Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
E29: Which Software do Construction Projects Actually Use?
54 Plays11 months ago
In this episode, Jason & Carlos chat about the software they have seen projects use for different needs. From Master Schedules to BIM, they discuss what separates the leading names.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro and Counting Game
00:00:00
Speaker
What? Let's just do, let's do a thing where we like count backwards and forwards. So I say one, you say two, and we just see how tightly we can do that. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven. That's like the hardest game ever.
Episode 29 Introduction and Hosts
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 29 of the Offsite podcast where we chat all things construction and technology. My name's Carlos Caballo. And I'm Jason Lancini. Hayden, how was Melbourne? Yeah, good. Although I've come back with potentially, potentially unconfirmed case of COVID and a suspect painting my eye, which is definitely not pink eye. I'll just say that for sure. Just to verify.
00:01:04
Speaker
but it does feel like eye strain.
Hayden's Melbourne Trip and Health
00:01:06
Speaker
So yeah, basically the takeaway and the big learning was don't leave your house. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And probably not going to Melbourne and go to projects with 200 engineers around you. Yeah. I think whatever it was, I can't remember maybe 11 teams or something in the week was pushing the limits of what I can do at my age.
00:01:31
Speaker
You're probably killing the productivity of the Melbourne construction industry for a couple of weeks. Yeah, which have been inside tours and drinks, too many of them. Yeah, for sure.
Emerging Tech Trends in Construction
00:01:43
Speaker
Right. So today, Jason and I are going to chat through something, which is quite a comment. That's pretty crucial for the podcast. Yeah.
00:01:55
Speaker
For the conversation that we often have in the office or in calls, which is what is the landscape of technology that our customers are using? We like to stay on top of it as we understand what that map looks like, but it's also interesting to see emerging players and trends across contractors, regions, and obviously teams.
00:02:16
Speaker
So we're going to chat, we like call it like the, uh, the like what's on people's screen tests, you know, like when you're on, uh, when either you or like one of the team or a call with a customer, everyone's got the like row of bookmarks, you know, what, what are the tools that live in the bookmarks bar of folks, uh, on, on the biggest projects is the like, is I guess the topic, right? Yeah. And the learning there is never share your screen because Jason's doing research immediately.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'll be like, I'll be like, what's that logo? I've not seen that one before. Yeah.
Document Management Tools in UK
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, let's kick off with the most vanilla of categories, uh, document management.
00:03:00
Speaker
There's one massive player in the UK in particular, which is Aconex, a couple of years ago. More than a couple of years ago now, purchased by Oracle. It's pretty heavily mandated across major schemes like Crossrail and HS2. So it probably makes sense as to why people sort of adopt it as they're told anyway, if you're going to be using all these major schemes rather than jumping between. Can I interrupt? I just, this is a, I don't want to go down a total sidetrack, but you're calling it Aconex. Is it not Aconex?
00:03:29
Speaker
That feels quite American to me. It might be. Normally, that's what I've called it. And funnily enough, I happened to have a chat in the last fortnight with one of the co-founders, and I'm almost certain he said Aiken X. He's probably right, to be fair.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, he's right. I'm not 100% sure I recall which one it was, but I'm almost certain it was. I'm not doubting whether he's right. I'm doubting whether I've read it correctly. It's yeah, his probability sits with me being wrong over the co founder of
00:04:08
Speaker
I guess in terms of like the other ones that we notice or say plan radar, A sites, there's like a few names that seem to be fairly common across projects.
Procore's Popularity and Marketing
00:04:20
Speaker
I have heard that
00:04:22
Speaker
sort of Procore isn't too strong in this space. So that's like, you see a lot of content and marketing and stuff around Procore, but I haven't had any positive feedback from customers using the document management side of things. How does that compare with Oz? Similar sort of bag?
00:04:38
Speaker
Definitely when almost on every customer screen, there's usually a bookmark to Aconex. There is a decent cohort, I would say, in Australia that use what was TeamBinder and is now part of an innate document. Definitely, I know of a site from the UK. I have not seen it used in Oz.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I've not seen on any of the bigger contractors, the like documents feature out of like a pro core or an auto desk or, or something useful. I just think that those things, the depth of functionality for, I think it's like the transmittals and tracking that and the RFI is not quite deep enough for what, uh, for what they, what they need. So definitely it's like a connects, maybe a bit of like team by the slash documents.
00:05:25
Speaker
And that's really it, to be honest, from what I see here. Yeah, they are actually fairly complicated tools. It's not just a file system with a lot of documents that are being up-revved. There is a lot more to it, to be fair. So it makes sense that these sort of ultra-focused apps are winning in the space and not the big suites and their versions of. Cool. That's a vanilla topic. Move on.
00:05:51
Speaker
onto something super exciting, master schedules.
Master Schedule Tools Discussion
00:05:56
Speaker
So there's literally three key players which cover almost everything from what I see. You've obviously got P6, widely adopted for infrastructure in the UK, widely adopted across more than infrastructure it seems in other countries.
00:06:14
Speaker
I know they've been pushing the cloud version of this. I know three major tier one contractors who in the last six to 12 months have tried and reverted back to the standard sort of P6, which is... Where's Olo on the soundboard?
00:06:37
Speaker
which I guess the worst part of that news is for people like you who are managing a product and probably want to build awesome API connectivity and I guess that's making it more difficult that people aren't all transitioning to the cloud versions of that tool.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think definitely there's something that's got to happen there. I think you're right. Like it's just the same. Well, you said three actually, what was the three naming the contractors? No, no, no, no, no. The three tools you said, I thought you said there were three tools.
00:07:11
Speaker
Oh, so yeah, so that's the first. We'll come on to Aster and MSP. But I guess the background, Aster, it's on every building project here. They tend to not use P6. I think it is easier to use. It's a bit simpler. P6 has way too much functionality, which is why it's...
00:07:27
Speaker
more on the complicated infrastructure projects. And then there's MSP, generally smaller jobs, like PMs that have more responsibility to actually own the master schedule like it because it's easier than the other two. You can sort of pick up and run with it. So we see a lot of MSP. A lot cheaper. Yeah, substantially cheaper. But yeah, sorry, back to P6, you said.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, so I was just going to say that it seems to me that there doesn't seem any great exodus away from the desktop-based versions of
00:08:01
Speaker
like P6 and Asta.
Adoption of Autodesk Suite
00:08:04
Speaker
I see, I think the penetration of Asta in APAC is probably, well, it is definitely lower. Some building contractors and projects will use it. And then maybe I would class it as like the more adventurous planners might give it a go. I even see occasionally within like a big contractor, that's like a, you know, a hundred percent of P6 shop. They'll have like, there'll be a couple of people using the Asta for,
00:08:31
Speaker
specific projects. I can think of a couple that come to mind. But yeah, it's if you asked me this in 10 years ago, it'd probably be the same answer. I don't know if you asked me in 10 years. Hopefully it's not the same answer. But I don't there's not a lot changing there. Yeah. People are like ferocious in their views on P6 versus Astra as well. It's quite an interesting, like,
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, with planners, they really do have their tool and they back it. And I don't know whether it's because you have to commit six years of your life to learn how to use those tools properly and then you don't want it to disappear. So you back it. Yeah, stuff any change, which is...
00:09:12
Speaker
great mindset. So next up, project management. The most common seems to be the Autodesk construction cloud suite. So you were talking about big construction management suites, basically. Yeah. So let's define the categories. You're purchasing a suite, and then they're going to try and use as many apps within that suite as possible to get their money's worth.
00:09:34
Speaker
So Autodesk seems to be the most common. A number of major contractors or tier one contractors are using it for sure. The hard thing is to gauge the actual depth of use. Yes, they use Autodesk, but then we see Oracle Acanex use for document management. We see Synchro use instead of Revit for modeling. We see other applications used for things like site diaries. So I still don't think they've ticked the like, we are a suite, you use us and you don't need anything else box.
00:10:01
Speaker
But it seems to be doing the best out of the bunch. Yeah, it's, it's same as like the document management, right? It's like with those, there is seems to be a little pattern of like those big platforms. They cover every single base, but all the features, it's a little bit like shallow, especially if you're a big contractor and you're trying to make a business case for going to one thing. It's like, what's funny is everyone wants this one thing that does it.
00:10:24
Speaker
Like in the contractors, they don't want to jump between tools, but because there's not like feature parity between like a best in class document management and like the built-in document management in like a protocol. It's very hard on a big organization to rally.
00:10:40
Speaker
like company support to say, we're going to go from it because someone wants someone in document control wants this very specific feature that is their entire workflow that they do every day. And it's not over there. Therefore we're definitely not moving over. So it's, it's really interesting that like the specific outcome that they want, because it's like, so because there is a trade-off of what doesn't have the 7,000 deep features, we can't move.
Pricing Challenges of Construction Software
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, the pricing point you mentioned is an interesting one. I'm not actually sure how Autodesk are priced, but Procore, we're seeing more and more of. From what I gauge, it's really great for their sort of data collection apps. So like gathering information from the field seems to be what they're strong at.
00:11:26
Speaker
Um, it's unpopular to things like their model viewers and document management and estimating apparently those just are very strong aspects of the tool But considering pro called charge their subscription based on a percentage of every revenue You're really in a tough spot if you're not using all the apps because you're still Yeah, it does. It does depend on which of the modules you're using as well. So it does it varies It's not just like that. It's you don't get everything for the for the They normally the person
00:11:54
Speaker
doing that negotiation, they might be quite unaware that certain apps just won't be adopted by the team and they're going to purchase their own. So it's it's a difficult Yeah, it's kind of like how it kind of it's like kind of it's kind of like how we pay for notion and you still do your to do list in your calendar.
00:12:11
Speaker
Nothing is a good calendar. Google calendars are the way forward. If anyone's seen Carlos' calendar, you've never seen anything like it. It's a full to-do list and note-taking app in a calendar.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, between, between seven and nine PM, I have like 10 calendar entries. And as I finish them, I delete them. And if I reprioritize, I shift them to the day that I'm going to do them. It works. Someone in like Google HQ is going, what is going on with this? This guy is super productive. He does a hundred meetings per day. Yeah, but he also deletes everyone he makes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah, someone were having a good time somewhere. Right. Final category.
GIS Tools in Construction
00:13:04
Speaker
Let's label this GIS slash slash like imagery capture inclusive of like BIM or no.
00:13:11
Speaker
Well, I'll name a few apps in a second and you can tell me what will categorize them as. By far the sort of biggest GIS tool here is ArcGIS. They seem to be everywhere. They're on with major organizations like National Highways, so that suddenly gets like a third of all the spend in the UK.
00:13:30
Speaker
The room with the likes of High Speed 2, a lot of main contractors are looking to adopt in this space. I've spoken to a couple of interesting last couple of months who are making that purchase decision and a lot of it is to do with the integrations that come with it. So that seems to be the biggest player.
00:13:45
Speaker
And then I've got sort of a few apps that came to my mind, but I thought GIS imagery, you've got sensor, you've got something that's actually popped up with a couple of customers recently, which is QGIS. Wasn't even aware of that more than two months ago. And then you mentioned Propeller quite a lot, which is more on their sort of drone surveys and image capture. Is that a statement?
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, so it's you're right. I think like ArcGIS are definitely the biggest player and they're like QGIS is kind of like a free or low cost version. You are more than anything. No, they've got a desktop application as well. I think it's open source, but I don't know how the hosting stuff works. I've downloaded it at one point and played with it. But yeah, it's, it's like,
00:14:29
Speaker
open source version of parts of ArcGIS. I don't think it's, it's not competitive for whole platform. And then there's like the other category, which I think like sensor and propeller are probably playing in the same space, which is,
00:14:46
Speaker
Like I think it's like an SDK for a drone survey. So like software to run in the drone scan that then can consume the imagery or point cloud and a way to visualize it and run, you know, deltas between, you know, earthworks levels and stuff. Yeah. In Australia, propeller is very, very, very prevalent. And I see it on almost it's, it's, it's probably.
00:15:13
Speaker
one of the most prevalent bookmarks I see on people's screens on a day-to-day basis. And what's really cool is last week when we were in Melbourne, we spotted that a couple of the customers that were given access by Propeller to like, I think it's a beta feature where they'll publish their imagery to like an open standard. It's called a web map tile service.
00:15:37
Speaker
So you would know from the UK that products like Sensat, there's that issue where you can't get access to the data through an API. So you've got to export it, re-import it, host it in ArcGIS. So propeller have a way to publish it to a web map tile service, which we can connect to directly. So we can now start to directly integrate with ArcGIS, which is really cool. So yeah, long story short, in that space, it does feel like there's
00:16:04
Speaker
I see people running both Propeller and ArcGIS as well. So I don't really know why they're not, they feel like to a degree they're competitive, but.
00:16:12
Speaker
Just prepare to have the feature set that LGIs have in terms of all the layers and the asset data. It's more image capture and view image kind of thing. Yeah, you can kind of think of MacJS as a whole platform built around geography at the core. And you can build apps on top of it and stuff, whereas Propell is a specific app for a specific scenario.
00:16:35
Speaker
not that was a good explanation or not but yeah sorry another question propeller do they actually run this like the service or do they send the guys to site who then man the drones or is it just like you fly your own drones in the system i think yeah either you fly your own or you hire someone into come and fly it that's got the whatever the license is the castle license or whatever it is depending on which country
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. A lot of time it's in contract season. I don't know if you see the same thing there, but a lot of times in contracts from clients to run drone flights once a month or once a quarter, whatever it is. Uh, and it's priced into the contractor's bid. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Um, what are you seeing on the, what are you seeing
4D Visualization with Synchro and Revit
00:17:20
Speaker
on the BIM side? Just cause I was interested in, in that cause it just seemed that that's still a bit of a like free for all.
00:17:26
Speaker
Synchro seems to be the most common. If I go to site, and a lot of teams will actually just run one of their 4D visualizations, so you can see how the job's built, just because it's a useful way to understand the scope. I'd say more than 50% of the time, it's on Synchro. But that's like 4D, but that won't be where the BIM model is. They'll have something that'll be just for the 4D components. Yeah, it's like the, let's call it the 4D viewer.
00:17:56
Speaker
They'd use that. I think Autodesk, but yeah, I can't say of, yeah, dug into that too much. And here it seems a lot like there's a lot of Revis to being used. Yeah. Okay.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah, that seems to be more of the like viewers popping up. So you've got like 3d repo, a site which the purchased, they seem to be used by a bunch of building contractors. But the feedback seems to be it's just quite easy to use. And they also have a viewer and power bi. So you can sort of put it in the hands of anyone without purchasing licenses.
00:18:33
Speaker
So yeah, the negative one I got was the purple one, which is pretty difficult to use and people haven't really taken it up.
00:18:43
Speaker
So maybe they're opting to use the viewer that's on the actual system that they build the model in rather than try and view it through the probe or suite. You and I have spoken before and it came to mind because I was at a conference recently when I was traveling about how in the space of like construction software startups,
Game: Real vs Fake Construction Software
00:19:06
Speaker
They always have this like a sea of blue logos with really hard to remember names. And the names are always like two word amalgamations of like two very positive construction themed words. So I thought to maybe finish off the chat, we'd play a little game. I thought about it on my flight back the other day.
00:19:26
Speaker
I thought if I could give you like maybe some pairs of names and maybe one's a real company and one's a fake company and you can try and decide which one is the real construction software company.
00:19:41
Speaker
So whichever one's more ridiculous is the real one. Look, I'm not, I can't put that much thought into the game theory of which one of the names, but I've got like a couple of different combos that we can run through. And then there's four different groups. And if you get a four out of four, you get a gold star auto. Someone will play a, someone on the sound board will play a sound. That's what happened. Cool.
00:20:08
Speaker
So first two are outbuild and accelabuild. Accelabuild is ridiculous. So that just can't be the case. And I'm going to stand by that no matter what the answer is. So I'm going to get outbuild. I didn't think you'd get that one. But yeah, that's correct. So that's 10 points to Gryffindor. Right. The next one is control pro and procure track. Wow.
00:20:37
Speaker
Control Pro. Procure track. I'm going to say that Control Pro just sounds more made up. It sounds like something to do with golf. I'm going to go with the procured track. It's the real one. Ah, blah, blah. Control Pro. Oh, no. What does Control Pro do? Earn value management, I think, from memory. Wow, like Project Control. It's a couple. Right. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
That's right in your alley, mate. All right, next one, I'm going to level it up a bit. We'll do a combo of three. So you have to pick it between the three. One or two is real. Like, is one fake or one? You know what? I don't remember. One's fake. One's fake. Yeah, yeah. OK, first one, flow site, arrow flow, and flow former.
00:21:38
Speaker
Say the first two again. Well, I don't even remember what I've done here. Flow site and arrow flow. I really hope arrow flow is the fake one. Are you searching them? Actually, I think they're all real. Yeah, they're all real. They're all real. You can say that was trick questions.
00:21:57
Speaker
Well, there is kind of true flow sites, not a startup construction software startup. It's a product from a software startup. So that is probably, let's call that one the fake one. It's professional. Right. So that's three, number four, last one, and then we can, we can wrap it up. So we have site mate, site hive and site pro.
00:22:24
Speaker
I'm pretty sure the first two are real. I've actually come across those. So the third one's fake. OK, yeah. You finish on a high. That is true. What's that? It's a better four. Yeah, a four. Let's go with two out of four. Wow. Because the third one was kind of a bit of a hard one. 50%. That's a pass at uni. I take that. Nice one. Right. Yeah, I think that's it. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening.