Technology is speeding up site work

DIGITAL BUILDING: Gilbane Construction Co. foreman Don Welshman, left, and superintendent Adam Bernier use a tablet device on a work site. Gilbane is among the firms utilizing new software. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
DIGITAL BUILDING: Gilbane Construction Co. foreman Don Welshman, left, and superintendent Adam Bernier use a tablet device on a work site. Gilbane is among the firms utilizing new software. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

Evan Staples has only been a project engineer at New England Construction in East Providence for about a year, but training in the field has shown him the critical role technology plays in the industry.
Staples says he’s heard from colleagues about the troubles that sometimes ensued from having to wait to get revised paper schematics on the construction site via FedEx in order to make last-minute changes. Today, updated documents can be viewed on a tablet or smartphone at the site, quickly and at less expense than delivery by FedEx or UPS, he and his peers at larger construction companies say.
“I’ll be on-site down in a building midconstruction and we need to check a detail on an architectural plan,” he explained. “I can pull that up on my smartphone, check the detail and solve that problem. It cuts down on foot traffic and the paper documents needed.”
Fieldwork at construction sites has evolved with the times, backed up, contractors say, by not only standardized industry software suites such as AutoDesk, but also by award-winning software created in-house. Regardless of size, firms work in secure, private clouds to share proprietary documents ranging from change orders to architectural drawings with architects and designers, subcontractors or, when it comes to legal financial contracts and other documents, with project owners.
“Paper, fax machines – we don’t use any of that anymore, it’s all electronic,” said Jason Pelkey, Providence-based Gilbane Building Co.’s vice president and chief information officer. “It cuts down the amount of time it takes so we can keep the job on target. We don’t have to wait for approvals as long. We do occasionally FedEx things out, but it’s reduced. We’re attempting to eliminate all FedEx and UPS costs unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Gilbane has 2,000 employees and is expanding its national scope to a global one. In contrast, New England Construction has 45 employees that work in markets extending from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut to New Hampshire and New York. A third firm, Dimeo Construction Co. of Providence, has more than 200 employees who cater to a predominantly southern New England market. Each of these firms is experiencing the benefits of technology that has come into its own in the past several years, finding easier ways to access information and collaborate while saving time, money and paper.
“It’s continuing to evolve,” said Anthony F. Dematteo, Dimeo’s vice president for business development, who has worked in the industry for 23 years. “When I was in the field, we were doing it the old-school way. I see how it’s improved productivity and collaboration and communication. No one wants to be gummed up and see weeks or even days go by without resolving something, because it has a cost. Everybody’s time is worth something.”
Dimeo uses a number of programs within the AutoDesk suite, Dematteo said.
A program called Synchro marries logic diagrams with design in three dimensions, or a fourth dimension that enables viewing of 3D from different angles. The virtual model that’s created mainly for bigger projects allows project participants to visualize the schedule in the form of a building going up, Dematteo says, in order to determine the impacts of work schedules and optimize use of resources.
“It’s animated,” he said. “You can literally see the rebar going into place.”
Another AutoDesk program, NavisWorks, enables what’s known as “clash detection” – visualization in 3D to determine how a project fits together, before it’s actually built. For instance, a water pipe might interfere with a steel beam, and need to be rerouted.
“It’s almost like an MRI,” Dematteo said. “We’re able to see [like a surgeon] where a bone may be interfering with a tendon. The last thing we want to do is get into the field and try to penetrate that beam. The project stops, there’s a change order. What we try to do is eliminate risk with virtual models. The good news is we’re finding [clashes] in design, not in construction.”
Likewise, Dimeo used to spend up to six months coordinating electrical, mechanical and plumbing installation. Gilbane, which also uses AutoDesk, this month made the InformationWeek 500 list of top technology innovators in the country for its creation and implementation of DocBuilder, a Web-based application the company developed to put documents into the hands of clients, architects, and trade contractors in a more timely and secure way.
DocBuilder “grabs the data and makes it a hyperlink to the documents that go with that (Request For Quotations),” said Lynda Callahan, a Gilbane business analyst and project manager. “I’m doing it all in one place and the customer is able to retrieve everything all in one place.”
The motivation is not just to be a leaner and more efficient company, but to make interaction easier, Callahan said.
“We’re moving into more of an electronic age,” she said. “People don’t want to get up out of their chair to walk over to scan or copy something and get it to someone else. [With DocBuilder], we’re able to send out the information with just a push of a button, not needing to mail out huge FedEx packages to folks. When you have a huge change to a project, you would spend hundreds of dollars and it would take a day or two. Now, it’s almost instantly that they’re receiving the communication and the cost is greatly reduced.”
DocBuilder also eliminates bogging down emails with huge attachments, she said.
None of the companies would quantify the amount of time and money saved using these technologies, but Callahan said savings sometimes accrue.
In fact, administrative assistants may be more available to take pictures in the field, for instance, instead of manually entering data or pushing paper, she said.
As an industry, construction is making better use of technology than ever, Pelkey added, and that will continue.
“We’re using laser scanners now to scan rooms for remodels, so it’s more precise in terms of where conflicts are happening,” he said. “These are things that, 10 years ago, we would have done by hand. Technology is playing a much larger role in eliminating errors in construction and making it more efficient.” •

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