Adopting technology is a team effort: Skanska exec

Adopting new expertise requires everybody to purchase in, mentioned Danielle O’Connell, senior director of rising expertise for Skanska USA, the U.S. arm of the Swedish builder.

The contractor makes use of what O’Connell calls its Eight-Step Plan, a tech addition roadmap that lays out crucial strikes to assist it assess and combine merchandise. With it, the corporate takes measured actions to scale new options, work out use instances and preserve everybody on the identical web page.

Right here, O’Connell talks with Building Dive about its strategy, how the agency smoothed out wrinkles within the course of and recommendation for smaller builders trying to scale tech on their very own.

Editor’s Word: This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.

CONSTRUCTION DIVE: What’s the Eight-Step Plan, and the way does Skanska USA put it to make use of?

DANIELLE O’CONNELL: Our Eight-Step Plan is our tech enablement course of.

The method begins with figuring out the issue that we’re attempting to unravel. In lots of types, that comes both from a challenge group that claims they’re actually scuffling with this factor, or possibly they have been speaking with a vendor or visiting a convention and had been uncovered to one thing that they thought may resolve an issue on their challenge.

In different instances, my group, the rising tech group or others in our group are seeing issues they suppose could make an impression. 

Step one is figuring out the issue after which determining what to do. From there, we go right into a deep dive with every of the distributors that we’re working with to know the make-up of their firm — what their resolution does, what issues it solves, information safety and cybersecurity questions.

As soon as we get by means of that stuff, the following step is to pilot an answer on a challenge. All through the pilot, we keep related to it to know the way it’s going.

Usually, you are seeing pilots which can be at the least a yr or the length of the challenge to know how the instruments actually work. We’ll verify in steadily with them, get suggestions after which we’ll make choices and proposals to the enterprise round what scaling the answer seems to be like.

Might you give an instance of a tech that you simply evaluated by means of this framework?

So, cmBuilder, a development logistics platform, was one of many early distributors that we assessed by means of this course of. The group out at our LaGuardia Airport Terminal B Redevelopment challenge got here to us and mentioned they discovered this new instrument for 3D logistics.

We usually use Bluebeam for 2D logistics in the present day. And if I take into consideration what number of of our superintendents, our challenge managers, our operations workers are capable of now use Bluebeam to do these 2D logistics, cmBuilder is a web-based platform that permits them to now do 3D logistics.

The group introduced cmBuilder by means of this course of. And after they went by means of the entire evaluation and we kicked off the pilot, we checked out a number of completely different initiatives, acquired suggestions from the group and determined that this may make sense to scale.

We acquired buy-in from our COO, in order that led to us rolling out an enterprise settlement with cmBuilder and getting this instrument into the fingers of these individuals that actually wanted it to speak logistics and phasing, and the way we might work across the jobsite all through the challenge.

What roadblocks did you encounter that you simply needed to iron out?

There’s at all times modifications to the method. Within the spirit of steady enchancment, we’re at all times in search of methods to make it higher. We’ve tweaked the system and the questionnaires over time to make sure that we’re not placing an excessive amount of burden on the distributors as they are going by means of this. 

It is a prolonged course of, and we understand that they are filling out these questionnaires and sending them again to us, and there is a group on our finish who’s truly reviewing them.

I might say one of many issues that we have finished to assist enhance and talk round why this course of is vital is to speak about it like we speak about bringing on dangerous subcontractors onto our jobsites.

If a small to mid-sized builder wished to implement one thing of their tech stack, what recommendation would you give them?

I might inform them to go sluggish and work throughout their completely different departments. 

I believe one of many issues that we did not do properly prior to now is that this collaboration between the authorized group that is reviewing contract language and what it means to be an enterprise accomplice, for instance, with all of the completely different features of the IT group, resembling understanding what compliance we have now to observe for Normal Knowledge Safety Regulation necessities from the European Union, or the California Privateness Rights Act. 

I might encourage them to see how these instruments match into their general tech stack as properly. Spend the time to know and talk concerning the course of.