The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recently launched e-Construction, a paperless, project-management system that allows states’ departments of transportation to create, review, approval, distribution and store highway construction documents.
Traditionally, project management has required a large amount of paper-based documents. In a digital world, however, these systems are expensive and obsolete. E-Construction was designed to modernize the system and save states the cost of paper and of printing and storing documents. It also improves communication in several ways including by eliminating many questions and by date stamping when documents were approved.
The system is supported by cloud-hosting services, radio-frequency identification tags, mobile devices, and field inspection and data-collection software.
Nearly every state has adopted or is testing the program. Michigan estimates e-Construction will save the state $12 million and 6 million sheets of paper annually while reducing the average contract modification processing time to three days.
E-Construction is part of FHWA’s Every Day Counts program. The program is designed to identify problems and deploy solutions that reduce traffic congestion, enhance roadway safety, improve environmental sustainability, and shorten the project delivery process. Since it was launched, each state has used 14 or more of the 43 innovations promoted through the program, with some states adopting more than 30.