How Tablets Will Transform Construction

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/11/tablets-will-transform-construction/

by rsuttongee • 14 years ago

62 27 14 years ago

pg2• 14 years ago

PlanGrid shows how wrong people were to think the iPad was just a toy. It turned out to be the last remaining thing the construction industry needed to go digital. I doubt Steve Jobs knew that when Apple released the iPad. Nor did we know it when we published RFS 6 (http://ycombinator.com/rfs6.html). But they knew and we knew that they were onto something.

What other industries have been waiting for the iPad? If you want to build what they need, we'd love to fund you.

muhfuhkuh• 14 years ago

Since I'm not competing in that industry anymore, I'll chime in.

If we can solve the problem plaguing small (1-5) to mid-size (5-10+) private medical, dental, and veterinary practices with a single, seamless interface for their various specializations and needs (hook into Front Office, back end, supply chain, mgmt of outsourced services like crowns/bridges/dentures and lab cultures/tests).

Everything I've seen working with practice management software is that the only difference is the hook into either AMA (CPT), ADA, and VM/VT (for veterinary practices) codes for procedures and conditions. Everything else is standard app stuff in my estimation.

Hard to pull off, though.

snambi• 14 years ago

A lot of new applications can be created based on a certain industry or a problem.

For example, most of the furniture that we buy, comes with an instruction manual, bunch of hardware and sometimes tools. For many people, it is not easy to understand.

An iPad application can guide the user with voice and visuals, instructing what to do in each step. Kind of like GPS for DIY things like furniture. An advanced version can even guide how to repair a car. A youtube video may be useful as well. But the user needs to pause, rewind and it doesn't provide the interaction an App can provide.

I think an iPad application can provide the detail, guidance, error handling and can even connect to customer service in case of something wrong. This can change the way we do DYI projects. I think iPad is perfect for something like this.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

The funny thing about the iPad's image as "just a toy" is that it has always been an incredibly powerful and capable computer, for a pretty reasonable price all things considered.

Many hospitals have been using tablet based computers for years. And think of all the touchscreen based systems out there. Kiosks. Some ATMs. Etc. I'm honestly somewhat curious about why so many people would think that removing a physical keyboard, changing the form factor, and making software easier to use would translate into a device becoming trivial in purpose. The only thing I can come up with is the concept of difficulty being inextricably linked with capability. The "REAL programmers debug memory dumps LIVE!" sort of machismo. If a jumbojet were so easy to pilot that a 4 year old could safely fly one I imagine people wouldn't take it very seriously for a while either.

What amuses me most about this is that we already went down this exact same road with the PC long ago. The PC was a toy, and not acceptable for use in serious business, until IBM started legitimizing the idea (after which Apple II sales shot up, ironically). And yet from day 1 the iPad has always been more capable than, say, the Apple II.

brudgers4• 14 years ago

The iPad will further digitize the construction industry in a way analogous to the way it will digitize the restaurant industry by replacing printed menus - those people looking to justify deploying iPads will find such justification and the product will be successful because there is a great deal of pent up demand among an increasingly well educated cadre of construction management professionals.

At the abstract level, construction is an exercise in estimating financial and temporal costs in light of various ongoing relationships and relationships of convenience. The revolutionary application will make playing "what if" a low friction exercise with a high degree of accuracy while accounting for the wide range of comfort levels with technology among people who actually build stuff. The 37signals paradigm comes to mind.

The tough problem is not replacing printed sets of plans, construction takes time and success comes from avoiding the sorts of crises depicted in the article through planning and information management - at the point the crane cannot swing 30kips of concrete into place due to lack of clearance, one is trying to minimize losses not maximize profits.

The focus on the iPad is allowing the team to address the non-critical problem paper plans present for construction professionals traveling between jobsites rather than the tackling the critical path impediments to radical change.

That critical path requires dealing with BIM. On the other hand, BIM is information modeling not 3D virtual construction. 3D is for solving design issues (and impressing lay people).

The representation of that information does not need to be 3D for most construction management purposes - i.e. answering the questions of how many, who can do it, when can they do it, and how much will it cost in terms of budget and schedule.

Except for trivial cases or those involving very close established working relationships, those questions are answered in days, not the length of time one is standing next to a trench with a broken sewer main.

Young guns shooting aggressively from the hip at design professionals during a crisis is not revolutionary, even if an iPad is involved.

AutoCad changed the industry because it lowered the cost of technology into the $10k range - $40 retail boxes of homeowner design software didn't even though they were a profitable product.

The revolutionary product for the construction industry utilizes business intelligence to better manage project timelines and budgets while weighing the impact on working relationships among the various parties in a way which minimizes uncertainty.

someone_welsh• 14 years ago

First of all, I should probably disclose that I am a construction industry professional of some sort (architectural training, science training, currently an MEP engineer).

Several problems with the article.

The "poor guys in the field". Who are they? Why have they "gotten worse and worse"? Have they? (They have a far greater financial interest in improve efficiency than it is for the more "professional" end of the construction industry - at least in UK)

These "guys in the field"... something tells me it'll be a while before a main contractor starts giving all his workers ipads.

What's the cost per tablet? how many would be needed? How much training in the use of various software would be required? (for people who may not be particularly prone to... using elaborate software). A typical construction worker might work for a main contractor (via various subcontractors) for a total of 6 months. I'm sure they'd be happy to leave with an extra bonus of a tablet after that. How well does a tablet perform when its screen is caked in concrete?

Then there's the issue of the software. Some of this "amazing software" - (i'm going to pick on Revit as that's what I'm most experienced in) requires a supercomputer to run. If that's how the information is organised, then where is it going to be filtered down to the needs of the contractor in question, (who is "asking the question of the architect")

(According to the article, Revit architecture = amazing software. This I wholeheartedly dispute. For many reasons, but that's another story)

At this point I should point out that the "much better communication" bit is quite inaccurate where it details the process of an RFI. For a start - paper is a cheap way for all workers to have the information at hand - ie with them there and then - not in the "trailer".

Once these over-estimates of the time currently spent are taken out, the two are broadly similar. Replace "looks at problem and makes notes on plans" with "looks at problem, cleans his hands, tries to navigate clunky over elaborate BIM model on underpowered tablet, finally finds relevant part of large and complex building, annotates it, uploads to central server via wi-fi.

The bit about tablets being already massively adopted in construction industry has a link to someone using their ipad essentially for accounting purposes. Sure. People already do this all the time, with smartphones. Nothing to see here.

There's a throwaway comment about green buildings in there as well. To which I say the following:

The typical design lifespan of a building nowadays is 40-60 years. What about when they're demolished quicker than this though, perhaps because they're shit? How green is it to cut costs everywhere to result in a nasty piece of urban fabric which is subsequently destroyed, to be replace, even if it's covered in eco tech? What's the lifespan of a really well considered building which grows and flourishes with the love of those who experience it?

Also, new “BIM” software is often marketed as being able to enable “greener” building design. My current experience suggests it will be 5 years or so before its even slightly adequate at this. The calculation procedures offered are terrible, constrained and offer nowhere near the flexibility or creativity of a good old spreadsheet. Yet they slow down the spatial modelling process and provide inertia to change, iteration and flexibility. There's a lot to be said for centralising information storage (whilst contextualising it with a 3D model), yet at present this is beyond the practical means of most hardware (I personally doubt this, and attribute it to sloppy/inefficient software design. But this isn't my field – I imagine everyone else @ HN knows a lot more on this)

It may seem that I'm an anti tech luddite from this post, but nothing could be further from the truth. I'm reasonably young (late 20s) and generally embrace technological progress.

Also, it can't be denied that the construction industry is very staid and has much inertia against change.

However, I think that there is a lot of external pressure on the industry to adopt new technologies imposed from outside, as they are "the future" etc. In many cases, the technology is not appropriate to the situation at hand.

Building design is then adapted to the needs of the software, rather than the other way round. This results in a lot of terrible buildings (which are, it goes without saying, produced cheaply and efficiently). This is a massive shame, as buildings are part of the shared cultural capital of our civilisation and are unavoidable. Just because you don't work/live in a building, it doesn't mean you don't have to experience it.

Anyway, that's probably enough for now. I can probably elaborate on all sorts if people are interested.

pg2• 14 years ago

Actually PlanGrid has been remarkably successful at signing up construction firms. I don't think I've ever seen a startup sign up "enterprise" customers so fast during YC. It's almost as if the construction companies were already waiting for them.

brudgers4• 14 years ago

Construction benefits from better information being delivered more quickly, and the pace of information exchange has increased dramatically over the past few decades as couriered letters gave way to faxes to emails to cell phones with cameras.

On the other hand, screens have not replaced large sheets of paper to the extent one would expect (note that TechCrunch still references scanning hard copies; something done in the trailer where monitors have become ubiquitous).

Why? Construction management is, at its heart an exercise in coordination. Performing that coordination efficiently requires looking at the big picture, and literally looking at a big picture 8 square feet at a time cannot be replicated on a screen.

What a slate does offer is the ability to access the backup - takeoffs, photos, subcontracts, correspondence, etc. while looking at the issue in the field. But a project engineer who only relies on an iPad to look at the plans before calling the design team is probably in for a Mira Los planos asschewing.

I will not be surprised to see the app be successful, but it will probably not revolutionize construction in the way AutoCAD changed design. AutoCAD was close to the metal of the design industry, but an iPad app is much more of an abstraction when it comes to actual construction activities such as digging a hole or throwing paint on wall.

Good luck.

rsuttongee• 14 years ago

All of us at PlanGrid agree that the in-field use of 3D bim models is still a ways away, which is why our solution is focused on 2d drawings.

Basically, what we are trying to do to paper plans what HTML did to paper documents: Make them digital, make them linkable, make the centrally updatable. This should have been done years ago, but just like HTML had to wait for the personal computer, PlanGrid had to wait for the tablet.

Two of the four co-founders of PlanGrid were construction engineers, so we know how important usability is and have made it a major focus of what we've built. Please download it and give it a try, I'd like to hear what you think about it.

brudgers4• 14 years ago

Who is responsible for creating the linkages within the plans?

How do you reconcile the differences between digital documents containing links and the sealed paper documents which normally are the basis for the construction contract?

Anechoic• 14 years ago

I'm sure they'd be happy to leave with an extra bonus of a tablet after that. How well does a tablet perform when its screen is caked in concrete?

Repeating part of a comment I made a few days ago:

Folks have been talking about tablets being a natural fit for the construction market, and frankly I don't see it (at least for field work). Construction sites are nasty places - dust, concrete, bentonite, slurries, oil & grease, rain, snow, heat these are not good things for an expensive tablet to be around.

Furthermore, the trades guys are hard are their equipment. When it's time to go to lunch, stuff gets thrown in the trunk bed or on the passenger seat of the truck as they rush off. Even if a tablet survives the abuse, those guys rarely lock or raise the windows of their trucks on the job, so I wouldn't expect the tablet to be there when the contractor gets back from his break.

I think the potential is there, but tablets need to become more "disposable" first. On the other hand, there may be decent acceptance from engineers and supervisors.

Also, it can't be denied that the construction industry is very staid and has much inertia against change.

I would disagree with that, construction is generally such a low-margin business that (IME) contractors are willing to try new things if it can mean lower bids or higher profit margins. But they have to be convinced first that change makes sense.

lukeschlather• 14 years ago

>I think the potential is there, but tablets need to become more "disposable" first.

And then instead of throwing out some biodegradable/easily recyclable paper, you have a pile of plastics and rare earth metals that you are throwing out, thus obliterating the supposed "green" impetus for going paperless.

Retric• 14 years ago

It's standard operating procedure in many palaces to drive a truck over a new mobile phone model then dunking it in a bucket of water before accepting them. There is no reason that tablet's can become at least that rugged.

Second, there are a fair number of 200$ tablets out there bumping that 50$ for a rugged case and you can make something that lasts long enough for minor increases in efficiency to quickly pay for it. So, IMO the real question is can a tablet increase the average construction workers efficiency by 2+% with good software and I think that's vary doable. (2% efficiency for someone making 10$ an hour would pay for tablet in a little over 6 months getting the average lifespan of a tablet to 6 months seems vary doable.)

OoTheNigerian• 14 years ago

Woobious (Swombat's startup) has been in this space for while. I am rather surprised that they have not done stuff with the tablet form factor.

WoobiusEye is http://woobiuseye.com/ is practically made for the tablet.

Edit to give feedback on the site: ==================================

It would help to have screenshots of your app to show (Architects are visual)how it is different from any normal document manager. I guess it is, but I do not really have time to download and find out.

It is a good idea, addressing a big market. Good one.

sopooneo• 14 years ago

I don't get it. If there is such a need for this, why wasn't it met with software on any of the sylus based tablets that came out over the last 15 years? Was their hardware to heavy and clunky? Because it seems to me that for serious work, especially making fine notes on a blue print, the accuracy of a stylus over a fingertip would be very valuable.

coopdog• 14 years ago

I'd say the reason it didn't happen earlier was wireless communications and batteries.

There just weren't any devices with enough wireless bandwidth to throw huge design prints around, and the batteries on small devices that use a lot of radio have only just got over the 8 hour mark needed to get through a work day.

wensing• 14 years ago

I grew up in my dad's architecture firm (literally, he worked day and night so when I was sick from school I used to bunk between massive cabinets of blueprints ...), so I've seen (and run) more blueprints than 99% of the humans on the planet. I can't help but think of all the scribbles and marks and pencilings that happen on a blueprint, not to mention physical seals and architect's signatures, etc. There's so much more to paper than just the initial drawing. What timeframe and technological advances are you counting on before widespread adoption and replacement ("adios blueprints!") really becomes feasible?

agumonkey• 14 years ago

Samsung is starting flexible screen production.. live blueprint in roll ?

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

I've worked from prints in construction, (HVAC, electrician) and I've got a question and a couple general objections.

1.) Do capacitive touchscreens work through work gloves? I'd use a stylus, but it'd have to be big and thick to use with gloves.

A.) The tablet would have to be waterproof and more durable than the current model ipad. Battery life isn't so much of a problem. (I plug in my flashlight and work phone at the end of the day anyway)

B.) It also has to be cheaper, because ruggedized models will get destroyed anyway. (Dropping them off the tops of scissor lifts, scoring the surface of the screen, etc)

All this seems to imply that wearable displays (ala Rainbows End) would work better for construction.

unicron• 14 years ago

Hence why all my family members who work in construction have very cheap Nokia phones. The problem is solved.

They work in crappy environments, cost $20 to replace (my father in law has 5 of the things in his truck) and last days on a battery. They also tend to still work if you drop them lots.

Also, technology doesn't really help construction that much really unless it's on a large scale (which actually makes up a very small proportion of actual work done).

mynegation• 14 years ago

Blueprints, communication and analytics are great. But really revolutionary technology for construction would be something like that:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-01/grasp-lab-q...

jguimont• 14 years ago

Do you guys have an API? I have a web solution for construction contractor that could benefit from that: http://ontakeoff.com

drewcrawford• 14 years ago

My father has been in the commercial construction industry for 30+ years. I am an iOS developer that runs a contracting company where we write software for niche professional markets. Let's just say I've spent a long time thinking about iPad projects for the construction industry, none of which are active projects. Let me tell you why.

The construction industry operates with a margin that reasonable people think is insane. If you're a software developer, it's a total paradigm shift. Companies do $500M in construction and post $500k net profit. One mistake and you're so far in the red you will never get out.

If you think software development has competitive pressure e.g. from overseas, you ain't seen nothing. Unless you are designing Apple stores, you are doing bid work. Although construction is composed of many expert disciplines, each of which have competitive protection, on a broad level one general contractor is as good as any other. You may have two master electricians serving an area that are basically insulated from competition with other electricians, but they may contract to 10 general contractors who interface with the client, companies that have no real competitive differentiator from each other than price. This forces the 10 general contractors to compete for the client's business, often comprised of an overlapping set of skilled trade personnel, essentially on the basis of how many corners they can cut and still pass inspection.

And you want these people to buy a bunch of iPads? While they are debating the merits of breaking the building code to save costs? You can sell this to specialty contractors, to the people who build Disney parks and Black Mesa, but not the vast majority who answer RFPs.

Yes, this product has the potential to prevent mistakes, but contractors carry insurance for that. Unless they get a break on the E&O rates that exceeds the cost of deploying the iPads, it's not going to happen. Not in an environment when "sue me" is your standard conflict resolution mechanism.

Next problem. A general contractor's job is like herding cats. You're lucky to get a drywaller who shows up on time and works 8-hour days. Never mind reads a set of paper plans. Never mind goes to training to use an iPad. You have some shot at getting the office people, all five of them, using a system like this, but five seats per job site at $50/seat doesn't sound like a business model to me.

Next problem. Architects like to plan fancy IP games with blueprints. Want a third copy of that blueprint? You must take it to our specialty printer who kicks us back a royalty on every blueprint plan they print. Not everyone is like this, but the low-priced architects are. And now you can't get the plans to put into your iPad system.

Kudos to these guys for trying, but there's a lot more to be solved here than just "hurr durr put a PDF on an iPad" product. There are fundamental realities of the construction business model that have to be hacked to make writing iPad software for that market into a sustainable business. I certainly hope these guys prove these problems are solvable, because there are many niche products I've been thinking about doing in the same market, but the TechCrunch writeups I've seen so far don't really explain how they are going to solve these problems (perhaps deliberately; if it was me I wouldn't want to tell everyone how to solve these problems if I knew).

noonespecial• 14 years ago

Just an OT anecdote, but I can't tell you how much better my iPad has made me at fixing cars. Especially cars with lots of forum space.

I never even wonder what size that bolt is on my Ford pickup because someone on a forum already has detailed, annotated pictures of the whole procedure. Its been years since I've even cracked a Chilton's.

How Tablets Will Transform Construction

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