounted for. Ajith Alexander, Co-Founder & Managing Director QwikSpec, shares with Realty Plus, “The real estate construction industry in India is facing several pain points including project delays (60% of all residential projects are delayed), consumer complaints (80% of consumer complaints relate to real estate), immense wastage (18% of construction cost lost on account of wastage), and low productivity (5.3 million man-days of productivity lost per annum). With the advent RERA, there is increased focus on transparency, timeliness and quality of projects with tough penalties for not meeting standards. Though 95% of the workforce in a construction company is on the project site, the use of technology is practically non-existent for the construction worker. Technologies like mobility and cloud and product offering like SaaS are important for digitizing construction processes and bring in productivity improvements like what’s happened in other industries.” QwikSpec, an end-to-end project site management technology platform for the infrastructure and construction industry, has through its technology portal delved deep to study 150 residential construction zones, covering 30 million sqft, spread across Tier 1-3 cities in India over the last three years. These residential buildings range from large 1000+ units to smaller ones with 100+ units. Analyzing 150 million data points that cover the entire chain of command right from the top to the worker to the multiple processes involved such as construction stages, materials, time taken, builders, contractors, engineers, images, QwikSpec has understood the various pain points that plague the industry. And the results are telling.

• Wastage due to poor quality of work = INR 33,000 crores / USD 5 billion annually
• Time lost due to re-work = 53 lakh / 5.3 million man days of productivity
• Savings opportunity = Rs 21/sqft is the direct benefit builders can realize

The results are captured in the first ever "Savings Opportunity in the Infrastructure & Construction Industry” report, an accounting of the various construction industry practices that lead to extra costs and delays in delivery of units to home owners. Within the residential construction, the “doors” are responsible for the most re-work and material cost loss, followed by “tiling,” “ventilation,” and “grills.” The insight does not stop here! Within the doors category, it is the gap between the shutter and frame (37%) that causes the most problem, followed by damage to the doors themselves, sealant issues among others. Granular insights such as the above can truly be transformational for the industry, and the benefits realized can be used to provide better outcomes to homeowners!