Digital site meetings improve time management
WasaGroup has been using digital site meetings since before the changes in working methods caused by the interest rate virus. During the current state of emergency and government-imposed movement restrictions, seamless digital connectivity has taken on a more prominent role.
The implementation of digital site meetings has been tested for the first time within the Group at WasaCon Oy's sites, which are located relatively close to Vaasa. Following good experience, remote site meetings have been used more widely and Riikka Murto-Koivisto, who works as a contractor for WasaGroup Oy, says she has started using remote meetings with other contractors. Now, communication with the site in Järvenpää is mainly done remotely.
The advantage of digital site meetings is that they save time by saving the developer and designers the time spent travelling. The aim has been to find a clear way of working that is easy to use and sufficiently fast to connect. WasaGroup's IT specialist Jaakko Toppari says he has received positive feedback from the first sites. He says that high-quality video conferencing equipment guarantees good image and sound quality, which are prerequisites for smooth communication.
Good video conferencing equipment is essential for effective remote connections, so that no time is wasted at the beginning of the meeting on starting up the systems," Riikka Murto-Koivisto emphasises, also from the user's point of view. She says that all parties have responded positively to the opportunity offered by remote meetings to bring together a wider range of participants, such as planners, so that work is more efficient from the point of view of information flow and many issues can be resolved in a single meeting.
In the future, digital site meetings will also be extended to site visits. In practice, they will be implemented in such a way that the site supervisor can walk around the site with a helmet camera or a mobile phone camera with image stabilisation, while at the same time explaining the different checkpoints. The contractor and designers can follow the tour via a live video link from the office.
Today, all new WasaGroup construction sites will have high-quality video conferencing equipment in the site office, making it easy to contact the builder via Microsoft Teams, for example. These tried and tested practices will be used in the future on all WasaGroup sites throughout Finland, also for external contractors.
WasaGroup is a Finnish privately owned real estate and construction group. WasaGroup's business areas cover all the services needed by real estate investors, property owners and builders.