Data-Driven Decision-Making: real-time construction market monitoring to enhance operational efficiency

Abstract

The construction industry is facing increasing pressure as it experiences the repercussions of the ongoing housing crisis. This forces companies within this industry to make cost-cutting efforts, which, to begin with, necessitates clear financial insight, a challenge for contractor firm VORM 2050. We examined how internal and public data can be leveraged for the employees to gain real-time economic insight to be able to assess incoming quotations, ultimately enhancing informed decision-making. Public construction market data resources were combined into a pooled cost index, in which weights were calculated based on internal quotations from manufacturer partners. Using R’s ‘shiny’ package, we integrated the pooled index into a dashboard that enables users to benchmark a quotation against another quotation of choice. Also, it enables users to recalculate a quotation to a different point in time to assess its price under the market’s condition at that particular moment. To obtain economic insights, the dashboard incorporates a customisable visualisation of real-time market volatilities relevant to construction.