Future Construct: Thought Leaders Discuss BIM and Construction Solutions for the AEC Industry
The Future Construct podcast features thought leaders from around the world working on innovative technology solutions for the construction (AEC) industry. This podcast is hosted by Amy Peck, CEO of EndeavorVR, and Mark Oden, CEO of BIM Designs, Inc., and is produced by the team at BIM Designs, Inc. Amy is a recognized thought-leader and speaks globally on the future of VR, AR and emerging technologies including AI, blockchain, robotics and autonomy. Mark leads the growth, strategy and execution of BIM Designs, Inc.; his acute ability to develop and implement strategic processes that scale the company's capabilities, drives efficient service delivery, increases client satisfaction, and builds cross-functional teams. The podcast has already featured industry experts from Fortune 500 companies, venture capital firms, and construction startups. To suggest a guest or to be featured as a guest, visit https://www.bimdesigns.net/futureconstruct.
Future Construct: Thought Leaders Discuss BIM and Construction Solutions for the AEC Industry
Enhancing Collaboration and Efficiency in Construction with Advanced Tech
Have you ever wondered how accumulated data from past projects can transform the future of construction? Join us in this fascinating episode of the Future Construct Podcast, where we promise you'll gain invaluable insights from our special guest, Steve Whitmer, Construction Technology Manager, VDC at ACCO Engineering Systems. Steve charts his inspiring path from an engineering student with hands-on skills to a pivotal figure in the BIM and VDC fields. He shares his journey of overcoming initial skepticism towards the HVAC industry and discovering a passion for making engineering truly constructible.
We dive deep into the potential of leveraging VDC workflows and data to maximize project efficiency. Steve provides a compelling look at the importance of unifying disparate data sources and how tools like Power BI can create dashboards that lead to actionable insights. He also emphasizes the critical role of leadership in VDC coordination, discussing the essential steps for setting effective metrics and the need for a blend of design and construction BIM understanding. This episode is packed with strategies to enhance productivity and manage costs effectively.
Wrapping up, we explore groundbreaking advancements in construction technology over the past 14 years, from the optimization of fabrication and installation to the use of total stations and the emerging role of robots. Steve shares his vision on the practical applications of AR and VR and the transformative potential of AI in automating tasks. We also delve into the importance of fostering a collaborative culture within teams to minimize rework and enhance overall efficiency. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a leading expert about how BIM and VDC are revolutionizing the construction industry. Tune in and get ready to be inspired!
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Welcome to the Future Construct Podcast, where we explore the latest innovations and trends shaping the construction industry. I'm your guest host, mark Oden, the CEO of BIM Designs Inc. Today we have a special guest, steve Whitmer, construction Technology Manager, vdc at Akko Engineered Systems. Akko Engineered Systems is currently ranked one of the top mechanical firms by ENR in the United States and Steve has been with Akko for 14 years and helps their team employ BIM to assist with purchasing, tracking, material, fieldwork and more. Steve has also been interviewed and published by the Autodesk team in 2020. And I'm so excited to dive into his journey and insights. Thank you for your many contributions to the AC industry and welcome Steve.
Speaker 2:Thank you, mark, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Well, let's get it started. You've had an extensive career in the BIM and BDC field, working across various roles from designer to BIM manager, from your early years, even from childhood. I'd love to hear what sparked your initial interest in the construction and technology space, and how has your journey evolved over years.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, basically my journey really started, I'd say, when I was in college and I was an engineering student. I always liked very hands-on and more geared towards the hands-on side of things rather than more of the calculation side of things. And when I was in college I would take a lot of classes. I really liked the labs and, like I said, more of the hands-on things. And I remember I had an HVAC class at one point and I thought that is the one thing I don't want to do as a mechanical engineer student is to be in the HVAC industry, because it seemed a little bit of a bore to me because you're really in my mind at the time it was you're selecting things off of a shelf and applying it to a building. There's not really like. You know, when you're in college you're thinking about hey, who's going to develop the next new nuclear sub or nice helicopter or something crazy like that? Nobody really thinks of a building as a as a real, complicated or abstract career or work. That was kind of my mindset. So, of course, getting out of college, first opportunity I had was to go draw 3D at a mechanical firm and I thought, okay, well, I'm not doing calculations, stuff like that. I'm doing a 3D. But what really entranced me really on day one was it wasn't engineering. There was an engineering was a component of it, but it was really the hands-on part of it of making engineering constructible. And the more I got into it and I'm talking in the first few months it was very clear to me that there was a real big gap between what was being engineered and what was actually being installed in the field. And I saw myself in the forefront of that because I was in the model, actually seeing hey, mr Engineer, this is what your stuff is actually going to look like, because I was getting it ready for manufacturing and actual construction down the road. So when I got started it was really just drawing 3D, but there was so much insight I got into the industry.
Speaker 2:I also liked really being the middleman between engineering and construction. I'm not somebody who's ever built anything on the construction side. I'm also not anybody that's engineered anything from a scratch and designed a system, but I've had my foot in both of them to the point where I can have very complex, complicated conversations with both of them to help their day as well as help my day. So really I like my role because it's really in between there and I kind of someplace.
Speaker 2:A lot of times it's kind of a people, person, right, I'm trying to help an engineer and a construction person make their design, make their product as optimal as possible. So I wouldn't say anything that really sparked me from construction that standpoint, I think it was a sector that really had a need for that branching and I was able to provide that kind of more from a communication and a person standpoint to be able to tie the two together and at the end of the day think, hey, look, as ACCO could benefit this more than anything because we are a design build company, right, we're trying to get as much as we can out of designers, as much as we can out of our builders, and here I could be a instrumental conduit in getting the two of those to benefit even more from each other.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, steve, so I love the background there and what brought you into engineering in college. So I love the transition from college into, you know, into working for ATCO. How about what attracted you to engineering?
Speaker 2:I was really good at math and it wasn't anything that I tried, it was just kind of inherited. I guess you'd say my mom was like man, you should get engineering. I'd be honest with you, I was in high school I didn't know what an engineer was. I didn't know what they did. I was like, hey, there's engineers out in the world, there's engineers everywhere, but what exactly do they do?
Speaker 2:But when I was in high school I had auto shop class, which was actually we had what we called ROP, which is off site, where we had to go to a place and we just I worked on cars for about three or four hours and I really enjoyed the hands-on taking things apart, putting them back together, seeing how things worked and I think that really sparked a little bit more. Like I said, when I got to the college and engineering side of things, that's what I really enjoyed was a hands-on labs, cad classes, anything that we could actually take a piece of, piece of measure or something, something that we had to do physically rather than just typing things or looking things up in a book and getting reference information. That's really what excited me Very cool, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that, steve. And then I understand you're in a fairly new role as the construction technology manager for VDC, is that right?
Speaker 2:ago to talk about having a team with a mechanical contractor that is really just geared towards development and overall operational tracking of potential tools and workflows out there is really kind of different to ACCO.
Speaker 2:Like I said, 10 or 15 years ago I wouldn't even have thought it would be possible. Nowadays it's almost a necessity because of the amount of technology that's changing. The amount of catering I would say catering, I would say more of customizing off-the-shelf products to make it actually work for a productive workflow for a company, particularly of our size, takes a team, takes a department. So yeah, we have started that and I think I kind of hit on this earlier. But I think part of what thrusted me into this position was really I tell people all the time I bring people together, I get the right people in the room from construction, from the field, from the shop, from project management side, and a lot of times I'm just kind of moderating conversation to keep it going but then taking notes of action items, of how technology could then spearhead whatever kind of conversation we're having or whatever we're looking to tackle.
Speaker 1:Beautiful and I, too care so much about collaboration and the interworking of teams, and I'm excited about speaking with you about your views and philosophies on collaboration later in the show For the construction technology department. What opportunities do you see in leveraging VDC workflows and data beyond the traditional uses that you know have been explored over the last 10 to 15 years, as you mentioned, and how do you plan to explore them looking into the future?
Speaker 2:Right now it's all about data and you know we've done very well for the past I don't know 20 years modeling and coordinating and optimizing from design to construction, as best we can to facilitate that about the data right, passing that data up through purchasing, up through operational, into the ERP to get metrics for historical information that we shouldn't really have to be recycling or putting in another format. We have all the data and all of our models of what we've used, how long it took to install, how long it take to fabricate. So, actually using all that data as a tool to then direct our decisions going forward, right, how long does it take to fabricate things? We have that information, but the challenge is getting all the data in one common format or one common way, where then we're able to extract metrics out of this shotgun of data from all over the place. That's the real challenge and that's kind of part of that's a lot of my work.
Speaker 2:Now is hey, we get all this data, we have all this data for fabrication, production. What do we do with it? What do we want to do with it? You know, what metrics do we want to set? What's relative to us? It's a lot of data and we spent a lot of time collecting it. Well, now you know, we really have to have a good vision of what to do with it to really get the benefit that we're looking for out of it.
Speaker 1:Very exciting. So that's a lot of your day-to-day now. I'm super thrilled to reconnect, hopefully in the future, a year or two out, where you're able to say, hey, our team has made all of these impressive foundational decisions and how to manage the data. This is the visibility the team has now and the decisions that the team's looking to make based on that. It's very exciting to live inside of the data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. That's kind of where we're getting to right now. We're getting our feet wet with BI and Power BI and trying to create dashboards for recipients, but a lot of that is sitting down sketching that out. What do you guys want to see? How do you want to see it? How often do you want to have updates? All of those what I call ground rules. The more we figure that out on the front end, the less rework I got to do once we get this thing up and running.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, and there's so many great big data tools out there in addition to Power BI, that sort of feed you know process that data and feed it up to Power BI.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Exactly. I mean we've even started to have conversations about BI programming. Do we need in-house capabilities? Do we need to partner with somebody else? Because the potential there is so massive, we really see it as a need that we're going to have to fill.
Speaker 1:Very cool. I'm excited that you get to lead this charge, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm taking classes right now so I'm a little nervous because I'm not a programmer, but I am excited to see it from the infancy and actually understand how to massage the data rather than being dependent on Beautiful.
Speaker 1:So stepping at the, in addition to the data component that we sort of stepped you know, stepped outside of BIM, for which you know it all is related. You have so much experience with BIM from, you know, from an early entry level. Can you share some key insights or lessons that you've learned along the way that have shaped your approach to implementing these workflows effectively? Workflows?
Speaker 2:effectively. Yeah, I mean really, when it comes to BIM, it's all about productivity. I tell people very often BIM and the VDC workflow can be a black hole for cost and to control that cost can be extremely challenging. There's a lot of factors that come into play. When, in VDC coordination there's internal factors about hey, how is my design, how is my information about? Do I have information to model and to continue coordination, that's challenging enough. But then there's external factors which make it even more complicated and complex with outside vendors, outside contractors, leadership of the process that's not sufficient. Leadership of the process that's not sufficient.
Speaker 2:So, really, when it comes to VDC, I actually did a session. That's where I actually met Luke was a session out at MCAA and that's what the conversation was. It was all around coordination meetings and how to make coordination meetings effective, because in the heart of VDC and the coordination aspect of it is an overall organized workflow and organized system and you have to have leadership that goes along with it. You have to have somebody in their quarterbacking making sure that people are being held accountable, making sure that people are staying on task and also making sure that they're funneling out all the noise from the outside about changes about what every people need you know. To block all that out, to stay on schedule through a VDC coordination is very complicated. So really what I stress to people is understand the entirety of the VIM workflow, understand what design VIM is, understand what construction VIM is there is a difference there and then once again, being able to efficiently manage that is the key to having to really controlling your costs when it comes to the whole coordination and the VDC cycle.
Speaker 1:Well, so much of what you just said, Steve, is music to my ears, considering the last many years of running this company and helping it grow and navigating these complexities in both internal processes and external processes. And for the audience, just a side note there Steve had mentioned meeting Luke. He's our head of business development and amazingly gregarious and caring individual that had the opportunity to get to know Steve earlier this year at the MEP Innovation Conference. I'd love to dive more into your transformation into BIM and the construction technology, your thought leadership at ECHO, and also get into collaboration and talking about futures a bit. So, to kick it off after the break, you and I were actually just talking about the MEP Innovation Conference just before the break and I understand that you were a speaker this past January with a session on running better coordination meetings. So I'm very curious, and I'm sure our listeners are as well what would you say are the top three takeaways from that presentation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we were talking before, coordination meetings can really dictate how productive we are at BIM, and I always tell people the biggest risk to BIM is rework. Right, I can tell people how long to model something and tell how long to get it in there. It's hard to tell somebody how long it's going to take to coordinate, how many times they have to redraw something that they're going to be redesigned with. So being able to control that is really one of the biggest messages. The first thing I would say is leadership Having somebody on that team that is spearheading the effort, that is overseeing the team to, once again, make sure people are being productive, to make sure that people are being held accountable for whether it be uploads or commitments they've made. Every person is dependent on the other. When you get into these meetings right, you can't sign off a floor until every trade is complete in many cases. So you know, having everyone keep up and keep pace for the most part takes a bit of a person with good communication skills, a bit of a background, to kind of push them of like, hey look, we need to keep on task here. Also, a person that's able to relay information in and out, right, there could be like I was saying earlier. There's noise outside of changes going on. Well, is that really relative to the team? In many cases, this leader has to be the quarterback to designate, hey, whether we're going to take a change, whether it makes sense now, and also between the team. Right, if we know that areas aren't designed, why are we having people model them or even coordinate them? If there's other places in the building that are fully designed, let's concentrate there.
Speaker 2:So the other message here is that leadership needs to know the job right. They need to be fluent with it. It can't be something they're just looking at on the screen an hour or two a week. They need to know you know, even as an MEP coordinator which really what these people are, who are running these jobs. They're now an MEP coordinator. They need to know the MEP systems. They need to know the building so that they can then help advise on not just necessarily you know what to draw and how to draw it but the strategy of it. Right, if you know things are going to be sequenced and coordinated a certain way, well, maybe you're releasing the trade who's on the top to model their systems first, and then the trade after that. You know, we're in this mindset where everybody has let's just I'm just throwing out durations two weeks to go model a floor, right, go back to your office and model for two weeks and then come to me in two weeks and give me a model and I'm going to show you all your problems. Well, we could be much more efficient with that right. That's very siloed and I guarantee you when they're in those silos they're not looking outside their window of what else they could be running into.
Speaker 2:So having a coordination plan is another big one. Understanding, if you have a corridor, look at that corridor and find out where things are going to be. I tell people like, hey, you don't need to model a whole building to figure out where you have problems with it. We could pull a design model out of Revit and just say, hey look, all these trades didn't coordinate, they stacked it all together. They're going to be in the same spot when you guys model it, where they put you. We don't need to go through a two-week exercise to just come back to that same resolution of like hey look, we have a problem in this corridor. So think those things out a little bit on the front end, right? Hey, we took a section of this corridor and figured out where people are. Then when that guy goes and models, he's actually coordinating while he's modeling. He's not just modeling, he's coordinating while he's modeling because he's in a spot he's supposed to be in and that also tells that person that when they get out of that zone they probably need to look around them because they're now getting into somebody else's area. So just being a little bit smarter about how we model and how we coordinate really needs to be on the forefront of not just the leadership but the team's agenda when they're going through coordination.
Speaker 2:And then the last one is always the most difficult is how to deal with change management.
Speaker 2:When you've got a new set of drawings coming in or hey, this over here pinning an RFI answer how that's going to be dealt with and all of these items, whether it be coordination plan, change documentation, the real piece of advice I give people is have a plan for these kinds of things going in.
Speaker 2:Make it part of your execution plan. Tell the team how you're going to coordinate it If you're going to have them stage out modeling and modeling it in little areas at a time so they can kind of sequence it out, tell them that and have that on the front end so they know what's going to be happening and how that coordination to come together. Have them come together in the beginning of every level and say, hey, what information do you have? What information do you not have? What areas kind of fuzzy to you Because once again we've got an entire floor to look at. It doesn't mean we have to be in this spot. We can look. We've got three weeks to partake the floor. We can be in other areas doing other things that are more productive than looking at something that might change next week. So really just having your head screwed on straight, having a good plan and thinking those things through is really the advice I give people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, steve, just tremendous. I mean I'm soaking it all in. You know lots of experiences, lots of projects that you've clearly worked on to put these lessons learned together and you're a great advocate for the industry and what the industry needs. So thank you for bringing your best and for presenting at the recent MEP Innovation Conference Pardon me, I appreciate that Well. Again, speaking of your experience and 14 years at ACCO, what have been some of the most significant changes or advancements that you've witnessed within the industry and how have they influenced your approach to BIM implementation?
Speaker 2:Well, I've seen a lot being in the BIM industry. Like I said, when I started with ACCO I modeled. Basically. Those entire 14 years have all been in BIM in some kind of facet to it. Some kind of facet to it. The easy stuff sorry, the easy stuff that we've done optimization of fabrication, optimization of installation right, getting things that we're modeling to get it to be more accurate, to get to have it, more quality control before it gets fabricated, before it gets on site those are things that are bread and butter to ACCO and are direct or direct benefits that we get just from executing work Right. We're trying to execute work more efficiently. What we do that by installing and fabricating better and then leads directly into that because we're able to visualize it, we're able to plan it. All of our material, all of our, all of our actual known, what we're going to purchase, we're going to install, is, is to install, is available through the data and everything with that. So that continues to advance but is at the heart of what we do Around that. The other things that we see in the construction industry is really also centered around BIM pulling more information out, total stations, taking out points, automatic layout, getting those out to the field. So we're taking points for inserts, sleeves, taking out points, automatic layout, getting those out to the field. So we're taking points for inserts, sleeves, housekeeping pads anything that a person wants to lay out in the field, they can do through this total station. Now we've been doing that for 10 or 15 years. I wouldn't say that's a newer technology, but even that process has been more optimized. As we go, more items are being laid out, more situations right. We have advancements like a couple of automation robots. Dusty Tool has one, hp has one that is now taken to the next level where instead of just having a human out there laying out points that have been dictated in BIM, but now a robot doing that and actually going out and tracing those locations out on the floor. But there are some good applications to that and support applications to that. We've seen a lot of advancements on that and, to be honest with you, that's going to continue to progress. We've seen some advancements around AR and VR but I would say still on the actual job site itself it's still a little bit light as far as actual implementation. We've actually kind of found that the virtual environment is good for training on safety and training on more practical workflows that aren't necessarily construction site relative Maybe it's a shop, maybe it's something more in the office, but using that environment to do that rather than what we would say is, you know, 10, 15 years ago, oh, these guys who were walking around one day without a piece of paper, they're going to see their model and their shop drawing visually as they walk through there. Well, I've seen tools like that which, yes, they could get there one day, but we haven't really seen that practically pushed out to the field yet. Yeah, that kind of stuff laser scanning, you can imagine.
Speaker 2:Now we're getting a ton into AI and really where AI is centered around is a lot of automation and things that we can automate. I was mentioning earlier that we're getting into like programming and things like that. Well, ai is really helping that, because we may not need as robust of a programming team if we're able to utilize AI to help out with those kinds of things. But, to be honest with you, the technology we look at is kind of on all fronts. It's really across the board. Even in some cases we're looking at different materials for products. Is sheet metal really going to be the product of choice in 15, 20 years? Or is there something newer and more advanced out there as well? All of those. You should see the stuff that comes across my desk from a month-to-month basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just can't imagine the role that you're in and the excitement in that role, especially beyond the cutting edge of the technology and the workflows and the processes. You had talked about some of the low-hanging fruit, like optimization of fabrication and installation and, depending on where any firm is at any time, they may not have yet entered into the field of using BIM to optimize fabrication installation. They may not have yet entered into the field of using BIM to optimize fabrication installation. So you know, just looking at some of those early on items that ACCO hit, what would you say were some lessons learned from, you know, from the implementation of that?
Speaker 2:And how did you move to tracking parts and pieces and how do you bring efficiency to that? Yeah, sure, no-transcript fabricate off-site and then expedite as much you can on-site by having as big a package as possible. So a lot of the learning curve we had was a lot of it's around logistics. You know what size of material can show up on a site. Is there an elevator that's only eight foot long? Well, if there's an elevator eight foot long, then we should be putting out spools that are 10 feet and 12 feet long. You know those kinds of things of more of logistics, of understanding the site conditions but not being on site right, having all that information that funnel its way not just back to the shop to fabricate, but even back to detailing, because detailing needs to know that information to really be able to execute the work for whatever the conditions on site would be. So it's a lot of that kind of logistics I would say was more of the learning curve. We have implemented some shop tracking tools, so we're trying to go paperless in the shop, which basically means that anything coming out of BIM is going to a cloud environment and then the guys in the shop are then executing the work basically off of iPads, where they're getting all the information for spools, anything that they want to be fabricating off it comes from iPads also allows them to interact with it, to start timers, stop timers, which gives us a ton of data of what work they're doing, how long they're doing it, which really feeds into more of our metrics about throughput to the shop and understanding how much material we could push through it when we need to, but also understanding, kind of from the estimating side, what are our quantifiable values when it comes to shop productivity and what to expect out of there, because obviously it comes very important when it comes to the estimating side of things. The tracking material is, I would say, still a bit of a challenge. It's actually something that we kind of have on one of our constant lists of how can we improve upon it.
Speaker 2:Really, our tracking is really centered all around free fabrication and spools, what we call marks on the sheet metal side of where those are. Um, where we, where we have a bit of work to do, I would say, is on more of the parts and pieces. Hey, you know this job, you know bim, bim and echo is really geared towards very large jobs. Right, these massive jobs, got all these kinds of things. But we also, you know, most of the actual jobs quantity wise, and echo are very large jobs right, these massive jobs, you've got all these kinds of things. But we also, you know, most of the actual jobs quantity-wise at Aqua are very small jobs with small service jobs, smaller jobs. So on those ends where we're just handing a couple of parts and pieces, that's where the tracking really comes a little bit more cumbersome of. Okay, did these four parts go out to this job, did these ones go out to these jobs? And actually kind of coordinating that rather than this massive mark of all the material we just bought went out to this job, because it's very easy to quantify and to track, you know.
Speaker 2:But all of that coming back, how do we deal out the data? Is pretty much a constant question that we're asking ourselves. How are we getting that data? How are we able to acquire it? In our sheet metal shop they're tracking things by barcodes, right? Everything is tied to a barcode scanning coming off the machine to when they start putting it together. That all ties back to their time sheets. But what does that data actually do for us to build out? It's kind of the conversation we have, or what does that data mean, you know? Do we need to shift our shop around? Because some of that data that's really what we're trying to get is to not just have it, but to be able to consume it and understand where it needs to direct us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much for that context and background. I feel that there's so much to learn in the optimization, in the implementation of BIM and how it can bring the benefits of fabrication installation and then use the tools like total. How it enables the use of tools like the total total station layouts like you're talking about, or or the robotics and then and then bringing in you know more of the software components to it, like AI, to then analyze the data that you're speaking about. So it's just, it's incredible to you know, be speaking with you where your firm is. You know, at the forefront of this leadership is defining how to bring these tools and implement that into the workflows. That, to me, is just thrilling that you get to live in that space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tell people really our customers are our shop and our field, so we're trying to get as much input from them to optimize the product. We don't dictate what they get, they dictate what we create is really the angle we're trying to get right, because everything that we're doing in the detailing side should benefit those guys. So we're just trying to optimize as much as possible. You're asking earlier about kind of how we some learning lessons, like, for instance, we prefabricate all of our hangers and some jobs we have like thousands of hangers. Well, it's very clear early on like you can't just send thousands of hangers out to a job site and say here's your hangers, no-transcript. At the end of the day, like I said, our customer is the field. If my customer is four guys standing around, they're trying to figure out what to do with a thousand hangers, compared to four people installing hangers. The second that it shows up on the site I have my customers are much more efficient.
Speaker 1:Great lesson, great lesson I I love that viewpoint too uh, for your detailing department, that it shows up on the site. My customers are much more efficient. Great lesson, great lesson, and I love that viewpoint too for your detailing department. So earlier in the podcast, you and I were talking about collaboration and how it's a passion of yours and it's a passion and it's a necessity in the successful implementation of the BIM process. So how do you foster a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing within your team and across different departments at ATCO and across coordination teams, across different companies? You know, help me understand how you bring that passion to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely a challenge. You know, we live in a in a industry that is based a lot around tribal knowledge about somebody that learned, that did something on a job and they execute it. And the only real way for somebody else to execute as good as that person is to that person, take them under their wing and show them, show them how they do it right, because that's really where the knowledge is at in those person, in that person. And I'll be honest with you, I kind of consider myself an outsider because I don't build anything, I don't design anything. So, coming in from the outside, I see that as very inefficient, right, because now we're replicating work in different places that we really shouldn't have to be if we had that integrated culture. So that's really what I spearhead here at ACCO. It's like, hey, guys, we have people that are experts that have been are experts in engineering. They've been engineering for 20 years. We also have experts over here that have been constructing stuff for 20 or 30 years as well for 20 years. But we also have experts over here that have been constructing stuff for 20 or 30 years as well. Like having the two of them talk, and particularly talk early on in a project has huge benefits because we figure out how we're going to support systems, how we're going to lay out systems very early on. And we do.
Speaker 2:What I hate doing is we? Well, I love doing this. We do what. We ended up alleviating what I doing is we we? We get rid of all the rework, right. There's no sense in us designing a whole system just to hand it over to somebody else. Down the road in construction you go oh, don't build that way, build this other way, okay. Well, that means that engineer is already drawn and has to redraw it, like you're basically shooting ourselves in the foot and having redraws when we could control that on the front end. So a lot of what I do do is kind of sell them on collaboration. Right, this is in your best benefit overall for the project if you guys were to do this and that then culminates itself into an organization or a company, right, if I see best practices, things going on, I'm one of the people who try to magnify that so that I can get the people's eyes on the other people that can then influence in other locations.
Speaker 2:One of our biggest struggles here at ACCO is we've worked very silent in the past, so our LA office may function a bit different than our Bay Area, but if we're really trying to get to common manpower that could supply for either one of them, well, some commonality needs to happen there. And that's really where I spearhead myself and say OK, well, if you were to make these decisions, these are your benefits, right, you'll have less detailing time, you'll have less submittal time, you'll have less purchasing time because you won't be searching for things that are different in different places. All of those have tangible gains. So really, it's kind of what I'm kind of alluding to is like dangle the carrot, give them some tangible gains of what they're going to get out of it, and that will foster collaboration.
Speaker 2:And the second part of it is it's it's a diligent. It's a diligent task. You know I have to. I have to coordinate meetings. And I say coordinate meetings I mean they're like hey, I need you, you and here at this time, just to make a meeting happen, to get the right people together. But I kind of have to kind of personally spearhead that, because it's not really going to happen without you know, or if it does happen, it'll probably take a lot longer Um and and a lot a bit of latency built into that, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much for that background. And, um, and I want to dig a little bit further into the human element. Um, uh, and, and, and it came up, uh, in my mind earlier as well how do you best address training and skill development and change management, especially when you're saying, for example, the coordinator really needs to be knowledgeable in the space in order to give the best advice. So what is your approach to that?
Speaker 2:Well, specifically for the coordinator task, we sat down, not just for a day but for a while, and we wrote out what a coordinator really, their responsibilities are. And when you look at it, there's two main buckets. There's the technical side. They need to know the programs, they need to know the file types, they need to know how to get things aligned in a model right. There's a technical aspect of just working in Navisworks, working in the software that they're going to be coordinating with, whatever they're coordinating with, revisto or whatever's the coordinating platform. They got to know that like the back of their hand because they're the expert people are going to turn to. When a guy in the fire sprinkler company is struggling with, they're going to turn to GC or whoever's running that coordination. We can say well, what's going on here? Right. So there's that technical part of it. But what's even more difficult is the experience and what I called earlier the MEP coordination part of it. Right, you are an MEP coordinator, or you should be, I guess. Ideally, the person that runs that process is an MEP coordinator, because they have to be able to make those kinds of decisions.
Speaker 2:So how does one become a good MEP coordinator? That's not something that there is just books on the shelf to learn that. Once again, it's a lot of tribal knowledge. Right For me to understand how to coordinate mechanical systems. I can't just pick up a book and understand it. The reality is you have to sit in a lot of coordination meetings, you have to interact with people installing it. I've been doing this for 15 or so years now. I've never, like I said, installed any of this kind of stuff. But I could tell you how to. How to draw a whole fire sprinkler system or whole electrical system to a pretty good, pretty good coordination, coordinatable state. You know, and I'm going to kind of call you on like hey, you can, you can do that. Drop there when you're a plumber because you're going down great, like there are things you want to know about the other trades to help strategize and help coordinate and help push along coordination in the right direction.
Speaker 2:But there's no book out there to just, hey, here's coordination. Everything you know about it's really knowing construction. You need to know things about drywall. You need to know things about fire coating on beams out there that you know when they spray monocoat. So it's just a lot of knowledge that you're not going to get unless you're sitting in the room talking to those guys no-transcript of that mentality of just learning to adapt and work with people, like I said, me being in the middle of it, of engineering and construction I kind of find myself.
Speaker 2:I have the head of an engineer so I can talk with them on that level of complexity and design, but also kind of have the attitude of more of a construction worker, of kind of a willy nilly hey, let's, let's go, just do the thing. So I think having a little bit in both of those helps me bring people like that together. But yeah, I mean it's, it's really just people building and understanding your relationships. I mean it's a it's, it's it building and understanding your relationships. I mean it's a challenge. Like I said earlier, it's probably one of the bigger challenges of my career is really just communication. I tell people, man, we work with expensive software probably some of the most expensive software in the world with expensive computers, and we work on multi-million dollar super complex projects that are most complex in the world. You know, the hardest part of our job is people. It's not all that stuff, it's people, it's working with people and getting things done with a collaboration and a coordinated affair.
Speaker 1:And thanks for your focus on you know, making sure that the mindset of the people is very strong and your leadership and driving the collaboration, and I can you know I see that passion come out in you and I'm grateful the industry has you, steve, as a final question of the show and a traditional future construct, if you could project yourself out 25 years and wanted to have any device technology that would benefit you personally, what would it be and what would it do?
Speaker 2:So I mean, I think this is an easy one. It's jetpacks, man. Like where are jetpacks, Even on a job site, flying around there? That's got to be much more efficient than walking around. So yeah, I'm still I don't know how well my legs are going to work in 25 years, so I think a jetpack would definitely help.
Speaker 1:For sure Now, is that to get like for the multi-story building or between buildings? Yeah, either one, you know. Above all of the above, very cool. Yeah, fantastic conversation, steve. Thank you so much for your time today on the future construct podcast. Um. You're the construction technology manager at echo engineered systems. Um really enjoyed hearing your journey and insights into the intersection of construction and technology. And to our listeners, stay tuned for more captivating discussions on the future construct podcast until next time. Thank you all.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mark. Thank you for having me Appreciate it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Steve.
