AECCafe Industry Predictions for 2019 – Part 4

In Part 4 of our AECCafe Industry Predictions, certain trends are further supported by submissions – support for and increased use of more cloud-based technologies, mobile technologies, the movement toward more efficiency in the construction business,virtual reality and augmented reality, the further integration of GIS and CAD, and Digital Twins.

Image courtesy of CCCC Water Transportation Consultants, Ltd.

The advancement of mobile technologies clearly assists the productivity of contractors, which has been an industry slow to adopt in the past. This growth continues strengthen asset and workforce management, realizing more efficiency and cost savings as have been promised over the past years.

The submissions in this week’s story include Assignar, Spatial Business Systems, and Advance 2000.

Jason Barbaer, Vice President of Construction Market and Innovation for Assignar

Jason Barber, Vice President of Construction Market and Innovation for Assignar

Contractor Productivity Will Improve as Companies Embrace the Digital Transformation

Many companies still rely on paper, spreadsheets, whiteboards and single-point solutions to manage projects, workers, equipment, certifications, forms and schedules. If they have digitized any of these workflows it has been with point solutions, resulting in isolated silos of information and multiple entries.

In 2019, the adoption of newer, more collaborative construction technologies will eliminate many of these inefficiencies. Modern cloud-based mobile first technology will allow companies to take the complexity out of managing the construction business and adopt a field focused mentality.

In addition to continued adoption of mobile first solutions; the increased amount and ease of integrations will reduce the silos and improve the productivity of contractors overall. As more workflows and datasets are digitized they are then able to boost project performance, speed up routine processes on the job site, attract and retain workers, and more effectively manage unanticipated changes that commonly occur during the life cycle of a project.

Jason Barber is the Vice President of Construction Market and Innovation for Assignar. Assignar is a cloud-based operations, compliance, asset and workforce management platform for self-perform contractors. Jason has been in the construction industry since 2005. He ran operations for an Emcor division, and served as Resident Engineer and Construction Manager during his tenure with Kiewit. He is a registered Professional Engineer with a civil engineering degree from Colorado State University. Jason has experience in a variety of project procurement methods including; design-bid-build, design assist, design build, Engineer Procure and Construct (EPC), Construction Manager At-Risk, Construction Manager As-Agent and Public Private Partnerships.

Dennis Beck, President and CEO of Spatial Business Systems

Dennis Beck, President and CEO of Spatial Business Systems.

This is an exciting time for the world of geospatial technologies.  The continued advancement of mobile technologies, base computing platforms and networks are the underlying forces that will bring forth more and more innovation.  Here at SBS we tend to be focused on infrastructure-oriented spatial applications.  The following items represent our perspectives in this important area:

1. GIS and CAD will continue to become better integrated, allowing each product platform to function in best-of-breed roles.  CAD will be in a clear role of supporting design and construction; GIS will continue its role of enabling operations, spatial analysis and spatially-enabled mobile apps.  This is a consequence of the 2016 announcements between Esri and Autodesk.  More product-level integration improvements will be coming.
2. Mobile GIS, while already significant, will take on more and more importance.  Mobile applications will continue to transition from mobile mapping to more substantive applications that integrate business workflows.
3. Digital Twins, and Digital Threads will continue to gain market impact as geospatial technologies further work their way into the Internet of Things and advanced asset management applications.
4. The geospatial systems that have been the workhorses of the utility industry since the late 1990s and early 2000s will start to upgrade to new systems.  This will be driven by the need to support improved security requirements and leverage new innovations such as Esri’s Utility Network model and a number of exciting developments that are happening with mobile GIS.
5. Blockchain will continue to be featured in a lot of news pieces, but will not have any significant impact.

Dennis Beck is the President and CEO of Spatial Business Systems.  He specializes in the use of spatial technologies to solve advanced business problems, particularly in the areas of infrastructure design and management. He has over 30 years of experience in geospatial systems implementation, software systems consultancy, information technology business analysis, and systems engineering. Mr. Beck has provided services in support of the utility, telecommunications, construction, environmental and US government business sectors. Mr. Beck is also active in representing the geospatial technology industry, having delivered numerous presentations, interviews and trade publication articles.

Chris France, Regional President, Advance2000

• Migration to cloud services are accelerating – firms are realizing they can get more capabilities for less money and headaches by using cloud services.  These include services such as Autodesk BIM360, Bentley Projectwise, Procore, and full-VDI cloud providers like Advance2000
• Generative Design – We used to say that architects still need to come to work—the buildings don’t design themselves.  Well that maxim will be challenged with Generative Design.     Revit allowed designers to tweak parameters of a wall or stairs.  Generative Design will create several design options based on a set of constraints.
• Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality –  Real-time, photo realistic rendering will be within the grasp of even the smallest design firms.

Chris France, Regional President Advance2000, has specialized in Information Technology for over three decades. He started his career at IBM Federal Systems as a software and systems engineer and progressed to program manager of major DOD systems. From IBM, he traveled to Charlotte to work for Bank of America and then Wells Fargo where he led efforts to merge and consolidate the information technology of major bank and capital markets divisions. After working in the Fortune 100, Chris spent 11 years as the CIO at Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, a Charlotte-based design firm.  

At Advance2000, Chris leads the charge for “private cloud computing” services and is a published author and speaker on this important business strategy.  He can provide the capabilities and economies of scale of enterprise technology to both large and small companies via a private cloud.

Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from The Ohio State College of Engineering and a master’s degree in business from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, design, engineering, engineers, infrastructure, laser scanning, printers, reality capture, visualization

Categories: AEC, AECCafe, apps, architecture, Architecture 2030, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building information modeling, collaboration, construction, convergence, engineering, field, field solutions, file sharing, lidar, mobile, point clouds, project management, reality capture, rendering, simulation, site planning, sustainable design, virtual reality, visualization

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