Image Courtesy OF Oracle Primavera Dashboard Schedulers are demanding more business-intelligence complexity and simplified dashboard views of selected project phases. Shown here is a Primavera screenshot of a dashboard. Related Links: Oracle Primavera P6 website Construction CPM Website and Presentations Critical-path method, or CPM, scheduling tools are doing so much more than managing schedules in construction these days. The project- management software platforms are gaining in sophistication and complexity—with better support for 4D building information modeling that gives project teams a more realistic view of the project. Milestones, risk analysis, business intelligence—it's all baked into CPM tools that are lightweight,
Related Links: Thing Magic “In the old days, we would hire a security guard at the door of every clean room so no one would go in,” says Osman Chao, project executive at DPR Construction, who recently adopted Trimble’s ThingMagic, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system that has replaced the guards at egress points and helped automate his site security.Before the job began, Chao was faced with securing a 900,000-sq-ft site with many work zones and four phases of building protocol in which the level of cleanliness would increase with each phase. “Cleanliness isn’t a big issue when we’re building up
Courtesy Bridges to Prosperity I look back fondly to the days when jumping on a plane was synonymous with reconnecting to silence; when transoceanic flights were absent of the buzz of emails, phones and social media’s barrage of connectivity. But when United Airlines began adding in-flight WiFi this fall, I folded. No longer do I look forward to reflective, stress-free hours. For as much as I want to keep the computer in the overhead bin, I cannot help but appreciate the opportunity for a few extra hours of access.Perhaps in-flight access will take a bit of getting used to, but
Skip Pennington, Brasfield & Gorrie Job Site in a Box is a rugged connectivity portal to get remote job sites up and running fast. Related Links: Feeney Wireless' Mobile Ready Office Williams Scotsman's Techsuite Construction companies and service providers are getting together to offer multiple solutions for instantly connecting remote job sites with all the technological trimmings needed to operate at the speed of 2013.One general contractor found a quick, ruggedized solution to wiring job sites to the internet anywhere in range of 3G or 4G cellular connection, which would free staff from having to wait for utility companies to
Courtesy Buckaplan.com Inevitably, as technology jets forward, some business models are hurt, maimed or left in the dust. One example of an industry under assault is reprographic services, which have been taking a yearly shot to the checkbook as mobile electronic plan-visualization tools get more popular by the day.To fight back, one printer decided to simplify, refocus on subcontractors, extend service boarders and, most important, get a catchy name."When the industry took a nosedive, we didn’t want to lay off people, so we made a change,” says Brian Burke, president of Buckaplan.com, a subsidiary of Universal Copy LLC, Waterbury, Conn.
Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the United States was tremendous. The nation’s most heavily populated metropolis experienced electrical power outages, critical supply chain disruptions, and intermittent transportation in the days and weeks after the storm’s landfall. Many critical operations struggled to get diesel fuel to supply their back-up generators. Some experts thought the New York metro area would be immune to such catastrophic critical infrastructure disruptions, so how could the area have mitigated Sandy’s impact? Energy microgrids could have played a part. A microgrid is a small, electric utility than can be disconnected from the larger electrical grid for stand-alone, computer-controlled,
Mobile Devices Are Key to BI in Construction Stats: Construction Industry Dead Last in IT Spend Gartner Research: Big Data Trends How to Avoid e-Discovery Disasters With Big Data Tools (subscription only) Linked Data Working Group Website Dig into the master schedule on any major construction project and you will likely find plenty of examples of big data.
Construction IT Managers Eying Microsoft Surface Pro Release Mobile Devices Are Key to BI in Construction Gartner Stats: Big Data Trends in 2012 Construction companies with less than $250 million in revenue invest about 1.6% of it on information technology, according to Gartner Research. Meanwhile, construction firms with $10 billion in revenue on average spend only 1.1% on IT. The construction industry is dead last in IT spending compared to 14 other industries measured by Gartner.
Courtesy of Trimble Trimble's new touchscreen tablet allows users to type, pan and zoom with fingers, a stylus or heavy gloves. Related Links: ENR Mountain States: Trimble HQ ENR Mountain States: Tablet Technology Trimble, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based advanced technology systems maker, saw a record 3,500 attendees from 80 countries during its sixth annual Dimensions event held Nov. 5-7 at The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The conference consisted of 480 sessions focused on increased field and office productivity through Trimble hardware and software in a variety of applications from heavy civil and building construction to mapping and surveying.Among
Courtesy Infrasense Infrasense's new GPRQA software collects data from a radar mounted on the back of a vehicle, such as this SUV. Related Links: ENR's Past GPR Coverage (10/24/05) A Time When MnDOT Did Not Use GPR Google Maps measures and maps roads, and department of transportation workers measure and map the subsurface quality of those roads. One company’s advance in computing asphalt-pavement density data on-site claims to make DOT workers’ jobs easier.“We have developed … ground-penetrating-radar [GPR] quality-assurance software that can automatically process radar data on-site,” says Kenneth Maser, president of Infrasense Inc., Arlington, Mass. “It covers the entire