Earlier this year we announced the coming integration between Rhumbix and BIM 360’s new Construction Cost Management module. With both companies striving to connect the field and the office with seamless information flow and digitized project data, the integration is a great match to bring field-level data when and where you need it.

Tracking costs and risk and keeping a project on budget can be one of the biggest hurdles in a building project, and finding efficiencies in this area can make all the difference in delivering a project on time and on budget.

Hill Partners is an award-winning, industry-leading house builder in the United Kingdom.

We were hosted on-site by Mike Beckett, MD of Hill Bespoke Ltd., (a specialist division of the company working on complex projects) to check out some of their latest innovations using construction document management in the field. Hill Bespoke is an innovation leader for the Hill business and on the cutting edge of technological change in British construction.

If you’ve found yourself here, you might have recently been wondering, “what is BIM in construction?” Fortunately, we have the answer. 

BIM stands for Building Information Modeling. It’s an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and infrastructure. BIM in construction is the use of digital 3D models during the construction process.

As the number of new construction technologies and applications grows, contractors have more choice than ever before on the collection of tools they employ on their projects. Digitalization of construction processes also generates a broad amount of project data, which can be harnessed to improve project outcomes.

Over the past couple of years, Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost has made it clear that ‘industrializing construction’ is a top priority for Autodesk. According to McKinsey, lagging construction productivity costs the global economy $1.6 trillion a year: a big problem with a big opportunity. To seize this opportunity, Autodesk enlisted Jim Lynch to lead Autodesk Construction Solutions in order to create and deliver products and services that accelerate the construction industry’s transformation from analog-based processes to digital workflows.

The success of a project is often dependent on completing it on time and within budget. The construction phase of the project usually consumes the most resources, and is often where projects can go off track if not monitored correctly. One technique that is instrumental in keeping projects running smoothly is Earned Value Tracking. These EVT Tools, like those from Assemble Systems provide a methodical approach to keeping your projects on track to meet tight deadlines. 

Time savings, reduced rework, fewer delays, fewer RFIs… if these are a few of your favorite things, Stantec Treatment can model how to achieve the same results by utilizing the latest in construction document management software.

Stantec Treatment is an integrated design-build process contractor. They’ve engaged in the engineering, construction, and management of many large, technically advanced projects since their founding in 1820. They focus primarily in water, hydropower, mining, and transportation for municipalities, governments, and multinational private corporations.

The eighth annual AEC Excellence Awards competition, co-sponsored by Autodesk, Construction Dive, SmartCities Dive, Informed Infrastructure, and SMPS is already on its way! The awards are an incredible way to honor those in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry who are pushing boundaries with innovative processes and uses of construction technology, paving the way for the future of design and construction.

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is over 150 years old and is a top 20 Engineering News-Record (ENR) general contractor, top 15 Building Information Modeling (BIM) contractor, and top two healthcare builder. The firm is a leader in innovation, construction technology, and lean construction, leveraging Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) tools and pushing towards the ultimate goal of becoming the “Best Builder in America.”

Although construction projects can have dozens of different drawings or models, teams often find themselves referring back to a specific set more frequently than others. With the Project Design Card in BIM 360, you can embed your favorite 3D models and construction drawings directly onto your Project Home page or Insight dashboards.

Completing construction checklists, whether for construction safety or quality inspections, can often be tedious. In fact, a typical OSHA safety checklist can include over 500 items on one list alone. Navigating through these lengthy checklists is made easier thanks to the recent enhancements to the look and feel of checklist templates and checklists in BIM 360.

The improved interface can save you significant time when managing long item lists and helps streamline the overall checklist workflow allowing teams to spend less time scrolling through endless lists and more time initiating tasks to actually complete checklist items.

The engineering and construction industry is built on bringing new projects and innovations to life, but it has also been one of the most resistant to replacing traditional paper-based tools with advanced technology. According to the  2018 Construction Technology Report, over 33% of respondents cite “employee hesitance” as one of the chief barriers to adopting new technology. And more than38% replied that “lack of staff to support the technology” and educate professionals how to use these new tech tools has also been a hurdle.

Though construction technology can streamline the workflow of projects and allow for instant dissemination of information, it must be intuitive and easy to deploy for construction professionals to adopt it. This is where construction project management apps come into play, with their focus on ease-of-use and implementation across project teams.

Robert Mueller is a Senior Technologist at NASA and the co-founder of NASA’s Swamp Works lab. Swamp Works, based out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, was created to be a lean development environment for innovation within NASA. Mueller realized that in order to keep NASA innovative, it had to carve out an environment that would empower people to innovate, which can often be difficult in a bureaucracy. In order to develop the right tools and the right culture for innovation, Mueller helped create the Swamp Works as a special innovation environment within NASA. By leveraging partnerships across NASA, industry, and academia, and utilizing iterative testing to quickly drive design improvements and rapidly develop towards application, Swamp Works has driven exploration towards using robotics in construction to work and live on the surfaces of other bodies in our solar system.

Few professions are as complex and constantly changing as the construction profession. Every day is a new challenge. On large projects, keeping track of the constant changes in construction data is a full time job.

Modern technology has simplified some aspects of our work, and complicated others. Software like BIM 360 Docs, Design, Build, Glue, and others can make it easy to access what you need and to interact with project data in valuable ways.

More than any industry, the AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction) industry has always struggled with content chaos. Members of an AEC project have particular needs based on their particular skills that drive what platforms and applications to help them best do their job.

Founded in Spain in 1956, Eptisa is an international consulting, engineering, architecture, and information technology company with a presence in 55 countries. Eptisa applies their expertise in sustainable development and technical know-how to carry out complex projects in the transportation, infrastructure, energy, industry, health, architecture, IT, and public administration sectors. The company employs more than 1,800 professionals on over 100 projects globally.

For the past 45 years, Tedd Benson and his company Bensonwood have been leading the revival of timber frame home building in the United States. Dedicated to finding a better way to build and inspired by the evocative and durable timber homes and barns throughout New England, Benson has spent his career bringing the old craft timber framing into the 20th century with new technology and equipment, and most recently, robotics in construction.

The increasing adoption of cloud-based software has helped many contractors create, share, and utilize project data with project stakeholder, ushering in a new era of collaboration and construction data. The number of construction apps is also rapidly growing. Contractors are now regularly juggling a variety of solution-specific apps on the jobsite, with new ones coming out all the time.

There are many companies pushing the limits of possibility with robotics in construction. One such company is Construction Robotics. Construction Robotics (CR) was founded in 2007 with the goal of developing affordable, leading-edge robotics and automation equipment for the construction industry. Construction Robotics’ first and flagship product is SAM100 (Semi-Autonomous Mason), a bricklaying robot for onsite and prefabricated masonry construction. SAM is designed to work with a mason, assisting with the repetitive and strenuous task of lifting and placing each brick. The mason continues to own the site setup and final wall quality, but with improved efficiency through the operation of SAM.

NCCRs, or National Centers of Competence in Research, are a research funding initiative of the Swiss government conducted by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Each center is hosted and supported by a Swiss academic institution and focuses on a thematically-limited area of research, with a network of partners in the academic sphere and beyond. These cross-disciplinary research networks focus on high-risk, high-return research of strategic importance for the future of the Swiss economy.

 Let's face it...sharing documents between teams is not always as streamlined as it could be. Often times a General Contractor has to formally issue a collection of construction documents to their Subcontractors on the project. Alternatively, Designers often share their design files in a similar way with the Owner or General Contractor. Within the industry, this formalized sharing of project documents is referred to as “Transmittals”. And while this is a familiar process for most, it can be time consuming to compile the information and verify what was sent, to whom, and when. 

While some may think using robotics in construction is a new development, it is actually the continuation of a larger story about automation in construction that goes back thousands of years.

The Terracotta Army, a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, utilized offsite construction and prefabrication techniques when built in 210 BCE.

Benchmarking is an important topic, but many people are still unclear about what it is. So, what is benchmarking in construction?

The construction process tends to operate in a fragmented way, with a high level of disconnection between project phases and uncertainty throughout the project. This often leaves project teams with a limited ability to accurately predict project outcomes – which ultimately raises the risk level of a project. We think there's a better way to deliver construction project reviews.

The success of a project is often dependent on completing it on time and within budget. The construction phase of the project usually consumes the most resources, and is often where projects can go off track if not monitored correctly. One technique that is instrumental in keeping projects running smoothly is Earned Value Tracking – a methodical approach to keeping your projects on track to meet tight deadlines.

Our new checklist signatures update gives BIM 360 users more simplicity, more time savings, and greater control over construction checklists than ever before.

As firms all over the world push to find new ways to compete in 2019, innovation in construction technology is proving to be one of the most important ways to do it. The leading edge seems to move at light speed and it can be hard to keep track of innovations as the next big thing overshadows the impact of tools we’ve only just begun to explore.

For most people, the phrase construction data analytics is enough to make eyes glaze over. But every day on construction sites, teams are coordinating hundreds of subcontractors, managing thousands of open issues, and navigating constant onsite changes. Construction projects continue to grow more complex, creating new challenges for minimizing risk and improving quality and construction safety initiatives.

Founded by Mr. John Clancy in 1947, Clancy Construction is an award-winning indigenous Irish company with three generations of growth and expertise. Headquartered in Tipperary County and with offices in Dublin, Limerick, and Cork, the company has grown from a small family business to an innovative organization utilizing construction software to provide comprehensive design and construction solutions throughout Ireland.

“Be brave. It’s hard to walk into a room full of men and be the only woman there. But you can do it. Then, over time, they get used to you, they respect you. If they don’t–make sure they do.”

The Danis Group was founded in Ohio in 1916. From the beginning, they’ve had a strong drive to put the client first and to deliver the highest quality construction projects. Over the years, this drive served them well and they now have clients throughout the Midwest and southeast regions of the US, and are proud to claim a repeat customer rate of 85%. The foundation of Danis’ success is a builder’s mentality integrated with high-end experience to meet the needs of their project goals.

“Construction is a great industry for women. It’s been a wonderful, wonderful career for me.”

If you ask Google, “What is EMR in construction?” you’ll discover that it stands for Experience Modification Rate, and that it’s based on your company’s safety record. You may find out that an EMR of 1.0 is average, and that lower numbers indicate a better safety record and higher numbers indicate a worse one. You’ll also read that it impacts your insurance rates.

No longer a futuristic vision, drones are now common on construction sites. Today, the business case for using drones in construction is clearer than it was even two years ago, and companies are already benefiting from their many uses. Here's how...

At Autodesk University 2017, the ConTechCrew spoke with Trent Miskelly, General Manager of SmartBid, about the recent integration between SmartBid construction bidding software and BIM 360.

Cannistraro, a Boston-based mechanical construction firm, has its roots in the entrepreneurial vision of John Cannistraro, who began with a family-owned plumbing shop in Watertown, Massachusetts. The firm has grown to be widely recognized as a leader in modular construction technology and has a reputation for providing excellence in service and quality. The firm also expanded its services to include fire-protection, HVAC, and sheet metal solutions, and offers turnkey service and maintenance to clients throughout New England.

Across the board, large construction projects take an average of 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled, and are up to 80 percent over budget. That’s according to a recent McKinsey report on the future of construction technology.

Most of the construction project management issues that lead to over-budget, past-due projects become obvious late in the construction process. But if done correctly, most of them can be prevented during preconstruction. It’s just that most companies are doing precon wrong.

Safety and risk mitigation are two of the main problems that keep contractors up at night. From project delays and liability issues to injuries and even fatalities on the jobsite, the consequences of safety lapses can be severe. According to data from OSHA, 20% of all workplace deaths are in the construction industry, and jobsite deaths have increased every year since 2007. 

IGA, the firm formed to construct and operate the new Istanbul Airport, has a 25-year plan for operations and sustainability. Their goal with this project has been to propel Turkey onto the World stage as a global hub for aviation and shine a spotlight on Turkey’s commercial and tourist potential.