How advancements in construction technology change the way the field, office and partners connect.
Construction is becoming increasingly dependent upon the fast and accurate exchange of information. The days of moving from blueprint to groundbreaking are being replaced by Building Information Modeling (BIM) and collaborative file sharing. Once ground is broken, project managers are finding that paper forms and generic spreadsheets are no longer sufficient tools to deal with projects of growing complexity.
Interaction between the participants in the construction process-the office, field and all sub contractors-has gone (and is still going) through three distinct phases: collection, communication and collaboration. Like water changing phase from solid ice through liquid to vapor, each transition requires significant energy. And each transition brings significant increases in productivity to the industry.
The Solid Phase: Collection of Documentation in Construction
Business computing is about 40 years old. Personal computing took off about 30 years ago. And widespread use of the Internet and email communication has been around for roughly 20 years. Yet, many contractors today still rely on paper exchange between the field, office and subcontractors. The conclusion many draw from this behavior is that the construction industry lags behind other industries in adopting new technology.
However, this conclusion is not supported by the facts. Construction companies were among the first to use mainframe and mini-computers in the 1970s. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the introduction of construction software for use with personal computers. Many medium and even smaller contractors were using computers and software well before other industries. And during the growth of wireless telephony in the 1990s, the construction industry led others in the use of mobile communication, driving the development of push-to-talk technology.
Despite being early adopters of data processing and communication technologies, contractors remained tied to paper. Even today, it is common to see a collection of folders containing job-related documents sitting next to a workstation running sophisticated business management software. And where there is paper, there is the need for manual (and often duplicate) data entry, filing and storage.
So why didn't the early adoption of technology help eliminate the inefficiencies of paper? The answer is documentation and distance. Detailed cost, progress and change order documentation must be gathered from multiple remote jobsites. Project information, bids and invoices must be exchanged with multiple subcontractors. Documentation in construction is vital, and the places where it is generated are remote and often not technology-friendly. So the standard operating procedure for many companies was, and still is, one of collecting physical field-generated documents from project managers and subcontractors.
The Liquid Phase: Communication Between the Office and Field
Computing and software brought increased productivity to the industry throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But the need to process large volumes of physical documentation from jobsites, subcontractors, and vendors kept the industry from enjoying the full benefits of the new technologies. Two advances helped move construction toward a more efficient workflow-software integration and document imaging.
The software tools needed by the office for finance, accounting and business reporting are fundamentally different from those needed by the project manager in the field for tracking job progress, schedules, materials and subcontractors. As a result, these tools were typically developed independently by different vendors and did not easily work together.
To establish a flow of business information between the office and field, the field and office software systems needed to be integrated. Construction software vendors realized this and began delivering solutions in two basic ways: applications that allow separate accounting and project management systems to "talk" to each other, and complete construction software systems that provided integrated accounting and operations.
These integrated solutions have been available for several years and continue to grow in adoption. But they still do not solve the documentation dilemma. In the mid 1990s, the first document imaging solutions were brought to the market, allowing both field and office staff to turn paper documents into digital files. Not all solutions were created equal. Those that now also provide archiving and searching capabilities and are integrated with accounting and operations applications are the ones that provide the greatest productivity boost.
Companies that have adopted integrated accounting, operations and document imaging solutions benefit from faster and more accurate communications-information flows like a liquid between the field and office locations. But like all liquids, communication pipelines are needed to channel the information flow.
For each new participant added into the information exchange, a new communication pipeline must be built. Because construction is a collaborative effort between many individuals and different companies, the chore of building these pipes can become an anchor on productivity. Removing the pipes is the next challenge to the construction industry and its technology vendors, and the solution is fast approaching.
The Cloud Phase: Collaboration in Construction
The construction industry is often compared to the manufacturing industry in terms of productivity. While manufacturing has experienced a steady increase in productivity over the past 50 years, construction has remained flat. This statistic is often used to demonstrate that construction is behind the technology curve. But the comparison itself does not hold. Manufacturing enjoys benefits that, in general, are not available to construction based on fundamental industry differences.
Construction cannot, for the most part, be outsourced. Buildings and infrastructures are built where they stand. And the automated assembly line that brought so many efficiencies to manufacturing is a model that does not translate well to construction. But a new phase in information technology-the move toward cloud computing-promises to deliver a new level of productivity to the construction industry.
Like many new technologies, the meaning of cloud computing has become clouded by different vendors anxious to join the cause. Fundamentally, cloud computing refers to the use of the Web as a platfor-development, hosting, data storage and access to software applications all take place via the Web.
What cloud computing does not mean is simply accessing server software through an Internet connection and the use of third-party applications such as Remote Desktop. This approach provides remote access to select individuals using the right software on their computers, creating a virtual environment for them. But it does not deliver the two other benefits that are key to delivering construction productivity: open access and zero footprint.
Open access means eliminating the communication pipes that must be built to add people into a virtual environment. In cloud computing, access to the Web is the only requirement to access information and applications. That is not to say that software and data are not still secure. Access can be controlled as easily as it is in a closed corporate environment, and rigorous data security and backup standards exist that meet or surpass the security levels most companies employ within their own organizations.
The second important and related benefit of true cloud computing solutions is captured by the term "zero footprint." A computing footprint refers to the amount of dedicated software and hardware one must have in order to use an application. In cloud computing, the user has only to access the Internet through a browser. Nothing else is required-no special hardware, client software and third-party access applications.
The benefits of cloud computing improve productivity for the entire industry. Consider an environment in which everyone can access your construction business software anytime, from virtually anywhere and from any Internet-ready device.
This is an environment in which collaborative construction can thrive. Different companies working at different locations performing different types of work can all work together in real time. Construction will never be an automated manufacturing assembly line, but this next phase in the evolution of data communication and computing will bring similar gains in productivity. This is the promise of true cloud computing.
Construction Business Owner, January 2011
