Time is not lost in the core business, it is lost in coordination.
The working day today
Design and planning happen between meetings. In between lie searching for documents, sorting e-mail, transferring information and chasing things up. The planning itself gets what is left.
Time sink 01 — Checking tenders
Spotting the relevant tenders means reading many irrelevant ones. The documents are long, and the criteria are scattered through them.
Hours per week: varies from client to client.
Time sink 02 — Hunting for drawings and minutes
Drawings, contracts and minutes sit in project folders, e-mail attachments and on drives. People search by memory, not by structure.
Hours per week: varies from client to client.
Time sink 03 — Writing up meetings
Every meeting produces tasks and decisions. Noting them down, assigning them and passing them on regularly takes more time than the meeting itself.
Hours per week: varies from client to client.
Time sink 04 — Watching deadlines
Dates, deadlines and project status are spread across projects and parties. Anyone who wants to keep track of them checks them by hand.
Hours per week: varies from client to client.
Time sink 05 — Assembling references
For every application the same reference projects are searched for, described and formatted all over again. The content exists, it just cannot be found.
Hours per week: varies from client to client.
What can be automated
Tenders · Documents & knowledge · Communication · Project controlling · Bids & references
01 Finding & qualifying tenders — Spot relevant tenders, read the documents and pre-sort them against your criteria.
02 Document & knowledge management — Structure drawings, contracts, minutes and project knowledge centrally and make them quick to find.
03 Project communication & minutes — Summarise meetings, capture tasks and decisions automatically and assign them.
04 Project controlling & deadlines — Watch budgets, hours, dates, deadlines and project status automatically and evaluate them.
05 Bids, applications & references — Carry content over from existing data and assemble matching reference projects automatically.
What stays with people
Approvals, negotiation and judgement. The design, the professional assessment and the decision on which application is submitted stay with you.
How SAITS automates these five processes: AI for architects and engineering firms.
Whether one of them is worth it is shown by four tests. How the first workflow comes about: How a first workflow goes live in four weeks.