AEC Business

This episode of WDBE Talks features Lorri Rowlandson of BGIS. We discuss the role sensor technology and technical innovation play within the modern workplace. Our talk covers the historic reaction to change, understanding value, and the challenges facing the industry in a post-covid world.

Lorri Rowlandson is Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS, a global provider of Facility Management, Project Delivery, Energy & Sustainability, Asset Management, Workplace Advisory, and Real Estate Services.

Lorri Rowlandson

"Technology drives efficiencies. It gives greater experience, greater convenience, and better data-driven decisions. It's helping us get over subjectivity with objectivity and manages emotionally charged discussions with facts. Technology empowers the building with automated activities that flex and evolve based on the changing needs of occupants. I think we're going to see technology adding sophistication to those bigger ecosystems outside of the building as well as within the building," Lorri states in the interview.

Our discussion topics include

The role of digital technologies and technical innovation, especially the use of sensors, in modern office environmentsThe ‘pains’ of embedding innovation in the built environmentThe key drivers and technologies that potentially impact or influence our sectorThe impact of COVID-19 on technology adoptionHow digital technologies help smoothing the ‘on-ramp’ back to the office

You can meet Lorri at WDBE 2021 where she's going to be a keynote speaker on September 28, 2021. Check out the program and register for the global digital built environment event at WDBE.org.

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In episode 105 of the AEC Business Podcast Aarni's guest is Burcin Kaplanoglu, Vice President at Oracle Industries Innovation Lab.

In the interview, we discuss

Oracle's role in the construction industryOracle Industries Innovation LabHow can we better manage risks in construction innovationHow to make construction projects more predictableThe role and potential of construction tech startupsExciting new technologies in construction

About Burcin Kaplanoglu

Dr. Burcin Kaplanoglu is a recognized industry technologist, innovator, thought leader, and keynote speaker. He is leading innovation for the Oracle Global Business Units (Industries) and is the Co-Founder of Oracle Industries Innovation Lab. He was recognized as one of the “BuiltWorlds 2020 Mavericks” in the Technologists category and one of the 7 “AEC Innovators” by @BD+C magazine.

Kaplanoglu received Oracle Construction and Engineering “Let’s build” award in 2020. He was named one of Engineering News Record (ENR)’s "Top 20 Under 40" in 2016. He is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering.

Kaplanoglu was previously vice president, director of operations at Lendlease’s Telecommunication’s infrastructure business unit, where he was responsible for innovation, strategy, and operations. During his 16 years at Lendlease, he led construction projects, spearheaded national real estate development programs, developed corporate operational systems, and initiated process improvements to operations. He frequently speaks and publishes articles related to corporate innovation, Internet of Things, disruption of tech, investments, and construction technology, the next generation of wireless communication (5G), and innovation leadership.

Co-Innovation with Customers and Partners

Oracle Industries Innovation Lab is designed to explore, test, validate technologies in the real world and provide immersive experiences. Some of the best-of-breed software applications for industries include:

Construction and EngineeringUtilitiesCommunicationsFood and BeverageBanking and Insurance ServicesHealthcareLife SciencesHospitalityRetailPublic Sector

Follow on LinkedIn: Oracle Construction and Engineering | Burcin Kaplanoglu

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What can construction companies learn from other industries regarding artificial intelligence? This is the topic of my interview with Daniel Faggella in episode 104 of the AEC Business podcast.

Here are our main topics:

What are the common misconceptions regarding the use of AIWhy AI implementation is an R&D project, not a purchase of another appExamples of use AI use cases in construction and other industriesThe strategic impact of AIThe future of AI and "SaaSable" AI

About Dan

Daniel Faggella is CEO and founder at Emerj AI Research, a research and advisory firm that helps global organizations develop productive AI strategies.

Emerj specialized in mapping the landscape of AI capabilities, and determining the critical trends that matter most in sectors like healthcare, finance, and defense.

Daniel conducts cutting-edge research for clients like the World Bank, global pharmaceutical companies, and more.

Download a Guide

To help business people understand the steps and phases of getting started with AI in any business or sector, Emerj provides a guide, Beginning with AI – 3 Key Insights for Non-Technical Professionals, that you can download at https://emerj.com/beg1.

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I had the pleasure of talking with Ali El Hariri, the co-founder & CEO of BulldozAIR, a French construction project management software startup. In this podcast episode, Ali shares his insights on how to succeed with digitalization in construction. He also talks about the journey of his company.

Here are some takeaways from the interview:

Construction projects are unique, but all the problems and many of the defects are mainly the same.It’s much easier to digitalize a company already working in an organized and systematized way than a company that expects software to make them organized.Construction tools must serve the field workers since that’s where the value creation happens.Digitalization enables remote monitoring and control of construction for all the stakeholders.BIM visualization is not a priority for clients. First and foremost, they want to use technology for planning.It does not make sense to use tools to manage punch lists efficiently. It makes more sense to use technology to avoid problems that end up in the punch lists.Engineering firms that use BulldozAIR software have saved between seven and 10 hours per week, per engineer, in reporting tasks.

About Ali

Graduated from a French engineering school named ESTP Paris (Ecole Spéciale des Travaux Publics, du Bâtiment et de l'Industrie), Ali El Hariri has been immersed in the world of building and public works since his childhood. Indeed, he accompanied his architect father on building sites for a long time when he was young, then he spent more than 6 years in construction project management as an engineer at Bouygues Construction. At that time, he noticed that the multiplication of participants on a site led to obvious collaboration problems and delays that were very costly.

Faced with this observation, strengthened by his years of experience in the field and spurred on by his desire to be an entrepreneur, Ali decided to embark on an entrepreneurial journey by tackling the construction market, with the aim of digitalizing a sector that is still considered too traditional and with a lack of attractiveness.

This is how the french proptech startup BulldozAIR was born in 2013.

About BulldozAIR

BulldozAIR is a French proptech start-up, one of the first to be selected by Y Combinator (Promo 2016), the prestigious San Francisco accelerator that has boosted tech gems such as AirBnb, Stripe and Dropbox.

BulldozAIR offers a collaborative and digital solution linking all the trades involved in a construction project on a web or mobile platform giving access to all the information related to the project.

Today, the start-up has attracted big companies such as Carrefour, Chanel, Total, and Bouygues Immobilier and has proven its worth: a minimum of 25% productivity gains. After having raised €4M last November, BulldozAIR intends to double its workforce and continue its international development, notably by launching itself on the North African market.

Visit bulldozair.com for more information and connect with Ali on LinkedIn.

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In this WDBE Talks podcast episode, Jaan Saar, Head of Digital Construction for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in Estonia, talks about finding and implementing a common language for digitalized construction.

To unlock the real benefits of all the cool technologies like AI, VR/AR, XR, IoT, and hyper-automation, we first need to make sense of the underlying data. This is exactly what the first Community Session of WDBE, the World of Digital Built Environment, explored. The session was titled Do we really need a common language in construction. It included several expert presentations and a panel discussion.

Jaan Saar

"I think the consensus from all of the panelists and the kind of common message was that you need to really collaborate, you need to come out from your building silos from your head and really start collaborating with others, talking about this subject. I know, it's not an easy subject to talk about, it's not the sexiest topic," Jaan explains in the interview. "We also ended up, kind of, on a very philosophical level about empathy, or how do you really perceive the needs of others. And how you accommodate that. And what's a common language that's right."

About Jaan Saar

Jaan has managed processes and IT in the construction industry for over 15 years. He joined the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications in 2018 with the goal to digitally transform construction in Estonia. He is currently working on developing the "e-construction platform" which will provide the backbone for data sharing throughout the building lifecycle and the national digital twin. He is also deputy chair of the EU BIM Task Group and a member of the buildingSMART Board of Directors.

Contact Jaan on LinkedIn.

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In this episode of the AEC Business Podcast, Hugh Seaton of CROSSWALK and Cyril Verley of CDV Systems talk about the new integration that automates BIM workflows.

With BIM workflows increasingly dominating the construction sector, professionals need easy and immediate access to libraries and organizing principles. To satisfy this need, CDV Systems and The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) have announced a new product integration. It connects CSI’s widely adopted construction industry organizing principles with cloud-based BIM libraries.

Collectus is a remote BIM Management product providing AEC firms a complete and fully functioning, ready to use, cloud based, 18,000+ component Revit Standards library package.

The integration of the CSI-powered CROSSWALK gated webservice into Collectus addresses a severe challenge for the AECO industry – the lack of an automatic workflow to convert Revit asset parameter data from one set of CSI organizing principles to another. 

While architects and engineers typically create Revit files using MasterFormat® organizing principles to manage asset classifications in their models, contractors receiving an AE’s models may prefer using UniFormat® organizing principles, and facility owners may prefer receiving their as-built Revit models using OmniClass® organizing principles. 

Thanks to the Collectus and CROSSWALK integration, Collectus users will have access to a direct link to CROSSWALK from within the Revit model. This feature automatically converts MasterFormat asset parameter data for all Revit system and type family assets into UniFormat and OmniClass parameter data.

About the Guests

Hugh Seaton is the product lead for CROSSWALK and Cyril Verley is the Founder and President of CDV Systems.

To learn more about the featured services, visit CROSSWALK.BIZ and CDVSystems.com.

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In the 100th episode of the AEC Business podcast, Aarni Heiskanen interviews Aviv Leibovici, the CPO and co-founder of Buildots.

Buildots is an innovative construction tech start-up established in Israel in August 2018. The company was created with the aim of creating the equivalent of a mission control room for construction sites. Bringing together AI and wearable hardware, Buildots technology creates seamless construction process visibility and fully digitized construction workflows with the aim of optimizing processes, minimizing delays, and avoiding budget overruns.

Aviv Leibovici

The innovation was born with the understanding that the management of construction sites is a very complex process. Construction projects often involve tens of thousands of elements and activities with hundreds of workers and different subcontractors attempting to follow the planned schedule. Under such complex conditions, the almost fully manual way in which these processes are currently tracked and coordinated leads to a significant lack of credible and accurate information. As a direct result, productivity levels in the industry remain extremely low.

By creating an end-to-end digitized control center solution for construction sites, Buildots is looking to address this problem exactly. The cloud-based platform uses AI and computer vision to automatically collect detailed, objective, and up-to-date data throughout a construction site. Through the algorithms of the solution, it can analyze project video footage against original design models (BIM) and project schedules to provide real-time and accurate visibility of the project’s current status.

The solution enables seamless tracking of every phase of the construction process and provides the on-site teams with all the data they need to

Determine real-time project status,Easily detect, track and manage partially completed activities,Identify the most urgent issues,Make use of objective evidence (images) to resolve potential disputes,Speed up their learning curve, andStreamline commercial activities based on information collected and analyzed.

Basically, data availability and analysis provided through Buildots system allows the construction team to make the right decision at the right time.

Over the two years of activity, Buildots has grown from the founding team of 3 to over 50 employees, incorporated a UK subsidiary, filed 5 patents, and established a working relationship with top contractors worldwide.

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In this episode of the AEC Business Podcast, Aarni's guest is Hugh Seaton who has released an interesting book. It's titled The Construction Technology Handbook: Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence and Beyond.

The book is available on Amazon.

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In this interview with Dr. Ken Dooley, we discuss digital twins in the built environment and the recently released report Building Digital Twins by Granlund.

Ken Dooley is the Chief Strategy Officer, Empathic Building, at Haltian. During the podcast interview, he talks about these aspects of digital twins:

What they areWhat are the common misconceptions about themWhat the four levels of twins areWhose business they areWhere to start

You can reach Ken on Twitter and LinkedIn. Download the report at issuu.com.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning will eventually change the way we work in the AEC industry. In this podcast interview, Ricardo Farinha, Director of Technology at Sweco, talks about his and Sweco's journey into AI.

In the podcast, we discuss the following topics:

What got Ricardo interested in AI and machine learningHow the Design Recommendation System project has paved the way for further developmentSweco's participation in the AEC HackathonsThe most promising applications of AI and machine learning in the AEC industryHow AI could improve collaboration on a projectWhat's in the future for Sweco regarding AI

About Ricardo and Sweco

Ricardo is currently the Director of Technology at Sweco. He has worked in the Architectural and Engineering in Construction (AEC) field for over a decade, where he has been involved in the digitalization efforts for some of the biggest engineering companies in Europe. You can follow him on LinkedIn.

Sweco is Europe’s leading architecture and engineering consultancy. It plans and designs sustainable communities and cities of the future. With 17,500 employees in Northern Europe, the company offers its clients the right expertise for every project. Sweco carries out projects in 70 countries annually.

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