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E7: Rebar Robots & Reality Capture in Construction
67 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Carlos & Jason discuss whether introducing robots to tying rebar and steel fixing could make it safer while also making it more efficient. They also cover Asite's acquisition of 3D Repo, chatting about if this will help them take on the Oracles of the document management world.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 7
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome to episode seven of the Offsite Podcast where we chat all things construction and technology. My name's Carlos and I spend most of my days talking to construction teams about how they deliver projects. And I'm Jason and I help build software for construction teams. So today we're going to be talking about some new tech in the rebar space and we're going to be talking about the acquisition of a startup called 3D Repo by Asite. So first up, rebar.
Revolutionizing Rebar with Robotics
00:00:28
Speaker
is an organisation called Advanced Construction Robotics and they have just released a sort of a machine which not just places rebar but also ties it. So it looks a bit like a large sort of overhead gantry that you have on some larger projects but it can actually sort of place the rebar and tie it as you're going.
00:00:51
Speaker
I think it can do two and a half tons in each lift as well. So it's quite a big piece of kit. Really cool concept. Potentially we'll be able to get a maybe a snippet of the video onto here so people can see. Now obviously rebar tying is labour intensive.
00:01:10
Speaker
it's obviously quite unsafe you're kind of squirming around not sort of a flat floor you're tired climbing over cages and it's not an ideal situation to put people into from safety's perspective but I think the thing that jumped out to me immediately was that our ability with a machine like that to actually accurately plan projects with known outputs like
00:01:38
Speaker
using 3D printers to print concrete walls for example you're going to have a very very specific time frame probably down to the minutes you know it's exactly what it's going to do it doesn't matter about the time of day the weather anything else it's just going to sort of crack on. So it seems like a pretty cool piece of kit that will improve planning probably reduce cost and improve safety.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think the main thing that I took away was that I need to congratulate you on finding a promo video that seems to have the same, every construction software or a technology company, that every promo video has the same backing track. A glass ceiling for words. Yeah, seems great.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, that was a good find Carlos. I think it's it's definitely pretty interesting I think there were I think I had similar thoughts like obviously tying rebar is not the safest of activities You're on risky footing the whole time. You're bent over most of the time. You're carrying heavy weights a lot of the time So from a safety perspective, there's a lot of merit I think
00:02:49
Speaker
From a practicality point of view, though, and reflecting on years of looking after and trying to build concrete structures, the most time-consuming and difficult part of rebar tying or steel fixing is often not the very easy straight runs of straight bar. It's normally tie-ins in the corners, really tight details.
00:03:18
Speaker
Um, and I imagine the robot, um, you know, oftentimes the sequence that you tie in is extremely important. And sometimes you have to tie one bar to hold another bar to hold another bar in order to get the structure to build. Yeah, it's, it's stupid. It can be quite intricate, the sequence that you tie in. And, um, no, I just, I can't imagine that such a big robot, like this thing looks massive in the video, um, that you said that it'll.
00:03:47
Speaker
it'll be able to effectively deal with like those the really tricky parts that take a lot of time because um yeah otherwise the straight bar stuff you know first of all you can just prefab that off-site and bring it straight in and out.
Efficiency of Offsite Rebar Production
00:04:01
Speaker
So when you prefab off-site is that done with traditional steel fixes or like could you have a warehouse with this gantry just producing like cage after cage of a specific rebar design and then just using them outside?
00:04:14
Speaker
Usually it's done with steel fixes, but it's usually done in what you'd call a jig. So you'll have a frame made up where, I don't know, if you're tiling a pile, it's got the exact spacing and dimensions of the pile. So you're way, way, way more efficient. You're also probably not on the ground or at some sort of more ergonomically better level. And so usually offsite production of
00:04:37
Speaker
rebar is much more efficient than if it was on site. You don't have to then wait for like lifts of you know rebar onto a deck where you might be tying because there's all sorts of logistical problems with tying rebar on site. You need the rebar nearby but it also can't block the thing that you're about to tie if you're tying like a long slab or something.
00:05:01
Speaker
So, yeah, I, first of all, I guess from a productivity perspective, I was, I'm a bit skeptical on what, whether it can tie the things that are the least productive. How predictable is traditional rebar tying? Is that common? There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like rules of thumb. So something like a ton of day burst deal fixer is like what people would normally
00:05:29
Speaker
layout as like a production rate but that varies massively if you're tying a bridge deck which is you know probably like 70% or 80% of the weight is straight bar you're obviously much more productive than if you're doing some complicated structure that is all you know three bends and four bends around tight spaces
00:05:53
Speaker
So yeah, I guess I'd be interested to see how it performs from a productivity perspective. The other thing I was thinking about is like oftentimes the steel fixing details that steel fixes work from, drawn to a certain level of detail where the steel fixer has to then understand that and turn that into an actual structure. So I might say like, you know, this type of biot, this spacing, this type of biot, this spacing, this type of biot and other spacing.
00:06:23
Speaker
but like what happens at the corner, how do they interact with each other, they still fix us to solve that problem or sometimes maybe what you call a rebar schedule would do it. I'd imagine to get this machine to work you probably have to put that into some sort of 3D model and that's going to add even more time to the you know pre-construction activities
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's not typically most structures wouldn't be 3D modeled from a real perspective. It's really intricate to do. It's an odd one because it looks like something that is better suited for not a massive infrastructure project because you've got this huge space with this gantry, which is not going to be sort of put onto every site. But at the same time, if you're trying to use that
00:07:14
Speaker
for a large job where actually you're normally tying rebar on site immediately into the last section that you built. It can't be used so it's like what size of site is it most appropriate for where you've got lots of space but it's also not a big structure like yeah um it'll be keen to see what it's used on.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, the other thing that's really interesting is like the amount of times that we've built structures, we got like a ton or two ton into tying or we started tying it and realize that there's details that we need to get clarification on from designers. All those things, the amount of times we would start tying and then go, well, we don't know what to do here. We'll focus on going down that side and then get an answer really quickly. Yeah. And that answer comes in an email. How does he tell the robot the answer?
00:08:03
Speaker
My simple QS frame did get a bit excited for a minute when I thought, right, if you've got a gantry that is placing its high rebar, could you now have 3D printed concrete buildings with rebar? But you could be placing rebar and using the gantry as well to 3D print the concrete. So you can have reinforced concrete that's completely automated, not just currently, which is just
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah it wouldn't work that way because you know if you've got lengths of rebar which are like a couple of meters long you know maybe four or five meters long depending on the vehicle that will deliver it.
00:08:45
Speaker
you've got to tie them in, like, overlapping patterns. So you'd have to lay, go forward, lay the ones in this direction, then come back and lay the ones in the other direction, then lay the top layer going that direction. So you're going to do another pass if you were to magically print concrete. You're never going to 3D print a bridge deck that's hundreds of cubes of concrete. Yeah, it's hard to see it being used outside of, like, I guess, houses, that sort of size structure.
00:09:14
Speaker
Um, yeah. Cool. Looks good. And I think definitely from the safety perspective is really back breaking part of the pun. I don't think that's a pun. Um, but yeah, it's literally back breaking, uh, and dangerous work. Um, but it's, it's really tricky work. Yeah. Definitely a trade in need of some, yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
Some change.
Asite's Strategic Acquisition of 3D Repo
00:09:47
Speaker
Cool. So next up, A-Sights have acquired a company who we know fairly well called 3D Repo. They are some guys that we've been quite familiar with for a number of years as they work in the sort of same space in construction in the UK. So they have, there's not that much information on the acquisition itself. There's some early reports of the sort of deal being done.
00:10:15
Speaker
I guess, Jason, you've got some knowledge and experience of A-Sights. Do you think the acquisition makes sense? I was going to ask you what you thought with your QS background, but I guess to show my cards first, I think the acquisition makes sense for A-Sights.
00:10:40
Speaker
I think it makes sense for both parties, to be honest. But if you look at the space that Asight plays in, they're competing against quite large and some would say legacy competitors, like the Team Biden product, which is part of NA and Oracle.
00:11:02
Speaker
which is part of Oracle now, in terms of the document management. So I guess for context, the A-side is a document management type platform. And so its traditional competitors would be like a team binder or an Aiken X.
00:11:17
Speaker
And then 3D repo is like a collaborative BIM environment for viewing and I think interacting with the 3D model. So I guess for A site, their competitors you would class as larger than them, but probably like legacy. So with the clear direction of where a lot of design is heading into the 3D space, adding
00:11:46
Speaker
adding functionality and being a preferred platform for storing the 3D models and BIM data would be a clear positioning for them in competition to Aconex and TeamBinder. So I think that makes a lot of sense.
00:12:06
Speaker
3D Reaper, I think it would make sense as well. They've been around for a little while, and I think this would give them a quite good scale to enhance the impact of their product. We obviously don't know anything about the commercials of the deal, but on the face of it, I guess if you think about how the waves of technology through an industry might happen typically, you normally start with something that looks like
Trends in Construction Tech Integration
00:12:32
Speaker
traditional incumbent doing things in quite legacy ways so like with spreadsheets and things like that in companies and then you'll get a first set of like products solving those and those products will usually be lots and lots of different products none of them connected to each other
00:12:51
Speaker
uh where a lot of you know in a lot of different spaces in construction that's the state of play at the moment so you have some people doing stuff in spreadsheets and then you have a heap of different software products trying to get rid of spreadsheets but if you're on a construction contractor at the moment a lot of those different tools don't talk to each other and you're faced with the state of play of like you have to connect them all together your own way if you want to.
00:13:17
Speaker
The next sort of wave that typically happens is that from those software companies, some clear leaders start to emerge and that those leaders will build plug and play integrations with each other because it's clear who you need to connect together, like the 30% of your customers. If you're a CRM and 30% of your customers are using your chatbot from Intercom, for example, you've got to build an integration with Intercom.
00:13:48
Speaker
And so that's the next phase of things. And then the next phase after that is usually some substantive consolidation. So the major players like a broker or Autodesk start to bring all those things under the one banner. So you get like phase one is lots of different tools solving a whole ton of problems, but nothing
00:14:13
Speaker
talks to each other and customers have to connect stuff together themselves, then leaders typically emerge, those things will build connections with each other out of the box and then they all start to consolidate under some clear platforms.
00:14:33
Speaker
No, no, I was just going to say, I guess in the state of play, in some areas of construction technology, we're probably at phase one or two. And in this space here, there does seem to be some consolidation happening. And that makes it easier for customers to understand that if I was to think about the set of tools I need as a design company,
00:15:03
Speaker
If I could go A site and two other things, instead of having to get seven things that I need subscriptions to, that I need to connect together. Yeah. So it makes sense for them to, if they don't, if they don't bulk up and provide this broad offering and the consolidation does happen, often they can get left behind. So it does make sense. Yeah. Sorry, your question. Is this the sort of, um, the classic
00:15:32
Speaker
Is this tick in the box in the classic VIM requirement whereby if we think about what the two products are, what they offer and I guess the experience of the journey for the user, is it a model that's deeply connected to all the documentation, specifications and everything set behind it? So you're navigating a model to find information rather than finding documents which link to drawings, which is the sort of inverse of what we used to do. Yeah, I think these two products have had an integration with each other for some time. I think they both needed
00:16:02
Speaker
they both needed to build that connection to do exactly what you're saying. This I think I would imagine in total speculation that at the start of this acquisition they will sell two products that are the two companies and then eventually they will get merged under a single subscription that offers it and makes it a compelling reason to buy
00:16:28
Speaker
3d a side or whatever it becomes called or just whatever compelling reason to move from say team binder but in response you know team binder will add this functionality or buy something and this is how the consolidation starts people will see that that's the positioning happening they need to make sure that they're offering functionality um that's at least comparable on paper so that there's not a reason for them to lose their customers to the
00:16:58
Speaker
the new competitor yeah you'd imagine either way it's going to be a fraction of the price to bolt on the other products so they're just going to cross yeah cross out all of their customers on each side which is a big win for both so i'd be interested like i don't know you've got you've got a lot of connections in the design space so i wonder do you know many of them using either of these two tools
00:17:24
Speaker
The most common products on the A site side that I come across is Aconex, that was on Crossrail, that was on HS2, that's on most sort of major projects that I've driven. You mean the most common in the space that they are? The document management side. Yeah. 3D repo, I know they have quite a lot of work across organisations like MACE, and they've got quite a good grounding in this country.
00:17:48
Speaker
So yeah, you see them a lot on things like mission rooms. There was exhibiting in spaces and doing lots of joint things with customers. So yeah, it's a pretty cool looking product. It looks really easy to use. There's some bit models that just look classically scary because they're old and clunky. It does look like a decent modern product. So yeah, not actually used it myself, but I've seen quite a lot of their content. Do you know if their product is like directly competing with an Autodesk product, for example?
00:18:20
Speaker
My assumption was it was, yeah, that synchro, it's definitely that model space where you want everyone to be able to sort of interact with and use it in a nice simple way rather than being some super heavy difficult to use system that's only for a bunch of people in back of house.
00:18:40
Speaker
So yeah, my first inclination was it was about a site picking up the offering in the BIM space so that you can store BIM documents and have a making viewer, you know, you would imagine that would be the path. But I wonder if it's more to compete with, maybe in another direction. I don't know, I'm speculating now. So maybe, yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah I've always found it really odd the way that we used to read first then see like if we think about our products like the visual element is the thing that everyone jumps onto. What do you mean by that? So you look at documents, you read specifications, you think about the subject matter and then you might look at drawings at the end of it to sort of visualize the thing that you were reading. It makes way more sense to go through a model
00:19:36
Speaker
like look at an object and then see the supporting data behind it. It's just like the top-down approach to the way you think about things. So it makes so much sense for any document management type organization to have that visual element at the front end. Like with AFex, everyone goes to the map page before the GAN if you're not the person that built the sort of plan. So yeah, it makes practical sense, I think.
00:20:04
Speaker
yeah it's um it would for that too i'd imagine to get to that state where you don't have to read
00:20:11
Speaker
you know, isolation of the thing that you're building. But I'm just thinking about every specification that's got pages and pages of words in it that someone's copied from somewhere, you know, some graduate engineer is copied from somewhere and just put into a PDF document like, are they talking about the windows here that I'm looking at or are these other windows? Well, yeah, there's some work to go there before that fully happens.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Cool. Right. So we've got time for today. As always, thank you very much for listening. Before we go, I want to say, Carlos, have a wonderful honeymoon. You're off to India for everyone's favourite honeymoon and backpacking around India.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, it made sense to do the one thing that you wouldn't want to do with kids before we have kids. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone.