Tag: Workflow

Digital Transformation for the Average Contractor (Part 2)

25 Oct 2020 Darren Young

In my last article, I showed a high level overview of what you’re trying to achieve. Digital transformation in construction is really about eliminating data silos and data handoffs. Because you now have a clear vision of what you want to happen, you’re ready to start putting your plan in place.

Looking for solutions at this point might be tempting. I know I’m always eager to jump in and start problem solving. But let’s hold off on that for now. Put a pin in it and we’ll get to that later.

4 Actions You Can Take Immediately

Before we introduce any new technology solutions, there’s actions you can take right now. You don’t need to write a check or create a budget. Because the only cost is your time and that of your coworkers.

Because they’re not required, my observation is that most companies don’t perform these steps. You’ve likely heard the saying “Time is money” countless times. But in my career I’ve noticed that you can typically waste 10x more money than you spend before anyone ever notices.

Because these steps only take time, there’s really no reason you can’t do them. It’s highly recommended that you do. If for no other reason, the end result will be a good communication and sales tool. It’ll help you move your initiatives forward with those that aren’t as tech savvy and don’t see the path to digital transformation.

Action 1: Workflow and Process Mapping

The first action you can take is to document your existing workflows and processes. By “your”, I really mean the workflows and processes of your company. Many refer to this process as “Value Stream Mapping”. If you’re not familiar with the “Lean” jargon don’t get caught up in the semantics. You’re really just trying to capture and diagram what really happens.

To do this, meet with various groups of users separately. You don’t need a whole department. Choose a diversity of people that will give you the broadest possible honest feedback. To help your groups easily visualize what they’re communicating, write on a whiteboard or use Post-It notes on a wall.

Tools for Documenting Existing Workflow

Ask simple questions. Pretend you don’t know anything about the workflow or processes.

  • What do you need to start you work?
  • Who do you get information from to do your job?
  • How do you receive this information?
  • Are you ever missing information?
  • Where do you get answers to your questions?
  • What are your deliverables?
  • Who do you give them to?
  • …etc…

The idea is to capture all the variation in a group’s workflow. Different ways information is obtained or delivered. Differences in who you get information from or give it to. Variations in data types or quality.

When you document these workflows, take note of value added activities as well as waste. When you’ve documented all the various groups, you can start piecing together workflows of different groups. You’ll likely start seeing some common themes of waste, value or workflows.

Action 2 – Data Documentation

The second action is documenting the lifecycle of your data. It might make sense to actually start this as part of your workflow mapping earlier. As long as you have people together, might just as well start asking them about their data too. That’s because workflow mapping can really inform you about a lot of the data that’s used.

This documentation is sometimes referred to as “Cardinality”. Again, there’s no need to get caught up in semantics or official definitions of the process. You’re essentially just documenting everything you can about you data.

  • What data “Could” you use if it was easily available?
  • Who can create the data?
  • Is the data static or does it change?
  • Who can edit the data?
  • What data do you use?
  • Who only views the data?

As you document the data, take note of the user type. Engineer, Detailer, Project Manager, Shop, etc. For each type of user, note if they create, edit or use any particular piece of data. Do they need it or could they merely use it? How important is the data to that group? As an example, engineering data is obviously more important to an Engineer, Fabrication data to the shop staff and so on.

Example of a Data Ranking Matrix

A few suggestions while gathering this information…

  1. Don’t call it “BIM Data”. Just call it “Data” or people will automatically limit their feedback to their personal definition of BIM. I received more input when I simply referred to “Project Information” or “Data”
  2. When you meet with more users, your list will grow. You might want to take a second round of questions after your initial list grows.
  3. Take note of data importance to different user types…Critical….Helpful…Nice to Have…etc.

Action 3 – Develop Workflow & Process

Another important step is to map out your ideal workflow(s). When doing this, it’s a high level exercise, you’re not documenting picks and clicks. Most commonly you see this done using a diagram with swim lanes. You might also end up documenting several workflows. Workflow differences between contract types (Design-Build vs Hard Bid) or customer types would be common. You’ll want to start with the workflow that most closely aligns with your work.

Swim Lane Diagram Example

In your workflow and process document, you should be highlighting information flow. What information or decisions are made, where and when they are made, and where that flows.

Your ideal workflow should be more simplified than the process map you created earlier. It’ll be hard to get out of your head preconceived notions. But try to just focus on the data so your ideal workflow is not designed around technology. Try to remember…People….Process….Technology….in that order. Here we’re simply documenting our ideal process void of technology.

Action 4 – Technology Map

The last step in preparing for a digital transformation is to look at technology. Now that your ideal workflow is identified, it’ll be easy to map your existing technology over top of it. The documentation you produced earlier will help you do this. You’ll know the types of data, the tools or data types it’s contained in (PDF vs Excel vs CAD, etc).

When you go through this process, you’ll start to see where your technology lacks. If you see a lot of CSV, PDF or other excel workflows, they’re good indications that there’s issues. You’ll also see areas where there’s overlap. These are processes or tasks that have multiple options. Those are other areas to take note and look for improvement.

Your Digital Transformation Begins Now

The effort involved in the above activities is not trivial. While it only cost time, it does take a lot of it. To do this properly you’ll want to engage a lot of your coworkers and get their feedback.

With the documentation from these processes, you have a litmus test to perform on all future technology decisions. Purchases or initiatives all can be held this workflow to see how it fits.

In my next article, we’ll start getting into what the next steps are and how to select technology. After all, identifying what we are trying to do at a high level and documenting our workflows doesn’t change a lot all by itself. At some point to get to digital transformation we need to start intentionally and thoughtfully realigning our technology.

Digital Transformation for the Average Contractor (Part 1)

5 Oct 2020 Darren Young

There’s a lot of buzzwords in the construction space. Digital Transformation…Industrialized Construction…Machine Learning….Generative Design…Augmented Reality…Drones…Robotics….and the list goes on. So what do you do? Today? Tomorrow? Next year? What actions do you take to prepare for a an unknown future? All while managing the challenges of your current projects, staff, backlog and cashflow.

I use the mechanical engineering/contracting industry in my examples. However the essence of what I’m about to say is applicable to almost any contractor. If you don’t have an unlimited budget, time and/or resources, knowing how to prepare for an uncertain future in the heat of battle can be alarming.

But it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need a crystal ball. You don’t need unlimited overhead and staff to properly prepare yourself and prevent yourself from becoming obsolete from business disruptors. What you need is a good plan. A plan that helps you understand what’s happening, why it’s happening and most importantly how to make the correct turns when you’re not sure exactly where you need to navigate.

The problem…

The contracting business is changing. This is creating a few big challenges to maintaining profitability and efficiency. To survive, we need to tackle these changes head on. Don’t worry, it’s not that hard.

What’s Driving This?

A lot of things are driving these changes, most of which can be grouped into one of two categories. The following lists outline some of the major trends and shifts occurring.

Current trends contributing to “Industrialized Construction”
“Technology Evolution” is driven by several changes.

If you look at any of these trends individually, that all seem obvious. Not only obvious, but it’s hard to argue that any of them are negative or harmful. In fact, they all seem like good things. And they are. But when they’re all happening in unison, all these “good things” are creating a lot of the problems the industry is currently experiencing.

The Chaos of Today

To help manage these disruptions, it’s helpful to understand what’s happening today. Below shows an example of today’s workflow. Most groups work in silos. As they work and create more data and information over the duration of a project, they start throwing it over the fence to others within an organization. Meanwhile, other parts or the organization throw data to them.

Existing project workflows…Separate groups and processes throwing data at each other.

For most this feels like we’re juggling a ball, an egg and a chainsaw. And while we’re juggling we’re also simultaneously in the middle of a game of dodgeball.

So what happens when…

  • We forget to throw data to others
  • Too much / too little information is thrown
  • We don’t catch data thrown to us
  • Too much / too little information is caught
  • We miss the catch or forget to throw
  • Information is caught or thrown early / late
  • We loose information
  • Information was unclear
  • We throw or catch data to fast / slow
  • Data is obsolete or unapproved
  • We get duplicate data

The Solution for Tomorrow

To combat these problems, we need a new process. The below is what we really want. A single stream of data everyone accesses. With this model, you don’t give anyone data, they inherently have access to the data you have which they need. It’s not a copy of the data or a report of the data. It’s access to the source data. Now, when someone needs information, they have access to it.

New project workflows…We all share in a pool of data.

Throughout the construction process, because our data is less fragmented, it’s easy to warehouse. This allows you to better inform design by pulling the historical data from the service group. Sales can now leverage this data to explain the lifecycle savings when your bid may be higher. In reality, any data from any phase can more readily be accessed from any other phase. Quality of the entire process improves when this happens.

A New Technology Stack

This “Future” process is very likely a utopian state we can never fully accomplish. At least not in our lifetime. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get closer. This doesn’t mean we can’t take a more thoughtful and meaningful approach to the solutions we use. The fact is we can. We may still have to use technology we would rather not. Things we can’t integrate as well as we’d like. But we can get closer.

The following are examples of a technology stack portfolio. Key technologies thoughtfully selected which form the backbone of your digital process.

Example of a “Microsoft / Autodesk” based Technology Stack.
Example of a “Trimble” based Technology Stack.

These are just two examples. You don’t have to follow these examples. Your technology stack may be mixed or match differently. You may even have different solutions than those shown in the example.

In these examples, we could use Building Data with Stratus, or Autodesk Fabrication with MSuite. Stratus and MSuite are both model based production management systems. They can both leverage your BIM platform and your BIM content and integrate with your company’s back end ERP system. For a mechanical (or electrical, general, etc.) contractor you can look at a more simplified representation below.

A good “Generic” Technology Stack Model.

Again, your model may differ. You may have two or three circles. The names in those circles may be different. But you shouldn’t have six or seven or twenty circles. It’s important that you put thought into how these systems can be used and work together. It’s also important that you understand their limitations.

This isn’t to say you don’t use a lot of additional applications. But they shouldn’t be major data stores without connectivity to some of the pillars in your technology stack. Ideally they’ll connect to one of the existing pillars but not be a major pillar in themselves.

Wrapup

This wasn’t really intended to be a roadmap. It’s more of a vision. Something you should be trying to achieve with careful thought and consideration. There’s no magic formula or combination. Nothing you should blindly copy and follow from others. Your technology stack needs to match your organization. The speed and effort to put it place based on your company culture and organizational readiness.

Regardless of how long it takes, the important thing is you’re working toward that vision. We don’t know what the future will bring in our industry. Some things will never change while others may abruptly disrupt your business. No matter what changes are forced upon you, the less impactful these changes will be the closer to this model you are. When required to, you’ll be better positions to respond in an agile manner.

In my next article, I’ll cover some things you can start doing right now that can help prepare you to implement this new model.