PBC Today stopped by the Elecosoft stall to chat with global product manager David Simpson about how to facilitate better communication in construction
One of the key exhibitors at this year’s Digital Construction Week was Elecosoft, where PBC Today caught up with David Simpson to discuss the recent release of Asta Connect and the perils of miscommunication in construction.Â
How is your experience of Digital Construction Week so far?
It’s always great to get out there, talk to industry experts, see the technology and how it’s transforming, changing, evolving. Really good to be here again. It’s just great to talk to people as well and really understand their challenges and see where our solutions fit and can really solve problems.
What has Elecosoft been working on recently?
One of the latest innovations we’ve been working on is around short-term planning.
There are a number of different terminologies that are used to describe that part of the project. Last planner system would be another one. Really, they’re in the wheelhouse of lean construction and planning systems.
We’ve recently released Asta Connect, which is all about enabling users to connect the master plan with the short term, onboarding your trade partners, getting the best flow of jobs to be done, making reliable promises and then getting that feedback back into the system because right now, that doesn’t happen.
There’s an awful lot of lost opportunity there in terms of learning that can be then leveraged in future projects.
It also means that because there isn’t really a solution out there that connects, often the office doesn’t have a connection with reality, so there’s often a lot of misalignment. So what we’re looking to do here is really bridge that gap.
How important is clearer communication to the industry?
Ultimately there’s an awful lot of miscommunication in construction because no one really has the right information in front of them.
Informal communication and manual processes that still exist within the construction industry can create misalignment, which creates tension and erodes project predictability and profitability.
What we’re looking to do here is really bridge that gap, create solutions to actually solve systemic problems within the industry. For the industry to transform, ultimately it’s got to start thinking differently and start evolving and leveraging processes that improve productivity and ultimately bottom line, and there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity, right?
In the next couple of decades, $97 trillion is going to be spent globally on infrastructure around the world. That’s a mighty sum of money. There’s huge opportunity there, but there’s still a tremendous amount of waste within the industry.
If we can remove that waste, then there’s a lot to be gained within the industry.
You can read more about Elecosoft’s suite of design software here.
