Accessing floor plans and blueprints on mobile devices is great — until it doesn’t work.

When Balfour Beatty Construction, a member of multiple AGC chapters, began renovations on two terminals at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), the company used a cloud-based system to access files and drawings. However, it quickly found its bandwidth overloaded as multiple employees tried to access thousands of drawings in the cloud. The experience caused delays and left the Balfour Beatty team frustrated.

To solve the problem, Balfour Beatty deployed Egnyte’s Enterprise Local Cloud on a VMware-based virtual server. In addition, the company armed employees with iPads equipped with the GoodReader app so they could access drawing sets at any time.

"We saved several hundred full-sized recycle bins’ worth of material by never printing drawing sets," says Ben Bringardner, assistant manager of integrated projects for Balfour Beatty.

The company saved $5.1 million with its new paperless approach, which also happened to fit with the airport’s focus on sustainability. DFW and the Environmental Protection Agency formed a partnership to reduce resource and energy usage at the airport.

Balfour Beatty’s paperless initiative is just one example of how construction firms can customize cloud-based technologies to suit their on-site needs. As more builders gain an understanding of available technologies, they’ll be able to deploy cloud IT systems that offer the security, accessibility, and mobility required in the field.

Construction teams now use laptops, iPads, and cloud-based technologies to keep connected instead of old rolls of blueprints and fax machines. Workers no longer need to haul around 60,000-page drawing sets or stop working to access information at a jobsite office. Although these advancements have helped increase efficiency, they’ve been accompanied by a new set of headaches. Contractors have a learning curve as they adopt new processes, and they have to train their teams as well.

To overcome these obstacles, builders must realize that most cloud-based technologies and services don’t offer a one-size-fits-all approach. It takes research and evaluation to find solutions that satisfy the unique needs of a team or project. Here are four important considerations:

1. Understand the team’s needs. It’s important for leaders to compare the needs of their teams to each facet of a cloud-based technology before selecting a provider or program. For example, contractors should look at whether employees can access files via mobile devices and collaborate via the cloud in an efficient and timely manner.

The availability of these features is important. With them, a team can update floor plans and share them with users around the globe in seconds. Only with strong mobility and minimal latency can contractors increase productivity, cut down on completion times, and save money.

Additionally, leaders should consider security and privacy features such as permissions, which offer the ability to control access to files. They also need to look for encryption that enables them to make a document or file unreadable unless a user has access to a key or password. Systems that allow administrators to create restricted groups or folder structures provide a higher level of security. This ensures that everything can be stored on one server, but outsiders, such as subcontractors, can’t access important information such as company credit card statements.

2. Consider challenges and limitations. Oftentimes, companies don’t fully understand that solving one problem can create another. For example, a contractor having trouble accessing large files at a remote site because of poor Internet connectivity might opt for a hybrid service that can sync files to a local storage device with more efficiency.

Teams must get an overview of their entire collaboration ecosystem in order to understand which services to adopt. Consider the number of people or devices trying to connect to a server; the size of files being shared, accessed, and uploaded; the security of those files; and what other productivity applications must work with the cloud service.

3. Conduct research. These days, the technological options are varied. However, each option has limitations that could make it a bad match for certain companies or projects. Security and access issues, as well as the possibility of shadow IT and rogue file sharing, are some of the possible disadvantages. It’s important that contractors research every option to find the best match for their IT departments and their employees and not make concessions based on specific requirements. The right cloud is out there; it just might not carry a familiar brand name.

4. Go small before going big. Just as teams and projects are different, cloud-based services and providers are unique. One of the biggest mistakes firms can make is getting too involved with a provider before getting a true sense of how the solution would work for the team. Start with a small deployment in one department. If it seems like a good fit, the program can be expanded from there. Contractors can even try mixing and matching services to customize a plan that meets all of their needs.

Now that construction firms have moved beyond fax machines and printed blueprints, it’s time for them to move beyond the limits of some cloud-based technologies. As contractors learn to assess the needs of their teams and build solutions that solve their problems, they’ll begin to enjoy the infinite ways cloud-based technologies can work for them.