Feb 16 2015

think project! thinking BIM

Delivering BIM in the browser is now part of think project!‘s technology roadmap and it is on track to start its first BIM project in early 2015.

Thinkproject-logoLate last year, I had a long conversation with two executives from Munich, Germany’s think project! about its plans to augment its existing Software-as-a-Service collaboration capabilities with building information modelling (BIM) functions.

No German BIM mandate

For a business mainly supporting customers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, there isn’t the same push to deliver BIM functionality arising from a central government mandate like that in the UK (indeed, given the federal structure of government in Germany, imposing a central mandate across 16 separate administrations would be difficult, I was told).

Nonetheless, at the BAU exhibition in January 2015 (read BIM+ article), Germany’s federal minister of transport and digital infrastructure Alexander Dobrindt announced the creation of a “Digital Building Platform” [Platform Digitales Bauen], a group of industry-led organisations aiming to standardise process and device descriptions, develop guidelines for digital planning methods and provide sample contracts (similar to the UK’s BIM Task Group, it seems).

Updates (23 February 2015) – “planen-bauen 4.0 GmbH” was launched last week, reports BuildingSmart, with Arup’s Ilka May (briefly a fellow member with me of the ICE’s Information Systems Panel, and knowledgeable about the UK BIM movement) appointed as CEO. (16 March 2015) – Ilka May interviewed by UK Construction Manager/BIMplus here.

Thomas BachmaierMeanwhile, CEO Thomas Bachmaier (right) said the company planned to extend its collaborative capacity by adding a BIM solution to its “collaboration cloud”. The think project! strategy remains focused on a single core back-end system, but with multiple front-ends to suit different customer or end-user requirements, and BIM will be delivered through two new front-ends, he said.

Some customers are increasingly sharing 3D, 4D and 5D models on think project! for design coordination and construction control among disparate corporate divisions and project partners, Sven-Eric Schapke told me (he joined the company in early 2013 and had been leading its BIM development work since January 2014, having previously been involved with BIM research projects for 12 years).

Sven-Eric SchapkeThese customers were working on six out of eight pilot projects where BIM was being deployed to support new road or rail infrastructure work. Sven-Eric told me organisations (mainly contractors and trade associations) in these sectors had been voluntarily associating together to develop the industry’s understanding of BIM. It seems likely German businesses will adopt BIM once they have a detailed and thorough set of processes and a mature and reliable BIM “ecosystem” of technologies to support them and the people involved in delivering better whole-life built assets, he said, highlighting healthcare as a particularly progressive sector.

BIM in the collaboration cloud in 2015

BIM ImageThink project! will be incorporating BIM functionality into its technology stack in early 2015, and expects its first BIM project to start in Q2. We talked at some length about 4D (time) and 5D (cost) elements of project delivery, recognising the potential of BIM to enable time and cost-critical decisions to be made earlier in the design process and for these impacts to continue to be felt throughout the operational life-cycle of the built asset. The role of the “Collaboration Cloud” platform was therefore to support cross-enterprise collaboration, recognising that – particularly in the early days of a BIM project – there are likely to be multiple systems (including local file-based applications), partial models, and large numbers of unstructured text and graphic documents. Accordingly, the BIM tools in this “Cloud” will span and link all project data, and support all BIM-related processes from design coordination, through tendering and construction, to operation and maintenance.

In common with rival collaboration providers (eg: 4Projects, Asite, Business Collaborator, Aconex), the think project! ambition is to provide an environment in which discipline-specific models (and related drawings, specifications, and distribution and approval workflows) can be brought together and coordinated, where the coordinated model can be marked-up and commented as required, and where all resulting and related project document revisions and workflows are carefully captured and controlled.

How this common data environment might look in a browser will clearly differ accordingly to the design approach of the vendor. The 4Projects BIM viewer, for example, allows users to review elements of a federated model alongside its work breakdown structure and a view of the underlying model database. In think project! Sven-Eric showed me an interface presenting four different areas: the partial models, the coordinated model, related 3D viewpoints, and related process outputs (eg: RFIs, drawing management). But as with other systems, the think project! intention is to make BIM accessible in any web browser, without additional software downloads or plugins.

Analysis

With Conject, think project! is one of mainland Europe’s leading providers of online construction collaboration software services, generating revenues of €17.2m  [£14.4m] in 2013, though it may also face competition from the acquisitive RIB Software, based in Stuttgart, Germany, which has been building a portfolio of built asset life-cycle management applications – its iTWO Collaboration Exchange (iTWOcx) covers pre-contract and design through to construction cost control and progress reporting, plus some ERP-type functionality. The Nemetschek group has also been building its BIM and collaboration capabilities, adding US-based Bluebeam in October 2014 to a portfolio that included Allplan, Vectorworks and Graphisoft (home of BIMx Docs – February 2014 post), plus its own BIM+ offering.

Unlike Conject – with less than a year to go still yet to publicly showcase its BIM common data environment (4Projects, Asite, BC and Aconex have all shown off their BIM interfaces) – think project! is not being pressed to provide BIM capability by the 2016 Level 2 mandate of the UK government, but with BIM now on the German government’s horizon, it now has a clear strategy.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/02/think-project-thinking-bim/

Feb 12 2015

Think Project! gets webApp-y

Thinkproject-logothink pro­ject!, the Munich, Germany-based Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration technology provider has announced the release of a new ‘WebApp’ in­ter­face, optimised – using HTML5 – for smart­phones.

According to the company, the new in­ter­face sup­ports fin­ger­tip nav­i­ga­tion by users on their smart­phones. For exam­ple, plan­ning, doc­u­men­ta­tion and de­fect man­age­ment processes can be ini­ti­ated, edited and tracked via a smart­phone. Ad­di­tion­ally, all pro­ject sta­tus re­ports and ‘to-dos’ re­lat­ing to reviews and ap­provals can now be called up and edited via a smart­phone.

Jochen Mau­rer, head of prod­uct man­age­ment at think pro­ject! says:

Jochen Maurer

think project! has operated on mobile devices such as tablets and smart­phones as an integrated, web-based application. ​In the past, however, smart­phone operations were not optimal when using the older inter­ace intended for desktop usage together with a keyboard and mouse. It is for this reason that we developed a new mobile interface. This interface is optimised for usage with ‘small’ devices such as smart­phones. The interface enables remote and on-site users to conveniently access think project! for reading messages and documents, participating in workflows and issuing approvals. From now on, smart­phones access­ng think project! will be automatically directed to this new interface.

It is a “WebApp” based on HTML5, which will be loaded automatically when you use a smartphone accessing our sites. It is not just a mobile representation.

think project! has previously (August 2013) released Apple iOS and Android apps for site-based inspection and data gathering processes on smartphones.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/02/think-project-gets-webapp-y/

Feb 11 2015

GenieBelt announces €700k funding round

GenieBelt logo

GenieBelt, the Copenhagen, Denmark-based provider of a free SaaS construction collaboration platform (launched in November 2014), today announced a new angel round led by European angel investor and former CEO of Just Eat, Klaus Nyengaard. Ditlev Bredahl, CEO of OnApp, also contributed to the €700,000 funding round.

GenieBelt says it will use the angel funding round to enhance the functionality of its Software-as-a-Service platform and intensify its marketing activities. Co-founder and CEO of the 15-strong business, Gari Nickson says:

Gari Nickson, GenieBelt CEOThis funding round will help us make GenieBelt accessible to construction projects globally. With a strong team already in place, the additional resources will be used to improve existing modules, scale to all platforms, develop additional features and to take on more of the value chain.

 

Klaus Nyengaard (also a co-founder of GenieBelt and chairman) specialises in digital marketplaces and workflow solutions for verticals. He says:

Klaus NyengaardConstruction is one of the last remaining ‘old’ industries waiting to be disrupted. It’s one of those industries never touched by the desktop revolution and now with the increasing penetration of mobile and tablets we are seeing the construction site being connected like never before. I am really excited to be a part of this journey. We have a strong team at GenieBelt, with a unique mix of industry and startup experience. We also have a very international team and a will to build a great company.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/02/geniebelt-announces-e700k-funding-round/

Feb 03 2015

SaaS social support

Using social media for customer support is commonplace in many global corporations but old-school construction SaaS vendors lag behind new start-ups in its adoption.

Use of social media for customer service has been on my mind a bit recently. Last week, I provided some Twitter training to CIOB branch administrators and one of the questions related to people sharing their customer complaints on social media. I shared the 2005 pre-Twitter example of Jeff Jarvis and his ‘Dell Hell‘ with a malfunctioning laptop:

I decided to turn this into a test: Was Dell reading blogs? Would Dell respond to me in our public forum? Would it recognise the PR crisisette that was brewing? Simple answer: No. Dell was silent. Dell failed the test. I emailed its marketing department: Anybody home? Anybody blogging? Nothing.

DellcaresDell’s eventually reacted to this well-publicised customer service disaster (and others) by investing in strong customer service social media listening and reacting capabilities. It added customer support to its Facebook page, and as consumers began to vent on Twitter, it centralised its customer support functions at @DellCares in May 2010, and in the first two months directly supported 1,800 customers via Twitter. I benefited. In July 2011, my new Dell laptop failed, and I tweeted to a friend about my #Dellfail. Within an hour, @Dellcares had been in touch to start arranging a pick-up and repair.

Dell were not alone in this; Carphone Warehouse’s Guy Stephens was also testing the channel, and I had another positive experience with ‘Andy’ at @OrangeHelpers when my mobile phone SIM card failed in February 2011. More recently, @VirginMedia noticed a tweet I posted about local cable service interruptions, and I get helpful advice via Twitter about that. Of course, you would rather not have a problem in the first place, but, in my view, a prompt and proactive response can mitigate the impact and even make you feel better about the brand (at least, eventually, as I learned with East Midlands Trains), and 1000s of corporates now pay serious attention to customer service on social media – keen to avoid PR disasters such as United Breaks Guitars.

SaaS Social support

Why I am I sharing this on Extranet Evolution? Well, for a long time, I have watched how the leading collaboration technology vendors have managed customer issues, and it has taken years for some of them to wake up to end-users venting dissatisfaction online. I noticed Tweeted complaints about vendors’ systems go unanswered for days at a time, and competitors would sometimes quietly approach the end-user to learn more about the issue. As a social media advocate, when I was at BIW (now Conject) I suggested it might be useful for the helpdesk to set up a dedicated Twitter account so that they could respond direct to queries and also provide hints and tips and timely warnings of upgrades, etc, but it was never taken up – like most vendors in the sector, they mainly respond through the @Conject corporate account (1032 followers).

4Projects statusOne exception is 4Projects which, in addition to the main @4ProjectsNews Twitter handle (961 followers), created @4PSupport (currently 58 followers) in November 2014. This proved useful during a recent issue affecting users in the UK and Europe when the company could at least respond direct to end-user complaints about the service being slow or unavailable. Tweets about the issue, and links to the service status page, therefore didn’t have to be routed through the company’s corporate account.

Recently under new (but existing) management, Business Collaborator has also been looking at its support function. Previously only offering support by email and phone, it’s changing its support desk software (BC blog post)  and adopting Freshdesk. This will retain the email and phone support functions, but a customer portal can also be used to raise issues, while a ‘Knowledge Base’ will provide answers to some frequently asked BC questions. No mention of Twitter in the BC blog, though it has recently started to tweet from @SemanticBIM (204 followers). Update (18 February 2014) – The new BC support portal is now live and Twitter support is “coming soon“.

@Geniebelt (Den) 4246
@Plangrid (US) 4056
@FieldLens (US) 1419
@Newforma (US) 1264
@e-builder (US) 1164
@TrimbleBuilding (US) 1161
@GoBridgit (Can) 1122
@Aconex (Aus) 1080
@Conject (UK/Ger) 1032
@Asite (UK) 989
@4ProjectsNews (US/UK) 961
@woobius (UK – dead!) 684
@Procoretech (US) 612
@basestone (UK) 420
@Corecon (US) 395
@cloudsUK (UK) 390
@collabor8online (UK) 402
@AutodeskBuzzsaw (US) 341
@Cadweb_net (UK – dead!) 323
@MaclarenSoftware (US/UK) 259
@SemanticBIM (Business Collaborator, UK) 204
@RIB_Global (Ger) 160
@Projectwise (US) 120

Social media has been a slow burner in this market sector. Back in June 2009, Asite created its own community site and started to exploit social media, but it’s taken time to build up momentum; when it launched Adoddle17 last March, Asite CEO Tony Ryan was talking about being “cocial”, but – measured by Twitter followers (989) – its main @Asite corporate Twitter account still lags behind some competitors.

While number of followers is a fairly crude and unscientific measure of Twitter engagement, it’s instructive to see how many followers the corporate accounts of various vendors (discussed at different times on this blog) have. It’s not always a reflection of the size of the company, the user base, how long the vendor has been in existence (or even if it still is), or how long the vendor has been on Twitter, as the table – right – suggests.

As I was compiling the numbers, I was struck by how the ‘old school’ providers seemed to figure towards the bottom of the list, while the three table-toppers are all relatively recently-founded startups with youthful management which are targeting the tech-savvy mobile construction collaboration market.

Of course, Twitter is only one channel (and engagement means more than counting followers); several of these vendors also have pages or groups on Facebook, they may also have company followers on Linkedin, and blogs and YouTube video channels (among others) also feature among vendor communications. I will be taking a closer look at vendors social endeavours in a future post.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/02/saas-social-support/

Jan 22 2015

Aconex developing BIM plugins

Aconex logo 2014According to the BIMcrunch blog, Australian construction collaboration company Aconex intends to create more building information modelling (BIM) software plug-ins. The full interview with CEO Leigh Jasper will feature on BIMcrunch soon.

Having previously released an Autodesk Revit plugin in early 2013, and then launched its Connected BIM capability in October 2014 (made available free in December 2014), the Melbourne-based SaaS vendor is now working on plugins for other BIM authoring tools and will be releasing them “in the coming year or so”.

Meanwhile, just over a month after its launch on the Australian Stock Exchange, Aconex shares have been changing hands at prices close to its initial offer price of Au$1.90. According to TheInstoReport, shareholders now include several institutional investors, including AustralianSuper (5.82% shareholding) and National Australia Bank (NAB), which participated through its subsidiaries MLC Investments, NabInvest Managed Investment and Antares Capital Partners (in total, NAB now owns 6% of Aconex, worth $18.3 million) .

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/aconex-developing-bim-plugins/

Jan 22 2015

Panzura pitching to UK BIM users

Panzura is seeking to raise its UK construction profile, but needs to understand the BIM opportunity. Meanwhile, Google lurks … .

panzura - logoUntil a few months ago, I was unaware of Panzura, a US-based hardware technology provider, but it is now promoting its file server hardware vigorously to UK construction firms involved with building information modelling (BIM). Its AEC customer lists bears strong similarities with that of Newforma insofar as it is heavily dominated by design organisations (including BDP, Gensler, WSP, Allies & Morrison, Wilkinson Eyre, Cartwright Pickard and Woods Bagot – among others).

Panzura targeting BIM

Now around eight years old, Panzura has partnerships with a Bromsgrove, UK-based hosting provider Prestige and, perhaps more importantly, with Google, and it held a half-day seminar at Google’s London Victoria offices today. The event attracted around 60 BIM and IT managers, many of them – on a show of hands – vexed by Revit file management issues (we were reminded, more than once, that Autodesk President and CEO Carl Bass is an advisor to Panzura) and attracted by talk of a BIM-friendly file management system.

Panzura’s people (Andy McGlashan and Steve Winfield) painted a strong case for its secure management of BIM files, including file lock-in and – with Google support – cloud-based back-up, archive and disaster recovery. But some doubts began to emerge with its peoples’ grandiose claims that it already – from a technology point of view – delivered Level 3 BIM! I could sense irritation rising in the audience, and, sure enough, they were challenged by BIM practitioners citing PAS1192 requirements (remember: the final building blocks of Level 2 BIM are still yet to fall into place), and the need to support BIM-related workflows through a common data environment (CDE).

Panzura helps AEC design organisations with respect to internal file management, using file metadata to help reduce latency in file synchronisation. A case study, focused on US-based CNS and Syracuse Airport, suggested that, by jointly using its hardware in conjunction with Google Cloud storage, Panzura could reduce latency from around 22 minutes to eight seconds, and remove the need for branch office file servers, tape back-ups, archives and disaster recovery precautions. Panzura controller hardware installed at each office location (entry-level solutions cost from US$17,500) could help firms manage their internal collaboration on files, we were told.

However, in a detailed discussion (Bentley Projectwise, 4Projects and “other EDMSs” were mentioned), it became apparent that Panzura’s focus on Revit and similar model files largely overlooked PAS1192 process management requirements. Under intense questioning (well done, Ian Bush), it was clear that Panzura is largely focused on the internal corporate management of files, less on collaboration with other (external) members of the design team. Only slowly did it emerge that Panzura felt application programming interfaces (APIs) might need to be developed to support Level 2 workflow needs delivered through third party CDE platforms. I think Panzura’s people might need to work harder at understanding imminent UK BIM workflow requirements and how its technology fits alongside process and policy issues (Bilal Succar‘s three circles diagram – a long-time favourite of mine – was shown and discussed more than once).

Google for Work

Google cloud platformSeparate to issues about how Panzura might (or might not) support Level 2, today’s event was also aimed at raising industry awareness of Google for Work (formerly Google infrastructure for business). Brad Gilshaw outlined how Google is competing with (“the bookstore”) Amazon Web Services (used by 4Projects, for example), Microsoft Azure (used by Bentley), Cisco, HP, and the like (all Panzura cloud storage partners) – in providing enterprise-strength hosting solutions (at just £0.026p per GB – less than 3p), with high resilience (a recent review found Google had delivered 99.9996 uptime: around 14 minutes annual downtime – versus 2.69 hours of AWS downtime). Google’s environmental control Nest acquisition was also quietly mentioned. There was no mention of Genie, Flux or related built environment initiatives, but, surely, if Google decided to invest hard in this vertical it would quickly knock several incumbents out of the market.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/panzura-pitching-to-uk-bim-users/

Jan 21 2015

More SaaS and mobile AEC apps

Recent Twitter follows have led me to look at a few new – to me – names in the SaaS and mobile construction applications world:

  • BIMcollab – Netherlands-based Graphisoft (ArchiCAD) and Solibri reseller Kubus specialises in building information modelling solutions in Europe’s Benelux region, promoting OpenBIM and IFC workflow solutions, including BCF Manager – BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) plug-ins for Revit and ArchiCAD – and BIMcollab – a cloud-based issue tracking system for BIM.

  • elogger - logoeLogger.co.uk – Not to be confused with other eLogger products, this Sevenoaks, Kent, UK-based business specialises in an Android mobile solution for construction health and safety and facilities management. The core product is Pad2Print, which helps H&S/FM professionals centralise their management tasks, compiling documents and risk assessments, capturing site information in situ, and managing routine monitoring or maintenance schedules. The product is priced at £99/user/month.
  • safesite logoSafesite – Also supporting health and safety needs, Brisbane, Australia-based Safesite has developed a mobile tool (available for Apple devices and possibly other platforms – like Aecore, its website lacks information about the product, company, its track record, etc). Current features include site inspections, a personnel register, management reporting tools, and a plant/equipment register. In development (“coming soon”) are: pre-start meetings, toolbox talk coordination, work permit registry, incident reports, non-conformance reports, and site induction.
  • ProtrakrProtrakr – Also lacking useful background information, the website of Washington DC, US-based Protrakr says it is a construction management app linking office and site. APP linking the office to the job-site, allowing the user to log a timesheet, submit a field report and input daily quantity production.
  • SmartPM - logoSmartPM by Construx Solutions – Atlanta, GA, US-based Construx provides schedule, data and cost management solutions. Launched in May 2014, SmartPM combines online and mobile technology with CPM scheduling and digital daily reporting, real time performance metrics and schedule updates. Two levels of functionality are provided: “Daily Schedule Manager” (excluding the free single user option, pricing starts from $15/user/month) and the more fully-featured “Lean Project Manager (with data analysis)” (priced from $59/user/month – both prices based on up to four users).

A new ‘bubble’

Fifteen years ago, during the first dot.com boom, dozens of cloud-based collaboration providers were launched into the construction industry but not all of them survived when the bubble burst. Today we are perhaps seeing a similar bubble growing, buoyed by the ease with which a start-up can quickly develop a basic app and create some cloud-based computing and storage capabilities. Not all of these new entrants will survive. Some offer nothing that isn’t already delivered by more established vendors, demonstrate little or no track record, and provide no detail on their management, financing, hosting, reliability, security, etc – all factors that customers should be considering when looking to support project-critical processes.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/more-saas-and-mobile-aec-apps/

Jan 14 2015

Aecore repeats BuildBoxCM marketing fails

Californian cloud construction collaboration software start-up Aecore’s website does the business few favours. It needs improving – and quickly!

As an industry analyst and marketing specialist, I sometimes look critically at how software companies market themselves online. Having worked in the Software-as-a-Service sector serving construction since the late 1990s, and having almost single-handedly delivered the marketing functions for a startup that became one of the UK’s leading providers, I think I know a bit about what works for potential customers and other influencers.

aecore logoSo full marks to California, US-based Aecore for starting to use social media to engage with bloggers – I learned about the company when the founder (name vaguely familiar) started to follow me on Twitter (I don’t autofollow everyone – I will often click on the user’s profile, follow links, perhaps look at recent tweets, before deciding whether to follow back).

AECore websiteHowever, the current Aecore website, while nice to look at, isn’t really marketing the company and its SaaS product particularly well (and I started to recall my critique of a similar startup’s website in October 2011). I can see Aecore:

  • is “cloud-based construction management software for contractors”,
  • allows contractors to share the latest RFI’s, submittals, plans “and more”
  • uses “the cloud” to share folders and documents
  • is an “integrated task management solution” helping prioritise workflow and assign tasks
  • costs from $19/user/month (“Townhouse) up to $99/user/month (“Skyscraper”)

But that’s about as much as you currently learn from the site. While there are small illustrations of parts of the user interface, it is difficult to get a view of the full application or the detail of particular features. There is no information about the company, who founded it and when, their experience, their technological competence. There is no company address, telephone number or email address (though you can follow Aecore on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin). No details are given about hosting (where? service levels?). There are no testimonials or case studies from AECore customers.

OK, it may be early days, maybe this is work in progress and there is a big launch to come (if so, why not say so?). But if I was a Californian contractor looking for a cloud-based solution, there is little to reassure me that this would be right choice. The ‘terms of use‘, for example, insist the customer “shall provide accurate, current and complete information on your legal business name, postal address, email address, and phone number”, yet Aecore doesn’t do the same, and term 8 starts “The core features of Aecore are free to use …” clearly wrong, so the text of the terms of use may have been based on a previous product….

… And it all ckicked into place. Looking at Aecore’s social media output, the founder’s name rang a bell: project engineer Anthony Cirinelli was the founder of BuildBoxCM, the San Jose, CA-based startup I wrote about in 2011. He responded to my blog post then saying lessons would be learned. One or two have been addressed – there are some (partial) screengrabs, and it’s clear who the solution is targeted at: contractors – but otherwise the online presentation of Aecore has some significant information gaps. It needs to be improved, and quickly!

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/aecore-repeats-buildboxcm-marketing-fails/

Jan 13 2015

Checkd mobile checked out

Checkd is a mobile/SaaS construction application incorporating QR codes into its toolset, and attracting customers in its local Norwegian market.

Checkd logoNorway’s construction market is a fraction of the size of the UK’s or US’s, and is proving a rich testing ground for a new mobile and Software-as-a-Service construction application called Checkd. Developed by a small Oslo-based team led by CEO and founder Tom-Erik von Krogh-Martinsen, Checkd was launched in November 2013, almost two years after he led a group working on a ‘proof of concept’ mobile reporting project funded by the main trade organisation for the construction industry in Norway. This demonstrated that simple reporting and sharing of PDFs via mobile devices was attractive to construction users, but Checkd has since developed into something more sophisticated.

As befits a system developed on a mobile-first philosophy, Tom-Erik showed me the mobile front-end first. This is currently offered on iOS and Android smarphone and tablet devices (full Windows support may follow if customer demand grows; two of the four core modules are currently available on Windows), and adopts a Google App-style approach to tasks, rather than trying to incorporate all modules into a single application:

  • Checkd mobile viewHours – Checkd provides one-click, location sensitive time-tracking. Upon arriving at a site, the user logs in. The application uses GPS to help identify where the user is located; the user may select the chosen site and then ‘checks in’, or, if the employer prefers, the user may have to scan a QR code upon arrival.The app records if the user leaves the site (to obtain materials, for example) and so provides an accurate and real-time record of site presence and travel.
  • Control – Checkd provides an overview of users, tasks and issues. It includes a daily report tool, into which prevailing local weather conditions can also be automatically imported and recorded
  • Floorplan – As the name implies, Checkd provides images of previously uploaded floorplans upon which the user can select a location, record a problem, take a photograph to illustrate the issue, assign the problem to another user for rectification, and then issue the notice. Such notices are received almost instantly, are captured in the SaaS back-end tracking and reporting tools, and progress in resolving the problem can also be tracked by colour changes on the mobile device.
  • Checkd equipmentEquipment – Utilisation of equipment and machinery on-site is also recorded via Checkd. QR codes got another mention here, as the system allows the user to scan codes mounted on the relevant equipment, and instantly access all relevant information, including any documents that might be needed for compliance purposes. Over time, the system tracks who used the equipment, when and where.

The SaaS back-end is where user accounts are created, projects set up, new users are added, floorplans and other information are uploaded, and forms created. Checkd will create common forms for a small charge (c. £100), but users can also be trained to do this themselves. Once a project is in progress, the system also provides dashboard reporting and export tools, allowing information to be shared with other systems (this can be via CSV but Checkd is also developing interfaces with corporate CRM and ERP platforms too).

Marketing

Adoption of Checkd is, according to Tom-Erik, often best achieved by showing the app and its back-end to site-based project managers. He said the Norwegian market was receptive to new ideas but, without the more active competition seen in the US or UK mobile construction app markets (see previous post, for example), raising awareness and educating potential users about mobile solutions was still necessary (most of Checkd’s indigenous competition was from internal, office-based systems that had been adapted to create apps, Tom-Erik told me; other SaaS solutions in the Scandinavian market include two Copenhagen-based developers: Docia and its Docia Deficiency List app, acquired by RIB in July 2014, and GenieBelt – post).

Nonetheless, Checkd is already being used by three of Norway’s eight biggest construction businesses, more trials are in the pipeline, and there was interest in taking the system to other markets including Germany, the UK (it is already being bundled as part of a solution from the Bullit Phones/Caterpillar joint venture, Catphones) and Asia (Tom-Erik took advantage of a Norwegian trade mission to Asia to test industry appetite in Singapore). As customer experience develops, the company’s pricing strategy will evolve, with options based on numbers of users, numbers of projects and volume of information stored all being considered.

The product is also one of six finalists in the Norwegian heat of AppCircus this week (the winner will be nominated for the Mobile Premier Awards 2015 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/checkd-mobile-checked-out/

Jan 09 2015

Latista adds mobile business intelligence

Latista says its BI toolset will help users quickly identify and resolve issues by highlighting key indicators and trends, and BIM seems to be firmly on the roadmap.

Latista logoI have mentioned US-based mobile construction solution provider Latista only occasionally since 2010, most recently in connection with its now parent Textura, who acquired the Virginia-based business in November 2013. Latista provides a mobile and cloud platform for documents, commissioning, quality, punch list, and safety management applications. It has started 2015 by adding business intelligence (BI) capabilities to its platform (see the Latista news release) and BIM features heavily on the roadmap.

According to the company, Latista BI will help users quickly identify and resolve issues before a project is impacted, enabling improved collaboration between project stakeholders and keeping the entire team informed and coordinated. A library of standard reports can highlight key indicators and trends:

Owners, general contractors and architects can easily compare and cross-reference performance among projects right from the reporting dashboard within Latista. Power users can access the advanced data analysis tools to create custom reports that track specific issue, inspection, and commissioning metrics.

Business intelligence capability has been added by most of the leading UK-based SaaS AEC collaboration vendors in the past 2-3 years. Conject (then BIW) launched its BI toolset almost three years ago, for example; Asite and McLaren launched their BI offerings in March and April of 2014 respectively; while the Viewpoint/4Projects acquisition of MCS last month added further mobile BI capabilities to its portfolio.

Mobile BIM construction competition hotting up

Latista is one of a growing number of mobile data-capture and reporting tools being developed for construction use in both the US and Europe. In the US just last month, for example, I noted Trimble’s launch of  ProjectSight, though, as a budget product in the Trimble Buildings portfolio, it is not as sophisticated as Latista. The latter is increasingly being positioned as a BIM-ready tool, while others remain largely focused on the traditional sharing of 2D drawings and documents. Here I would mention US vendors such as PlanGrid, FieldLens, Corecon, EADoc, FluidCM, Procore, and – eventually – Viewpoint for Collaboration. Mobile BIM offerings are also being developed by, among others, design software giants Bentley and Autodesk (see my 5 December post: Autodesk raises its BIM cloud game), and UK-based mobile-centric software developers Cadbeam, BaseStone and SiteDesk.

Currently Latista apps are only available for users of Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows devices; Android device support is on the roadmap. Latista marketing manager Fendi Liu tells me the solution supports IFC and many other formats:

“We also support federated models and import and export to COBie. Equipment and components can be extracted from BIM to be available for use in other modules. Offline, users can navigate through BIM using mobile devices. Project engineers can create issues that can be shared to their subcontractors directly from a specific location within the BIM. Users can annotate BIM with markups when they create issues.”

However, it’s not clear how far Latista would support the Level 2 requirements for UK BIM adoption of a Common Data Environment, set to be clarified further this Spring once the final digital Plan of Works and classification elements of the digital toolkit are published. Parent Textura is currently little-known in Europe, and while the 2014 appointment of former Conject CEO Colin Smith will, I am sure, see it localising some of the Textura CPM capabilities to meet UK commercial needs in 2015, it may take longer for the Latista platform to do the same in the context of BIM.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2015/01/latista-adds-mobile-business-intelligence/

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