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CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE | MARCH 2015

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Rogers-OBriens Trevor Reidy (left) discusses a design change with the


architect on the Southern Methodist University Moody Coliseum project
using technology to virtually move some pipes before they were installed
and before problems could arise in the field.

TECH
TRANSITIONS
Contractors Partner With Software Developers
To Get the Tools They Really Need

BY LAUREN PINCH

CONSTRUCTIONEXEC.COM

Rogers-OBrien

hen is the last time your construction


company sent out a fax? How about
burned a CD? Or made a call from a
landline? Chances are, it wasnt recently. As
new technology evolves, outdated methods
of communication and data sharing
including traditional emailare dying out.
For contractors small and large, technology is
inseparable from doing business. From the moment a
worker arrives on the jobsite, hes relying on handheld devices and mobile tablets for communication,
intuitive software and PDFs for updating project
details and relaying them to the whole project team,
voice command apps for reporting conlicts and safety
issues, and cameras for envisioning the entire project
along the way.
he future will call for not just one piece of
essential technology, but rather, several piecesall
leading construction teams closer to true collaboration and the ability to work from a universal bible
of information.
Construction Executive talked with a few experts
to get their take on whats next for construction
technology. By making their needs known to the tech
industry, contractors are helping shape the future.

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CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE | MARCH 2015

Texas-based general contractor Rogers-OBrien has


a history of being ahead of the game in terms of
technology. Six years ago, the company adopted BIM
before many other contractors even knew what the
term meant. In 2013, it deployed 230 iPads for all
of its professionals in the ield. Most recently, it has
been experimenting with recreational drone cameras
for aerial jobsite views. he company also is testing
out thermal imaging cameras to check buildings for
missing insulation, overheating circuits or the need
for water mitigation. Additionally, its working with
software developers on enhancing mapping technology for the construction industrypiggybacking
on successful programs like GoogleMapsbut also
incorporating BIM tools, detailed zooming ability and
irst-person perspective used in gaming technology.
In its day-to-day technology arsenal, RogersOBrien relies on Viewpoint for big-picture project
management, FieldLens for daily mobile reporting,
and Bluebeam for document viewing and hyperlinking information across the team.
We feel like were always at the leading edge
on technology, says Todd Wynne, construction

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Rogers-OBrien

JOBSITE TECH: THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE

Texas-based Rogers-OBrien employs an arsenal of technology tools,


including handheld tablets and mobile devices, on jobs such as the
Methodist Richardson Medical Center in Texas.

technology manager at Rogers-OBrien. But we went


through the same evolution as the rest of the industry,
from fax machines and Nextel phones to where we are
now with smartphones, cameras and robust software.
Youll see it on every project, anywhere from a $75
million hospital job down to a $200,000 bathroom
renovation.
Step one in embracing the world of technology
options was shifting the company mindset away
from paper, Wynne says. For example, RogersOBrien served as a beta tester for Bluebeam when
the software developer was designing its Revu function for PDFsoffering so much specific feedback
about its needs that it now considers Bluebeam its
Swiss army knife in the field. The tool provides
communication, tracking and efficiency through
digital workflow solutions for paperless submittals,
RFIs, bid sets, punchlists, as-builts, operations and
maintenance manuals, and more.
Our whole goal was to move away from siloed,
paper-based worklows to collaborative worklows, and
to bring everyone into the digital world, says Bluebeam
Vice President of Strategic Alliances Sasha Reed, who
works with AEC leaders to better understand the longrange goals of the industry. We did that by leveraging
the PDF ile format for takeofs, estimation, red lining,
drawing review, design review and tracking changes
between drawing revisions. his is really important as
project timelines become condensed.
Reed says the PDF format is a natural it for the
contractors, who are traditionally visual learners.
We thought, if everything on a job from punch
to closeout happens in a visual realm, why would we
switch from traditional drawings to an Excel spreadsheet? It doesnt make sense. So the idea was to leverage
all the project data, which includes drawing data and

sketch sheets, into PDF ile format, where it can be


linked, marked up and commented on, Reed says.

TECH FOR BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

CREATING A SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

TEAMING UP WITH TECH DEVELOPERS


Regardless of the type of software or application, its
essential for contractors to make their needs known to
tech developers.
We beta test new software constantly. Some of it is
good, and some of it is not good, Wynne says.
Were looking at the relationship we have with the software company even more than the software itself, adds
Joe Williams, director of technology for Rogers-OBrien.
Some companies may have a great product, but well pick
a software provider based on their responsiveness to us.
Ultimately, we are the soldiers in the trenches using the
product, so we provide strenuous feedback.
Rogers-OBrien often travels to New York and Los
Angeles to meet with developers to ensure its voice is

Climatrak is a company-branded solution that allows Climatech customers to


access their HVAC service history.

Contractors often need external technology solutions to improve


their customer relationships and complete service calls more
quickly. Climatech, a 43-year old commercial and residential
HVAC company that serves clients in western Pennsylvania,
eastern Ohio, West Virginia and Tampa, Fla., was looking for a
better way to integrate its service dispatching and accounting into
one software unit.
In 2006, the company reached out to software provider Data
Basics, Inc., to develop Climatrak, a tailored asset management
piece that allows customers to access their own HVAC service
order history, including calls, purchase orders, equipment repairs
and billings.
his gives Climatrach users a valuable way to manage their
business, especially when theyre budgeting how much capital
they need for things like equipment replacements, says Brad
Taback, president and owner of Climatech. hey can simply go
online and view their past service history as compared to budget.
Climatech also launched a mobile app called Techanywhere
that allows technicians to use a smartphone to pull up job
tickets, create purchase orders, capture signatures, use GPS and
manage documents. Climatech technicians can quickly diagnose
and resolve HVAC problems using their phone, as opposed to
returning to the oice or their vans to look up work history on a
particular piece of equipment.
Faster resolution saves us time and our customers money, so
the tech product is a tremendous help from that perspective,
Taback says. Also, the shift from pen and paper for service orders
to touch screen technology not only looks more professional, but
also has made the oice stafs life easier. he company has seen
a 75 percent reduction in turnaround time for invoicing, which
positively impacts cash low.
he techs in the ield are now generating everything except
the invoice. When they complete a call, our billing department
already has everything they need in the system, Taback says.
Engaging these two technology solutions deinitely sets us apart
from our competitors and results in better overall service.
-Lauren Pinch

CONSTRUCTIONEXEC.COM

Also sticking to tradition, new software honors


the fact that contractors are familiar with having
important conversations and making decisions around
a conference room table, where a series of paper documents became the bible for the project. We wanted
to keep that same concept, but let everything happen
digitally so that teams didnt need to be conined to
one geographic location, Reed says. Contractors can
grab information on the cloud from their desktop or
mobile solutions, but still walk away with the same
single source of truth. his has changed the way
construction irms are able to collaborate.
he key to tracking a project is keeping all of the
information in the same place and allowing everyone
to access it.
We speak of our guys in the ield being data alignment managers, Wynne says. his means we may
have 15 diferent silos of information on a project.
Say a technician has a small problem installing a door
hinge. Before, he would have to manually align all of
the data that has to do with that door hinge before
solving the problem. So much of the information
was spread out, preventing ield techs from making a
decision and moving along with the job.
Similarly, another software solution, PlanGrid,
manages the whole life cycle of an RFI, tying together
blueprints from beginning to end as if the project
team were standing in the same jobsite trailer.
Contractors can easily share and sync plans, markups,
photos and reports, as well as view PDFs, all while the
information is backed up to a secure data cloud.

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heard. In the case of Bluebeam, the Rogers-OBrien


technology department sat down with the software
engineers and listed 79 speciic features it had
requested that were not in the test application.
Bluebeam takes this feedback seriously. It also met
with several other construction companies, including Mortenson and Turner, to ensure its PDF tools
provided the right functions for the people who would
be using them. hese collaborations led to drastic
improvements and new ideas, such as the ability to
create batch overlaysreplicating a traditional light
table on which drawings are laid on top of one another.
In a matter of four years, weve seen the contractor
go from the technology advisor to the technology
driver, Reed says.
In other words, the dynamic is shifting from the
contractor being treated as the end-user to the
contractor being treated as a technology visionary.
App companies, whether desktop or mobile, often
are trying to make our guys better end-users. We want
them to make our guys better builders. We feel that

the only way they can do that is by actually spending


a day with construction guys like us, Wynne says.
hats exactly what Rogers-OBrien and Bluebeam did:
spend time together in the ield and have many, many
conversations about how to get the tool just right.
For example, during development, Rogers-OBrien
tracked the amount of time it took one worker to
manually hyperlink all the digital elevations for a
project; it wound up being 40 manhours, or nearly a
weeks worth of time. Now, after years of tweaking,
the software can automatically scan through hundreds
of drawings to search for speciic project details and
then hyperlink themall in less than ive minutes.

CONTRACTORS CALL FOR HANDHELD, WEARABLE TECH


A plethora of new mobile technology apps make
it such that a superintendent doesnt have to
walk all the way back to the trailer to find related
construction documents; he can pull them right up
on his phoneor better yet, view them through
smart glasses.

CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE | MARCH 2015

CONTRACTORS WEIGH IN

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Last year, Viewpoint Construction Software


conducted a Construction Technology Survey
that gathered opinions from 250 North
American contractors, with half being company
principles or executives, and 38 percent being
engaged in commercial and industrial work.
Following are a few highlights from the survey.
More than 50 percent of respondents said
they would be investing in technology in 2014.
More than 80 percent of respondents
reported they use three or more technology
applications to effectively perform job-related
tasks on a daily basis.
82 percent of respondents are currently taking
advantage of mobile technology to perform
job-related tasks.
More than 50 percent of respondents stated
they are not currently using BIM technology.
To access the survey results, visit info.
viewpoint.com/Blog_TechSurvey2014.html.

MOST HEAVILY USED

TECHNOLOGIES

40%

12%

10%

39%

Estimating

PM/
Workflow

BIM

Will Use BIM/


Collaboration
in the Future

TECH FOR FASTER PAYMENTS


in the accelerated payment program. Subcontractors
that choose to participate agree to a small fee for
each payment tied to the amount of their invoice.
Subcontractors then submit invoices as normal and are
paidby the EPP funding sourcesoon after invoice
approval. Once the general contractor gets paid by the
project owner, the general contractor repays the early
outlay funds back to the funding source.

THROUGH THIS COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIP AMONG


THE CONSTRUCTION, TECH AND FINANCE INDUSTRIES,
MORE SMALL BUSINESSES CAN STAY AFLOAT AND THRIVE
IN A COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT.
his option signiicantly beneits a subcontractors
balance sheet and reduces project risk. Typically,
subcontractors must wait until the general contractor
has been paid by the owner to receive payments,
which puts them in a bind when it comes to paying
for labor costs in the month they are incurred. Its
strange, when you think about it in terms of labor
costs, that work in progress is funded by the subcontractors, Allin says. he subs have the highest cost of
capital and the least ability to access capital. hey are
cash-strapped. If they cant support payroll, they go
out of business.
Now, through this collaborative partnership among
the construction, tech and inance industries, more
small businesses can stay aloat and thrive in a competitive environment. And, with inancially healthier
subcontractors, the industry experiences less risk (i.e.,
fewer defaults and lower claims).
Assuming an average of 45 days earlier funding to
subcontractors and 45 percent subcontractor participation in EPP, Greensill Capitals initial revolving
$10.25 billion would fund approximately $82 billion
in subcontractor invoices a year, which equates to
approximately $225 billion to $250 billion in project
construction value.
We are convinced EPP will be very attractive to
many subs out there, and this payment model will
eventually become the new normal, Allin says.
-Lauren Pinch

CONSTRUCTIONEXEC.COM

Cash: Its what general contractors and subcontractors


are constantly seeking to keep their businesses alive
and growing. So, it makes sense that a technology
company would respond to this need with a tool that
helps the construction industry manage and inance
its payments faster.
Textura Corporation, a provider of construction
collaboration solutions, partnered with a inancial
services company and Turner Construction Company
to develop the new Early Payment Program (EPP)a
inancial tool that enables general contractors to pay
their subcontractors on average 45 days sooner than
usual. Turner is launching the irst EPP, and Textura
soon will introduce the program to other general
contractors nationwide.
Using Texturas Construction Payment Management
(CPM) system, more than 300 general contractors
and project owners had already begun shifting from
manual accounting processesfor billing, progress
claims, lien waiver collection, compliance management and moreto electronic payment systems.
However, construction is still behind other industries when it comes to obtaining underwriting and
inancing for accelerated turnaround on payments to
business partners. Traditionally, inancial institutions
have deemed construction too risky of a business to
loat capital ahead of schedule.
To solve this dilemma, Textura found a partner
in Greensill Capital, which will perform the EPPs
underwriting and provide funding for accelerated
subcontractor payments. Greensill Capital has
committed a minimum of a revolving $250 million of
its own funds to EPP inancing and plans to deliver
an initial minimum of a revolving $10.25 billion in
EPP inancing from a combination of its own balance
sheet, third-party banks and the capital markets (with
the assistance of Morgan Stanley).
Weve been looking for a partner to help us solve
this problem for 10 years, says Patrick Allin, chairman and CEO of Textura. hrough technology, we
are able to connect general contractors and subcontractors to the global capital markets.
When a general contractor signs an EPP agreement,
Greensill Capital arranges funding based on the
strength of the general contractors balance sheet. hen,
the general contractor ofers Texturas EPP to its subcontractors, which can decide whether to participate

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For example, Newforma ofers a set of mobile apps that


enable access to project team information, documents and
ield reports via smartphones and tablets. Users can update
plans and notes all in one place, making emails among
team members almost entirely unnecessary.
Asta Powerproject recently released a new mobile BIM
solution that includes the latest in 4-D planning. Users
can see where the project should be at various stages and
even adjust the timeline by clicking on an element in
the BIM model to bring up its corresponding schedule.
Mobile capabilities mean project leaders can instantly
update progress reports with jobsite photographs and

associate them with various tasks or stages, without the


need to return to the oice.
JBKnowledges SmartReality mobile app was recently
integrated with Epson Moverio smart glasses that allow
contractors to view 2-D paper construction plans as
3-D interactive BIM iles, providing a more advanced,
real-world perspective about a given structure.
Other software developers, including FieldLens and
Procore, are experimenting with new functionality
in GoogleGlass, which has left the general consumer
marketplace, but is being adopted by the construction
software industry.

CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE | MARCH 2015

VOICE COMMAND: THE FUTURE OF JOBSITE SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT

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Mobile technology can address jobsite realities such as


safety violations and litigation.
One time-saving, voice-activated application called
Notevault allows construction foremen and superintendents to report jobsite conditions on the spot and over
the phone.
How does it work? Remote transcriptionists (e.g., stay-athome parents or former construction workers who are on
a leave of absence due to an injury) convert spoken notes
into written data to create professional daily jobsite reports,
tagged with keywords that immediately alert project executives to any safety issues, project delays or team conlicts.
Notevaults CEO Peter Lasensky says voice reporting
ofers three main beneits.
1. Its faster. People can speak 10 times faster than they
can type. he ability to dictate details on the spot
provides real-time, detail-rich data, as opposed to terse,
handwritten notes that may be illegible and raise more
questions than provide answers.
2. he daily reports look more professional to clients.
Owners receive an at-a-glance project update with clear
typeface and a selection of key photos.
3. he information is extremely timely or, in legal
terms, contemporaneous. Field workers can describe
a situation immediately; they dont need to remember
to ile a job report at the end of the workday, let
alone remember all of the important details in correct
sequence. hey can take a quick photo, verbally describe
whats happening in front of them and theyre done.
he tool helps general contractors collect and track what
multiple ield workers and subcontractors are up to on
the jobsite, without administrative hassles. In the old way

of doing things, someone in the trailer was tasked with


rounding up nearly 30 daily reports.
Instead, many general contractors such as Hunt
Construction are using Notevault to document labor
activities, track materials put in place and equipment
utilized. In addition, Hunt Construction is using the tool
to create better transparency and awareness for executives
about whats happening in the ield.
he Notevault app uses a keyword search for terms
such as delay and change order to alert executives
immediately via email or text if something is amiss on
the jobsite.
Legally speaking, the advantages of voice reporting
are huge.
When someone iles a lawsuit, it all goes back to
the daily reports, Lasensky says. When an arbitrator
or judge has to make a ruling, they rely on information in the daily report. In many cases, its woefully
inadequate. Letters written after the fact tend to
be self-serving. We provide information in a clear,
compelling format, which is time-stamped, and we
archive the data for the life of the completed operations exposure.
he data is iled for 10 yearsthe time frame in
which a contractor has completed operations liability
in case of a lawsuit.
For Lasensky, the desire to create the tool is personal. As
a former contractor, Lasensky had to sue a client for failing
to pay for work completed on a ground-up oice building
in Poway, Calif. Ultimately, he lost the case because he
didnt have enough documentation to prove that the client
was lying about his reasons for nonpayment.

EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING
Once a contractors tech department has chosen the
perfect tool, its time to get employees to use itand
thats not easy. Employees arent always quick to
accept new technology, as old habits die hard.

At Rogers-OBrien, Wynne has observed three types


of adopters. First, there are the early adoptersoften
the younger generationwho embrace new tools
immediately and are eager to teach others about how
to use various programs. hen, there are the tentative
adoptersthose who want to read case studies and see
the technology in practice before theyll trust its beneits.
Finally, there are the refusersthose who push back on
almost all new tools and ideas.
At irst, the company focused hardest on getting
the refusers to change their minds. But this wound up
being a time-waster. We realized we needed to focus

In addition to the apps power to create a strong case


during litigation, it can be a lifesaver during a safetyrelated incident or jobsite accident.
Before an incident even occurs, a ield worker can
call in an observation such as a loose railing to alert a
safety manager and immediately correct the situation. In
addition, the tool allows for crowd sourcing. he general
public can call in concerns, based on the theory that the
more sets of eyes are spotting potential safety problems,
the better.
In the case of a jobsite injury, a worker can make just
one call using the Notevault app, which automatically
pushes texts out to all the other necessary parties: OSHA,
company executives, jobsite managers, the project owner,
etc. Notevault then texts the worker instructions about
what to do next (e.g., how to secure the injured person,
perform drug testing, capture witness information, ill out
the correct forms and ind the closest medical center).
Recently, NoteVault integrated its tools with other
software applications for ield reportingsuch as CMiCs
enterprise resource management software and Autodesks
Constructware project management softwareso that
users dont need to toggle among multiple technologies
when theyre updating project data.
Clearly, the trend is toward fast distribution of
bite-sized information that helps solve problems as
soon as possible.
In our industry, theres still a challenge of getting
information from the ield to the executive oice. You
have to make it super simple for the guy in the ield,
Lasensky says.
- Lauren Pinch

CONSTRUCTIONEXEC.COM

For example, Resource International, Inc. recently


unveiled Construction Smart Hat, an innovative
technology that integrates its iiCollector mobile asset
manager with Google Glass and Google Maps to
collect data, geo-tag assets and create reports during
infrastructure and facility construction projects.

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WHATS IN:

Trailer-based laptops
Email
Paper documents

Mobile and tablet


computers
Wearable technology
Drone cameras
Social media for
communication
Interactive maps

Rogers-OBrien

WHATS OUT:

not on the guys we were pushing, but rather the guys


that were already pulling, Wynne says.
By concentrating its tech training on the project
managers, ield superintendents and specialty workers
who were eager to learn, Rogers-OBrien worked a
bit of reverse psychology into its project teams. he
refusers began to see the adopters next to them
performing tasks faster and more eiciently on a
mobile device, and then their competitive nature took
over. he refusers didnt like seeing their fellow workers
beat them at the job, so in the end, they came around
to adopting the technology.
In a way, this experience can serve as a metaphor for technology adoption within the industry at large. Contractors
will need to get on board or get left behind.
Lauren Pinch is a contributing writer to Construction
Executive. For more information, email pinch@abc.
org, visit www.constructionexec.com or follow
@ConstructionMag.

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CONSTRUCTION EXECUTIVE | MARCH 2015

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