VOICEThe Issue 3, 2022 The official magazine of The Construction Users Roundtable Re gister for a CUR T Ev ent! htt ps://www .curt eve nts .com The Innovation IssueThe Construction Users Roundtable 3 COVER STORY Innovation is key to unlocking productivity improvements in the construction sector. This article examines the latest research on productivity while highlighting programs, tools, and companies that are zeroed in on innovation specific to project execution. Flip to page 8. WORDS OF WISDOM: 5 Jim Ellis, CURT President Published For: The Construction Users Roundtable 2245 Gilbert Avenue, Suite 100, Cincinnati, Ohio 45206-3000 Tel: (513) 563-4131 Fax: (513) 733-9551 E-mail: construction-users@curt.org Web: www.curt.org Published By: Matrix Group Publishing Inc. Return all undeliverable addresses to: 309 Youville Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2H 2S9 Toll-Free Phone: (866) 999-1299 Toll-Free Fax: (866) 244-2544 sales@matrixgroupinc.net www.matrixgroupinc.net Canada Post Mail Publications Agreement Number: 40609661 President & CEO Jack Andress Operations Manager Shoshana Weinberg sweinberg@matrixgroupinc.net Senior Publisher Jessica Potter publishing@matrixgroupinc.net Editor-in-Chief Shannon Savory ssavory@matrixgroupinc.net Senior Editor Alexandra Kozub akozub@matrixgroupinc.net Editor/Social Media Manager Jenna Collignon Finance/Administration Lloyd Weinberg, Nathan Redekop accounting@matrixgroupinc.net Director of Circulation & Distribution Lloyd Weinberg distribution@matrixgroupinc.net Sales Manager – Winnipeg Neil Gottfred Sales Manager – Hamilton Jeff Cash Sales Team Leader Tanina Di Piazza Matrix Group Publishing Inc. Account Executives Andrew Lee, Brian MacIntyre, Cheryl Klassen, Colleen Bell, Frank Kenyeres, Jim Hamilton, John Price, Rob Gibson, Sandra Kirby Advertising Design James Robinson Layout & Design Kayti Taylor © 2022 Matrix Group Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of Matrix Group Publishing Inc. Printed in Canada. THE COVER: FEA TU RES 14 Design for Wellness: A Road Map to Developing and Implementing a Mental Wellbeing Program 19 The Foot-long Beard: A Tale of Construction Slumber 22 Behavioral Health: The Impact on Safety, Productivity, and People 26 How to Improve Construction Job Site Metrics with Wearables LEADER SH IP The Innovation Issue: Unlocking Productivity Improvements 8 30 INDEX TO ADVERTISERSThe Construction Users Roundtable 5 A Message from the CURT President WORDS OF WISDOM I am energized by the fact that CURT is once again hosting learning opportunities for our members and the industry. By the time this issue of The VOICE is published, we’ll have gathered with the help of Zoom to discuss technology and productivity, off-site construction and modularization, and sustainability. In September, we’ll gather in Las Vegas for an in-person Member Meeting, September 13, and Technology & Solutions For Better Business Outcomes, September 14. Join us in Tucson, Arizona, November 15 for a Member Meeting and our annual Awards of Excellence Gala, as well as on November 16, a two-track Summit, you can sign up to deep dive into off-site construction / modularization or safety and wellness. Part of our responsibility as construction leaders is to continue our learning journey. I understand that it is not always easy to find time, and sometimes it may feel outright impossible to clear your schedule, but if you make this a priority, I promise that you’ll reap the benefits. I’ll add that if you’re interested in one thing, attending an online or in-person learning event related to that one thing is great… but, make sure to expand beyond your interests and into areas that will challenge your views, your ways of conducting business, and your outlooks on running projects. You just might learn something that will change how you operate on a personal and / or business level that will create great and sustaining value! With over 40 years of experience working in engineering and construction with several companies and across many business sectors, I have had the opportunity to learn and grow from working and engaging with many professionals in this industry – owners, contractors, skilled labor professionals, association leaders, and everyone in between. Being involved with CURT has certainly helped me with my personal and professional journey and in fact, my work on the CURT Board and my attendance at every event possible has provided many opportunities to catch up with these colleagues from other companies AND has made it possible for me to meet and learn from young professionals, peers in similar positions to mine, and experts in engineering and construction and beyond, who are speaking at the events. What a blessing! I have learned a tremendous amount of useful information from the people I have met over the years. I have taken their lessons learned and applied them to the decisions I am making. I am grateful for this opportunity and thank those who have taken the time to share their knowledge with me. I hope I have done the same for others, too! In a nutshell, this is the benefit of being involved with a great organization like CURT and attending as many professional events as possible. Knowledge is really a competitive advantage! I would like to encourage you to attend an upcoming CURT event, to participate on our committees, to share your expertise with those you meet along the way, and to listen too, to what others have to say. Our association is only as strong as our members make it. Thank you for taking the time to make CURT such a driving force in the construction sector! Jim Ellis CURT President Microsoft, Corporate VP Global Construction (Retired) I would like to encourage you to attend an upcoming CURT event, to participate on our committees, to share your expertise with those you meet along the way, and to listen too, to what others have to say. ‘‘ The Knowledge is Yours for the Taking8 Helping owners achieve the most productive use of every capital dollar. COVER STORY Innovation is key to unlocking productivity improvements in the construction sector. Innovation Issue The This is not your father’s – or mother’s – construction industry. The perception that the construction industry today is low tech is, in fact, false. While there may be several manual or analog processes still in place, most leading construction owners today have taken significant steps to begin their digital transformation journey. “Today’s construction site and office operations have dramatically evolved,” says Chris Bell, Vice President of Industry Strategy at Trimble Inc. “The status quo won’t cut it anymore and the industry is primed for revolutionary change.” Trimble is an industrial technology company that is transforming the way construction works by connecting physical and digital worlds across the industry. Through its hardware, software, and service solutions, Trimble’s technology and processes enable jobs to get done more precisely and more accurately so that asset owners can build, construct, grow, and move the things we need to live our lives and build our future communities. The company offers five core technology solutions for the industrial ecosystem: positioning, The Construction Users Roundtable 9 Innovation Issue performance indicators that, when small, may fly under the radar of a project manager. “Yet, by using cloud computing, these small variances can indicate a more systemic trend,” says Bell. “Properly modeled, today’s modern AI can spot the need for contingency or for contractors, they can predict profit margin at completion in even the first few months of a project.” Building with robotics Humorist and New York Times bestselling author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, Daniel Wilson writes, “Personally, I’m not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.” Once the stuff of science fiction, autonomous robots are today being deployed on jobsites for a variety of purposes, giving construction teams the ability to perform more frequent construction progress monitoring to lower overall construction risk, as well as improve production and quality. This cutting- edge technology also helps enhance job site safety, allowing contractors to deploy remote inspections in environments that might not be safe for humans. Founded by Derrick Morse, Rugged Robotics aims to modernize the commercial construction sector. The company’s first product tackles the challenge of field layout, replacing the slow and error-prone manual layout with an autonomous vehicle that marks fully coordinated A/E designs directly onto unfinished floors. Having prototyped and tested for almost two years, the company is now starting to scale commercially with several significant U.S. projects. “We identify a problem and then design a specific solution for that problem. And the problem we are looking to solve first is field layout, which is the process of translating digital design into the real world,” says Morse. “Right now, this is being done manually by people crawling around on their hands and knees, snapping chalk line along the floor. We built a low, four-wheeled robot that can more precisely and more efficiently print the layout directly onto the concrete.” Rugged Robots right now remains laser- focused on developing its product for field layout but, down the road, the company has a pipeline of products they are looking to build out to solve other construction issues. Morse believes, however, that one of the industry’s most significant challenges – workforce – will only be improved with a greater adoption of robotic technologies in the field. “The construction industry struggles to attract the talent that it needs to meet the growing demand, and we are looking to fill that gap by using robots for what robots are exceptionally good for, doing dull, dirty, and dangerous work,” says Morse. “This will help free up workers to do what humans do best, whether that’s managing the team, making sure that all the supplies are arriving on time, working with other trade partners at the job site, and coordinating things in the field. When used correctly, robots are meant to support the workforce and allow them to do connectivity, modeling, analytics, and autonomy. “What’s unique about Trimble’s vision for a connected platform is the delivery of both hardware and software technology that collects real-world field conditions to improve the accuracy of the 3D model used throughout the lifecycle of a project,” says Bell. “It connects the digital and physical worlds in ways that streamline workflows and improves productivity.” Looking ahead, Trimble sees artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies quickly jumping from the prototype stage and into production within the construction industry and, given the avalanche of data now coming from construction, this software engineering technique is only just beginning to deliver extraordinary value to owners. “Let’s just start with predictive analytics,” says Bell. “Like ADP, which has unique insight to worldwide payroll data and can report on employment trends, Trimble can leverage anonymized data to predict construction economic trends long before traditional market analysts. Owners that have early insight into cost trends can make pre-emptive decisions that keep their projects moving, while others continue to react to lagging indicators.” Another emerging AI/ML trend is the identification of risk. There are many ways that data can reveal leading indicators to risk, such as small cost performance trends, tone of communication on a project, and small schedule delays. These are all key Next >