Daily reports from job sites are late or missing

Signs you have this problem

• Daily reports arrive in a batch at the end of the week or when someone asks for them
• Some days on a job have no report at all, and nobody noticed until a dispute
• Reports are written from memory days later, with manpower and weather filled in by guess
• The office retypes handwritten reports or photos of them into another file
• Delay and change claims stall because the site record for those days is thin

What usually causes it

• The report form asks for more than a foreman can fill in at the end of a long day on siteThe field-to-office split
• Reports arrive as paper, photos or free-form emails, so someone has to retype them before anyone can use themThe re-entry trap
• Nobody checks each morning which jobs are missing yesterday's reportThe invisible queue

What to try this week

1. Map the gaps for the last monthPick two or three active jobs and mark every working day in the past month as reported on time, reported late or missing. The pattern usually points to specific jobs, foremen or days of the week.
2. List what the report is actually used forAsk the project managers and the office which parts of the daily report they read and why, such as manpower, delays, visitors, weather or work completed. Make everything else optional.
3. Ask the foremen what makes it hardTalk to a few foremen about when and how they write the report. Timing, signal, the length of the form and not knowing what matters are the usual answers.
4. Check for missing reports every morningHave one person in the office look at yesterday's reports first thing each day and call any job that did not send one while the day is still fresh.
5. Let photos carry part of the recordAsk crews to take a few dated photos of the work each day and attach them to the report. A photo with a one-line note is easier to send than a paragraph.