SOFTWARE
By Jacob Stoller
Closing the data gap More than their peers in almost any other industry, construction executives rely on disparate sources of data for their make-or-break decisions.
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ontractors don’t trust their data, according to a recent scale, according to Chaudhry, there’s a significant information gap study, and report that they frequently make poor decisions between the information used in design models from engineering because their data is wrong or inadequate. and the operational models used in the field. These were key findings of an Autodesk global study Until recently, many contractors have relied on tools adapted released this past September of nearly 4,000 construction execfrom other industries, with unsatisfactory results. utives. Half said that a third of their decisions are compromised “Traditionally in construction, the flow of information between by what the study calls bad data, that is, data that is inaccurate, the design phase and the construction phase has been hampered incomplete, inconsistent, or untimely. A third of respondents by software adapted from other industries, and consequently, poorly believe that more than half of their data is bad. matched for the task,” says Saraw. The problem is no small matter for an industry where business An ERP system adapted from manufacturing, for example, owners routinely put a significant proportion of their resources on might be difficult to connect to the field, leaving manual processes the line based on predicted outcomes. No decision can be made to fill the gaps. “So, I might be relying on three or four disparate without predictions, and without good data, the executives charged sets of reports that tell different stories,” says Saraw. “And as surmising future outcomes are flying blind. an executive, I simply can’t make a real-time decision based on Construction’s poor track record for completing projects as outdated disparate data – let alone forecast effectively or accuforecasted bears this out. In a study commissioned by Procore rately.” Technologies this past August, research firm IDC found that out of More often than not, however, the bottleneck isn’t IT. Data 303 U.S. and 202 Canadian project owners, 75 per cent exceeded strategies have to be sanctioned and reinforced at the highest their planned budgets on their projects, and 77 per cent were, on levels in the organization, and give IT clear guidance on the prioriaverage, 70 days late. ties. So, the real challenge is for executives to see the impact that This problem exists in spite of an explosion in apps that make inadequate data is having on their business, and to appreciate the it easier to collect data, and the wide usage of smartphones and potential gains from addressing the problem. other data collection devices in the field. The problem is what happens after the data is “That single version of the truth, or common collected. “In the last five years, we’ve made the data environment, is now something that is being transition from pen, paper, and clipboards to a looked at more seriously,” bunch of apps that collect this data in digital form,” says Kristopher Lengieza, vice-president of global partnerships and alliances at Procore “I can sell you the best software on the planet,” says Saraw, Technologies. “The big challenge has been connecting “but without executive sponsors who make their expectations clear data from multiple sources.” from a data and KPI perspective, and without a strategic plan that “The reason the industry has a history of schedules not being aligns with those expectations, you’re not going to be successful.” met or budgets always getting increased, or rework, is because Chaudhry hopes the industry will follow in the footsteps of information is scattered in so many different formats that people banking and other industries and create common data environdon’t have easy access to,” says Hammad Chaudhry, director of ments where all stakeholders are looking at the same picture. virtual design and construction responsible for EllisDon’s civil and “That single version of the truth, or common data environment, ICI projects in Western Canada. is now something that is being looked at more seriously,” says A PERENNIAL CHALLENGE Chaudhry. “I think that this would unlock a level of efficiency that Getting data to flow between diverse stakeholders has always would lead us as an industry move on to the next step or part of our been one of IT’s toughest challenges, and one that is amplified evolution.” in the complex business of construction. The basic problem is that different apps store their data in different formats, and these Jacob Stoller is principal of StollerStrategies. Send comments to are often incompatible. A labour management app might not, for editor@on-sitemag.com example, be able to read data from a scheduling app. On a larger on-sitemag.com / 59
