Trends in Preconstruction

How to Support New Preconstruction Technology

35% of surveyed construction companies report that the biggest roadblock to adopting new construction technology is the “lack of staff to support the technology.” (Autodesk)

Yet, the older your programs and systems are, the more costly it becomes to maintain them and replace them.

For Colorado-based ENR Mountain States Best Project Awards winner Saunders Construction, there was only one team member building, coding, and maintaining Macros in Excel. If something were to have happened, no one else knew how the preconstruction workflow operated. Plus, since the precon team was using multiple tools, there wasn’t one place from which to capture and recall data.

In short, Saunders preconstruction process was inefficient.

In business, efficiency is the measure of productivity relative to the amount of money and time it takes to be productive. One of the best ways a business can be more efficient is by automating as many processes as possible, reduce multitasking, standardize procedures, and eliminate waste.

For those still working in outdated systems, fixing the above is one of their biggest challenges. If this is you, you probably already recognize that you're operating inefficiently, and how that's affecting the bottom line.

Adapting and adopting to the current digital transformation in preconstruction is providing construction companies:

Long-term cost savings
Ability to reach goals
Improving profitability
Reducing errors
Flexibility to quickly adapt to marketing and industry shifts

When you implement new technologies that automate tasks, you prioritize those tasks that matter—the tasks that win projects.

However, switching software is a monumental task and if you feel like you don’t have enough team members to tackle everything now, how will you ever handle taking on new software?

Yet, like Saunders, you probably already have someone (officially or unofficially) managing your systems. How can you better utilize them to help your team become more efficient? By developing their role into a manager of preconstruction technology.

We asked two of our most successful contractors how they’ve managed staff to support the technology that their preconstruction teams are using.

Swinerton

Number 35 on the ENR Top 400 Contractors 2024, Swinerton were using multiple software for the same processes which were difficult to support and causing wasteful complexity.

Swinerton began to prioritize tech management so they could improve operational efficiency and support their business strategy.

Jose Gudiño, Senior Solutions Manager at Swinerton is the advocate for their precon teams within the Swinerton IT team and to elevate the use of technology for their preconstruction teams. He focuses on providing the right workflows, tools, and support to make the precon team more efficient.

He suggests: “I think the best approach for smaller companies is to have someone from precon also manage the software with direction and advice from their IT department. It takes both construction and technology experience to be successful in this role.”

For Swinerton, developing roles that support the technology that preconstruction has allowed them to:

Increase efficiency and standardization
Improve user experience through support, training, and maintaining regular software updates
Created better and trusted relationships with their software vendors and their end users

And importantly as Jose points out, one of their greatest benefits is having “a key person that not only knows the product, but also its roadmap and has a vision for where the technology will go in the future.” destini-estimator-1

The Beck Group

Brent Pilgrim, National Director of Preconstruction at The Beck Group, construction tech evangelist, and BIM Task Force founder says they have experienced "first-hand the benefits of having dedicated team members" that primarily focus on innovation and tech management at The Beck Group.

He writes, "As a real-world example, our Historical Cost Platform is one of the most recent and major investments we have made as a firm. The return on investment is undeniable. I feel fairly confident in saying there is likely no one at Beck, or outside of Beck (such as clients) who having interfaced with our historical data and team who has NOT seen the value. This would not have been possible if six years ago, we had not chosen to make this investment, and also chosen to take people offline from “revenue-generating” roles and place them in these roles."

Other DESTINI Estimator users who have dedicated tech management roles says it allows their estimating and precon teams to focus on what they do best — providing the solutions to owners’ and clients’ challenges and exceeding their expectations on a finished project.

To begin the process of creating a preconstruction technology role in your company, start by identifying someone who is already the lead in maintaining your current systems and who has mastered the software.

From there, build a team who is interested and shows an affinity for modern technologies. You want someone who is excited about innovation and can help motivate the team to embrace change and keep the momentum going on new software implementation.

Brent says, "Start small and be intentional about what it is you are going to invest in and pursue. Establish accountability milestones and measure what you are doing. If progress is not being made, double-check to see if the resources that are tasked with a certain project (or innovation) actually have been afforded the bandwidth to perform that role. Additionally, innovation is a little bit like the design profession. It doesn’t just happen. It’s a process that has to be developed, tested, trialed, etc. It’s not a one and done kind of activity."