Sharp tools, smarter builds
Many construction teams feel overwhelmed by the constant stream of new construction tech. We cut through the noise with seasoned construction pros, Jeff Forbes (Regional Director, Beck Group) and Paul Krauss (General Superintendent, Beck Group). They share the real-world tools they swear by and how these technologies make a tangible impact on jobsites.
(upbeat music)
- All right, welcome back to the Built Different Podcast.
I'm one of your host, Grant Hagen.
Joined with Mr. Adam D.
Good to see you, buddy.
- Good morning.
- Thank you for coming back in with us.
We have two really fun guests with us here today,
up on the 48th floor in downtown Dallas.
I mean, Jeff, you really outdid yourself
with having us come up here.
I mean, the views, I feel like you could probably point
to half the projects that you've been involved with up here.
- It is kind of fun.
You're able to just walk around and go,
I did that job.
I was involved with that one.
Back did that.
We designed that and it is really cool.
- I mean, we're in the corner office suite up here, Paul.
I'm sure you could probably point to half the jobs
that either you knew someone on or you were a part of.
I mean, you've been up here before though, right?
- Yeah, I've been up here, but downtown wise,
I haven't built much, but I'm aware of what big,
some of the history behind big building,
building a lot of these buildings in Dallas.
So yeah, it's pretty impressive when you look out
over the city.
- And it's even a little bit of a rainy day here
as I see some planes fly up,
probably not even that much higher than us here,
but this is gonna be really fun.
One, I just appreciate you guys making the time.
Out of your guys' busy schedule,
Jeff recently retired.
So you're having all fun things of new hobbies
and enjoying grandkids, maybe with a little bit more time.
And Paul, thanks for hopping out of your job
to come and chat with us.
- No worries.
- It's gonna be fun.
So this season, we are all talking about the field.
I was impressed.
I think some of our best conversations, Adam,
are before we hit record.
And Jeff over here was like, Adam,
listen to your episode.
Feed the field, man.
Is that what we're gonna talk about?
And I was like, wow, Jeff,
I might have to just give you the host of Mike over here.
I mean, the fact that--
- We need to start getting in the practice
of recording some of these walk-in conversations
before we actually go on air.
- I was thinking about putting a little Mike on us,
but then at the same time,
that you don't wanna see what you catch
and you're like, okay,
I don't know if we should have hit record on that.
- We did sign a disclosure for you.
- And Paul too, you said the same thing.
You're like, hey, listen to it on the way in.
And it was cool.
It's fun that you guys obviously know the value
of what I think helping educate more of the industry
can bring and obviously,
Paul, your background of being out in the field.
And Jeff, you from an operations standpoint,
when I was thinking about who we could bring on
for this season, I was like, man,
there's two no better people than you two.
One, 'cause Paul, I really enjoyed being out on your jobs,
how well they're run.
Jeff, we have a whole history that we could even go into,
which would be really fun,
but we wouldn't have time for today.
So one, I just wanna say thank you guys.
Thanks for making the time to come up here.
- Thanks for having us.
- Thank you.
Before we get into it,
and Adams over here feverishly with his questions,
ready to fire, but Jeff,
give us a little lay of the land.
What you, how do you summarize your 40 plus your career
in a little elevator pitch,
but give us a little lay of the land.
One stop shop, been with Beck for 40 plus years,
recently retired here a few months ago,
but yeah, give the listeners in a little bit of background
of what you did.
- So real quick, Jeff Forbes.
Sioux City, Iowa, went to Iowa State University.
- Go cyclones.
- Yes, yes.
From there, I ended up getting involved with construction.
I looked at architecture.
I ended up winning a full ride tuition to Iowa State
because I wanna draft thing contest.
And I thought, ah, architecture,
talked to a lot of architects, I said,
"You will not make any money."
And I said, okay, construction.
And from there, one of my professors
that I looked up to, Gerald Chase,
said, "If you ever get a chance,
"work for HCB contractors,"
which became back.
And they get it.
They're into innovations.
They're into creativities.
They know all about integrity.
And I had that opportunity.
So in 1982--
- I was gonna say, I knew you were gonna start throwing
some dates out here too.
- I know, I know.
1982 came down the back and started working
on the 37-story building for AT&T just across the street.
So like we started, it is kind of fun
to point out this window.
That's my first job.
The second one was a Phillip Johnson building,
you know, a 62-story building,
and saying, okay, I was able to do that.
So starting at the bottom, working my way up,
I got to do everything.
And, you know, whether it was coordinating subs,
on my way up to leading projects
and being creative in how we did that.
We merged with an architectural firm back in 1999.
And with that, had the opportunity to build and design
the very first integrated project for back.
And since that time, I've just had a passion
for building, for designing,
and just really given the owner his dream building.
- In that kind of rise,
and we'll come to you here in a second, Paul.
In that, in your corporate course, your career,
kind of what just quick example or list of the positions
that you've held as you've moved up, right?
- You've probably started as a field engineer,
in turn, or however you started with back.
- Back in the '80s, Jeff.
So back in '82, where'd you start?
- It's kind of fun.
So it's neither of you two were alive then.
Okay, so-- - I was only three years after that.
- Oh, okay, okay, okay.
So real quick, office engineer, trainee,
office engineer, project engineer,
senior project engineer, project administrator,
project manager, senior project manager,
operations manager, and then finally,
regional manager.
- Trying to count on my hand,
how many that is, that's like 10-ish or so.
- And really, Adam, somewhere in there
was a field engineer too. - Sure.
- And helping with layout.
- And every company's got their version of,
you know, what those different titles are.
- Absolutely. - But you've seen
the full gamut, right?
You've gone from, you know,
boot sturdy in the field, running jobs,
to executive level leadership,
and, you know, managing the business as a whole.
- Absolutely. - So that's an awesome,
awesome path through that career.
- I didn't know how you were gonna put it
into an elevator pitch, but that was pretty good.
- That was good, that was great.
- 41 years, real fast. - 41 years.
- Mr. Krauss, give us a little background about you.
- Okay, so obviously I have a slightly different accent
to Jeff and everyone else here,
so I'll go way back.
I was actually born in California
and moved to New Zealand when I was two years old
and I grew up there.
I had an uncle in New Zealand who was a builder,
and I just wanted to be like him.
So from probably the age of five, six,
I'd go out in school holidays and go help him,
just banging nails into two befores,
or I'd pick up nails off the floor of slab
or whatever and take him home
and just bang him into a trigger fence.
So I feel like I've always had building in me,
wanted to always be a builder.
I left school early and got a job
with a commercial construction company in New Zealand.
We built some, well, I'll say,
reasonably big buildings for New Zealand,
but nothing compared to over here.
And then I got into some home building,
I did some renovation type work in New Zealand,
and then one day me and my wife had decided that,
'cause I was born here, that we could come over here
and try our hand and see what opportunities would be here.
So we moved to Pennsylvania,
and I had a bunch of different jobs here
from Framing Homes.
I've got them with a small GC there
that ended up closing up and I got another opportunity.
And then after being in Pennsylvania for nine years,
I think it was, we decided we moved to Texas
and actually had from Pennsylvania,
a couple phone interviews and Jeff was one of those.
I kind of ask him here now and then,
if he remembers interviewing me on that.
And I think you do, so, it's worked out.
Sounds like it worked out.
Yeah, Beck flew me out here after a couple
of the phone interviews and I basically spent a day
just shadowing some folks from the Fort Worth office,
actually, and I was real excited,
I was pretty fired up with what Beck was doing.
And I'd never worked with some of the technology,
like, I was real excited about the iPad and things like that.
So, yeah, that's, now I'm just,
you're pretending for Beck being here eight years.
I was gonna ask that,
the numbers all kind of rolled together, right, Jeff?
I mean, 41's a pretty easy number to remember,
but yeah, so eight years that you've been here
in the Metroplex, what jobs that you've been a part of,
I mean, obviously I got to work with you
for quite a few seasons and different projects
that you've been on, but give us a little lay
of the different types of work that you've seen here.
So, I started off at Shops at Clearfall,
looked after the landscape package on that,
and then I went to TCU for about three or four phases
out there, building some student housing.
There was some large, like, I think we built
six or seven buildings in the first phase
that I was out there for that,
went from there to American Airlines
to the hospitality center for those guys,
and that actually got stopped partway through
because of COVID, and then after that,
I went and did a pretty big renovation for DISD,
and then I went to Atlanta to help out on a project out there,
and now I'm at our UTD building at the NAM,
so just finishing that up and looking to roll
into phase two.
- Anthony M2, one, I had to practice how many times
to say it, two, what is it for folks that don't know?
- It's a museum.
- Yeah, very nice, very high quality
on a university campus of all places.
- Yeah, it's a pretty unique building.
It's definitely one of the more challenging ones
that I'm actually just coming in to finish it up,
so I wasn't there from the start
'cause I was in Atlanta working on some stuff,
but phase two is gonna be summer,
so I'm pretty excited about that.
- What would you say to some of the--
- I think you're kind of downplaying this.
This thing is amazing from a structural angle.
I mean, typically you would come down
and have columns around the perimeter.
You have none of that.
You only have a central core and the entire level two.
- What is the primary structure?
What is it, steel concrete?
- A mix of both.
- Yeah.
- But there's like V columns that are holding up.
I mean, if you just imagine a shoebox with V columns
holding it up from the center point,
pointing to the outside, that's what's basically holding it up.
But when I downplay it, I guess I wasn't there
from the start, so if I was working through the structure,
I'd probably be blowing my own trumpet
a little bit more better.
I wasn't involved in that.
- Well, it sounds like you might get to do it again.
You might have the opportunity to do it again
with a phase two coming up.
- Yeah, and I'm pretty lucky, I guess,
'cause I'm gonna have lessons learned from this one here.
But yeah, I'm pretty excited to build something.
- We're gonna come back to lessons learned.
- A great team out there too.
It's fun.
We've been back to a ton of work on UT's campus
over the years, and that's kind of almost
a little crown jewel for them,
and obviously a lot of eyes and ears on that
with design team and just kind of where it is on campus
and for the students and stuff too.
So, guys, that was great.
I always love the intros because it's sometimes people
like, "God, just get to the good stuff."
It's like the good stuff is 41 years.
- They're gonna put you guys on.
- Eight years of pointing to projects down here, but.
- The other good stuff is we have something in common too.
I also want a drafting competition when I was in high school.
I grew up, my father was an architect,
so I kind of grew up was gonna go into design first,
and I had the same realization.
I was like, "Wait a minute, the money's over there."
And I'm not an artist, so.
But yeah, through high school,
I competed in drafting and stuff.
- Excellent.
- Board manual and CAD, so.
Got a little flavor of both.
- Maybe that's the new podcast that we do is.
(laughs)
The changed road from design to construction.
- Yeah.
- I feel like everyone has a story
along those lines of like.
- Paul Hagan's.
- Yeah, I mean, I could probably name a handful of folks
that went that same route.
Mine was like, I walked into the architecture school
and was like, "I can't do that.
I can't draw that."
- I remember asking like, "Where did you buy that from?"
It's like, "Oh, those are our students' work."
I'm like, "Oh, I'm out.
I'm out.
I appreciate you telling me that now."
But anyway, well, so go for it.
- Yeah, but a question, Paul, with your background
and kind of where you grew up,
how you had into construction.
We have a lot of friends in the APAC area.
We do a lot of business down there.
Curious to just kind of get a general sense.
I'm sure there's a long list,
but like differences in building,
differences in construction,
whether it be steel is steel, concrete is concrete,
but some of the building practices,
maybe some of the hurdles,
the blockers to building here versus back at home,
just kind of a quick digest on how different building
in the States is versus in New Zealand.
- Yeah, so it was pretty difficult when we first moved
over here because I'd say I've been a builder
for 15 years or whatever,
and people kind of looked at me funny.
And I'd have to explain like the principles
of building are the same.
I don't build the roof first and then the foundations.
Like it's still all the same.
- Sure.
- Where I grew up in Christchurch had a lot of earthquakes.
I think 2011 had a pretty bad one.
I think in 2015 there was another bad one.
So there's a lot more,
I guess, engineering around when you're building
these buildings to withstand those,
the earthquakes and things like that.
We don't have basements in New Zealand.
I know there's no basements in Texas,
but there was a big difference in Pennsylvania.
But safety is a really big thing over there now.
They were having a lot of accidents and things like that.
So there's a lot of extra costs and stuff
and building sites for especially residential.
- Yeah, makes sense.
- But for the most part, it's pretty similar.
- Okay.
Any difference in like the way that contracting methods
or inspection processes,
is it more stringent in the States than it was back there?
- I think it was more stringent in New Zealand
to be honest with you.
- Really?
- But one big difference and I would love to have this here
is that like a lot of the guys working in the field,
you could wear shorts.
- Wow.
- I would love to give back to that.
Like I'd even say to people like,
I'm willing to forego any cut.
If I have an accident, it's on me, not on you.
Like please let me wear shorts.
I don't wanna wear jeans.
- That's a changing.
- It's 105 degree.
- So that's like normal?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
So Paul, I gotta just share this.
I'm an avid cyclist.
And so on Saturdays, I would drive around
until I came to a back job and then just be looking in.
And one of the superintendents told me,
"You can't come in."
I go, "Why?"
I've got like a safety vest on.
I've got safety glasses.
I've got a hard hat, basically, bike helmet.
I've got hard sold shoes.
He goes, "Yeah, but you don't have pants."
- Look at them pants.
- And so yeah, I never was allowed to get on that side.
- Yeah, that's rough right over here.
- That's fascinating.
You guys have probably seen all the golf stuff with PGA and Liv.
And it's interesting, when you watch a Liv tournament,
they're all wearing shorts.
And people are like, "Wait a second."
That seems odd.
I just think about walking onto a construction site
and seeing short, which I mean, it totally makes sense.
Obviously from a safety standpoint,
there's reasons why pants are preferred here in the States.
- Free the legs, that's what I say.
(laughing)
- Feed the field, free the legs, baby.
Come on.
- Well, we're gonna steal that one.
That's pretty good.
- That's awesome.
- Well, so this season, we're all focusing on innovation
at the field level.
That's really what we're wanting to focus on.
And Jeff obviously have seen a lot of innovation
happen at a field level of your career.
Paul, you likewise, in being here and kind of mentioning
what was attractive to you to come to back
and some of the things that you've gotten to see.
But I guess I'm curious, the question that we started asking
is like, what would you say your relationship
with technology and/or innovation is?
Like, how would you define it today?
- Well, as you know, you know me.
And like I said before, I was pretty fired up
when I came to BEC.
I was pretty excited about the technology.
I would consider myself like an out of the box thinker,
like to be trying to innovate.
So I'm all for using as many tools as we can,
as long as it's helpful to the job.
I think if we can pre-plan using these tools
prior to studying a project, rather than trying to introduce it
during the project that becomes an overload.
And then I think that's when people get frustrated
with the technology.
But for sure, if you can bring it in early
and show people what it's gonna do
and how it can be helpful, I think it's great.
- Nice.
Where would you say that there have been some wins
over the course of your career
where a technology's been introduced
and has really hit the check that box of helpful value
for a project?
- I would say the model,
been after model things prior to building.
Again, if you can do that early on
and get some of those clashes out of the way
so that you can actually build,
like that's a pretty big one.
And I know back in the TCU days,
we were meeting with Pro-Core a little bit
to talk about some of the model stuff
and how we could maybe look at a real-time capture
and then look at what's actually in the model
and see that it's matching and things like that.
So, but yeah, I think the model is pretty big.
- Mr. Forbes, what's your relationship with technology?
- Well, considering that--
- I was gonna box you in and say,
give it to me in three words here, but--
- Computer assisted design was just rolling out
in the '80s.
So then pass forward, whether it's Revit or,
you know, some of the nuances that I really, really like,
Navisworks, I think, really helped
to identify a lot of problems.
And, you know, Revit, I'm going to say
for the first five or six years was not successful
because architects and designers did not know
how to go ahead and use Revit the right way.
I think that contractors probably understood Revit better
for trying to go ahead and coordinate and find the issues.
But, you know, real time, I think designers were just
pulling stuff out of catalog to go ahead and put it in.
Without any thought whatsoever of how does this relate
to the other pieces that were in there?
Grant, I think of a project back in 2010.
- '11, oh boy.
This is one of your first--
- Oh boy.
- At SMU.
- How do we do this every time, Adam?
- We keep interviewing your friends.
- Yeah, that's true.
- So-- - We know too much about you.
We're going to do this with some Turner guys.
I'm going to be on the hot seat.
- The one thing about Grant is he asked the words,
always said the words why.
Why can't we?
Why don't we?
Have you thought about this?
Why, you know, why?
Why, why?
And one of those things was,
why do we have 10,000 pounds of drawings?
And we could eliminate that
animated return on investment type of thing.
So listen, we can save $150,000 or whatever the number was
by not having to reproduce these drawings
and put that on a screen and have everyone with an iPad.
And Grant, way to go.
And what success is is where you've got a 60 year old
superintendent for a Mason
who's in there using it the right way
and saying this is great.
I can see this, I can see that.
And really just pulling other superintendents
into the equation and helping them.
But SMU I think was the first time that we did that
and did it successfully.
- We talked a little bit last time about this intersection
of like software and hardware.
Kind of when that intersection happens,
software obviously at that point was blue beam hardware
at that point was an iPad, right?
Like if one of those two is excelling
more than the other, it's probably not gonna have
the impact at the level it did.
And if one of them is farther ahead
or one of them is farther behind,
you're probably just gonna sit back and be like,
ah, we missed it.
But yeah, that job obviously was unique,
but I remember saying come over here,
like let's go to the screen, like, hey,
maybe let's move away from some of these different pieces
of paper and I don't know, when you think about technology,
it's more changing the relationship that you have with it
more than actually using it.
'Cause I think like now, I mean, think about that,
that's 15 years ago, but think about what's 15 years
in the future, like back then that was amazing.
We're like, oh my gosh, this is my pad,
I can carry this out to the field,
it's got everything on it.
- And not only that, but you develop something
called a hyperlink or on this job.
- You've been at the hyperlink.
- Yeah, no, no, no.
- I'll take Chris.
- Yeah, but it was amazing how you could go ahead
and just click there and then see the detail somewhere else.
- I didn't think of it. - I didn't think of it.
- I miss that I'm Mason that you were talking about
with the iPad, most of the ones I'm working with
still have paper, so.
- And that's, you know, I think when we look at it too,
it's like, okay, you obviously want everyone to follow
or kind of come along that path, but at the same time too,
if that is what works for them, it's like, all right,
hey, I'm not gonna like, I think that's what that job
taught me was like, hey, you can't force anything on anyone.
You have to convince them that this is gonna meet them
where they're at, and to do that, you gotta put yourself
in their shoes, and if you don't do that, hey, game over.
- Right.
- Well, I think when you're saying, like, what is it gonna look
like in 15 years, like some of these longer in the tooth,
folks that are working on the job site will kind of cycle
out and there'll be a younger group coming through,
and I think the iPad and the technology will be used
a lot more than what it is today, 'cause there's still
some of these folks a little older than me more seasoned
but still wanna have the paper, but I think in 15 years
it's gonna be--
- Do you remember when the iPad came out and people were like,
this is just a big iPhone, what are we gonna do with this thing?
Like, how am I gonna fit this in my pocket,
and now safety of us have iPad holders, right?
What am I gonna do?
Like, why do I need apps on this?
It's interesting that if you think about it too,
like technology when released probably is a little bit
farther ahead of the people that are actually adopting it.
I mean, you guys have obviously seen and probably heard,
you know, these Apple Vision Pro's, the new kind of
augmented reality, virtual reality headset kind of thing,
and there's a video that was buzzing around, you know,
this week of people on a job site
walking with a hard hat on it too, and it's like,
well, there's not really applications for it yet,
but that doesn't mean that it doesn't come out yet.
I mean, are there tools that have surprised you
that when they have come out, you're like, huh,
maybe at first I wasn't a believer in that,
and now that I've like, time has, you know,
brought about that, I am a believer.
Anything that come to mind?
- We shared earlier the photogrammetry
and being able to fly above and piece that together
with civil plans to go and know immediately,
just before you pour concrete, is it in the right spot?
To me, that just blew me away.
- Yeah, that's good.
I would agree with that, and then laser scanning tools,
another one I've gone like man, that's pretty impressive
to be out of scan, something that makes sure
it makes sure it needs to be, that's pretty cool.
- But even beyond laser scan, you come into
the existing building, let's take, you know,
DISD that you came off, laser scan,
and then being able to populate all those data points
into the model, modify it, know what you need to do,
spit that back out so that it goes in the tremble,
and then lay it out.
- That is, that's wow.
- And what's interesting too about it though is like,
people, well, I've seen folks that say like,
oh, that's my solution, like to your example, Jeff,
photogrammetry, that's it, that's gonna solve everything.
But it's like when you take a step back,
it's like, that's one piece of the puzzle,
and that one piece is gonna help you be successful,
and it's similar to laser scanning, right?
Like, if you would have just had the team come out
and laser scan, it's like, oh, okay,
what do I do with this?
You know, and it's interesting when you see teams
in the correlation of success of those teams,
it's like, well, it's the process that they're putting it
into not just the sole focus of it being,
oh, that's the one thing that's gonna solve it.
- Yeah, I agree, but I think on the sites that I've been on,
we're limited by the budget, right?
So what was successful on one project may not be able
to be taken to the next one because the client
and the budget may dictate that we don't want to pay for that.
And so that makes it a little hard
because then you don't get used to using the same technology.
Like I think if the teams and the technology
that you choose to use on your site,
if you can consistently use it,
you're gonna get better and better,
and then you can offer feedback to those folks
who are developing that to help make it better.
And then I think you'd absolutely be able to use it
to its fullest potential on your job sites.
- Yeah, man, queued it up right there.
So as a superintendent,
we talk about budgets, not necessarily your bailiwick
on a project, it's not your wheelhouse right there,
but as a superintendent, if you win on a project,
win figuratively, if you're successful on a project
with some technology that you've really found a lot of value in,
and then obviously you move to your next project.
If that budget or that tech stack on that project
hasn't been set up with that same tool,
what are your thoughts and how do you feel empowered
to raise your hand and say, hey, I need that again.
Like, is that something that you've done in the past?
Is that something that you will do in the future?
Or do you just accept the fact that,
hey, we don't get that tool on this next job?
- Nah, I think, Jeff and Grant,
both know me pretty well, I like to speak my mind.
So I try to get what I think is gonna help us
in the team be successful in the project,
but sometimes your hands are just hiding,
and unfortunately you just can't,
you can't afford some of these tools,
but I do try to stand up for what I think
is gonna make the project successful.
- The interesting thing is, whether it's a backhoe,
whether it's scissors left,
it's the right piece of equipment at the right time.
And I think as leaders we need to listen
to what the right tools are.
Now, within reason, because sometimes you could spend,
you could spend a million dollars on technology.
- Easily. - If you wanted to.
So what is the right piece?
And, yeah, like on the DISG job,
they're not gonna pay for technology.
And so we have to be smart about what we do
and how we do it.
- But that was still even a job that you guys did do it.
And this is why I wanted to bring the two of you on,
because that's a really good example of,
hey, that may be not be something
that the owner goes and pays for,
but it is something that we,
as the Beck team at that time said,
like, hey, we're putting our foot down,
we are gonna use that.
That's gonna help us as our team coordinating, scheduling,
doing logistics of like making this job.
So like, talk about that dynamic a little bit too,
where you're saying, hey, fees are crunched, budget's tight,
Jeff, I gotta have this.
And what it is from your perspective too,
like how do you handle it when an owner says,
had don't quite get it, but we know that we need it?
- Okay.
It's kind of a softball question there.
- Sure, sure.
With technology, sometimes I mentioned Navisworks earlier,
but anytime that you've got coordination,
then you can really work with your subcontractors also.
And it doesn't need to be born 100% buyback.
It can be a shared type of technology cost,
which is one thing it's pretty smart to do.
Outside of that, you, you know, like when we blew drones
to make sure that we could show the owner,
just the level of completeness,
then we were able to take care of costs that way.
So you have to be strategic, words matter,
and you don't call it technology,
but it's more a verification and audit
of completeness of the construction.
And then it'll get reimbursed.
- In that evaluation process, right?
I think we throw around the acronym ROI way too often.
It's a household one at this point,
but when you're evaluating to Grant's point,
whether we just decide to do it, right,
eat into a little bit of our, you know, below the line,
what we're gonna take home at the end of the day,
do you weigh that against the efficiencies
that are gonna be gained in the field
and the quality of life of the project team,
the, you know, the potentially some checklist items
that they don't have to necessarily do,
quote unquote, the old way.
Like how much do you look at kind of the soft side
of that ROI versus just,
are we gonna get this cost reimbursed?
- I think we do both.
So, you know, I think again, back when you first started Grant,
and Grant was really smart.
He goes, I can save the company, 150, 100, whatever it was
on drawings.
That's a great way to begin.
That boom hits you,
'cause it's not reimbursable.
- Right.
- So that's savings.
On the other side, as far as technology,
I love to hear the superintendent say,
this is what we need,
because again, it's a piece of equipment
that's critical to do what you need to do.
And then at that point,
then you sit down and go, okay,
so we know we're gonna mark this down.
We know that we're not gonna make money in this area.
What do we do now?
- And I'm curious, like, Paul,
what are those categories in your mind?
When Jeff is kind of saying, hey, like,
we know we need to have this,
like, I'm just gonna toss a couple, like, safety, scheduling.
Well, just like, are there categories of things
that you were like, hey,
I know that we need tool agnostic.
We just need something to help support that.
Like, what are those key categories for you
that when you think about technology,
it's like, hey, that's for sure gonna help.
- I think it varies from job.
So like the DISD job was partly a remodel.
And it ended up being a total like 375,000 square feet,
but like 175,000 was a remodel.
So obviously scanning that and throwing that into the model
and everything was pretty important because we,
otherwise we would have just been,
there would have been clashes all over the place
and it wouldn't have worked
and it would have dragged the project out a lot longer
and we probably would have lost money on it.
So for something like that,
there was probably a no-brainer to do something like that.
I like to use some kind of scheduling tool,
whether that's touch plan or hoylue or something like that.
So that, for me, that's a must-have on the job.
Obviously Pro-Core is something that we have.
We fly drones on pretty much all of our projects.
I don't know that we use that to the fullest.
We could probably use that a little bit better.
But there are some of the ones that must-have for me.
- One other must-have that I love what you did at DISD
is the QR codes to make sure that as someone
was getting ready to jump on a piece of equipment,
that you knew they were trained,
they would have to go ahead and scan the QR code
and it would say when the training took place,
who they were and wow, that was a great, great deal.
- Yeah, and we could check that it wasn't speak did daily.
It was a really good tool and we just used Pro-Core
for that and utilized the QR code.
- I think to bucket those a little bit,
what I hear you say is like documentation,
one of that's scanning, drones, photos,
let's just call that one bucket, safety, another bucket,
and then maybe just like scheduling as a third bucket.
Technologies that support one of those buckets,
kind of the non-negotiables at this point.
I'm curious a question that I don't think I've asked
either of you guys this, but has come up recently,
how do you hear about technology?
What are your outlets?
What are your mediums?
Who introduces it to you?
What are the ways that you hear about things
that percure you're in one of those three categories
or just like kind of raise an eyebrow,
like, oh, maybe we should think about that.
- For me, I look at like Instagram or Facebook,
I get updated emails from various sites,
talking about different technology.
And then I just try to, I guess I used the internet
a little bit to see what other people are doing
and how we could maybe improve our processes
or what they're, you know, I just take a little bit
of something that someone's doing
and maybe I can tweak that and improve it.
- Okay, so the question we were asking was,
how do you hear about technology?
Paul, you had kind of alluded to some different ways.
Jeff, you were, I think, in the middle of explaining.
How do you hear about it?
- I hear about it from our people
and finding out how our people are,
where some of the obstacles are,
what would make their work lives better?
And it's amazing what you'll find is they'll go,
I heard from a friend that works over at wherever
and they're exploring this and I'd like to go further.
Well, that's not enough to go ahead
and spend a lot of money on,
let's figure out, dig into it
and maybe we do something on a one-off project.
And wow, it's amazing what this thing does.
I am blessed to be involved with AGC on a national basis,
to be involved with TEXO here in Dallas.
And so I get to hear an awful lot about technology.
One thing I did want to bring up,
which I think is there's a national effort
within the project innovation and delivery
to come up with a white paper
that would speak to technology for small
and medium-sized contractors.
I think that's really, really key.
I don't think that medium and small-sized companies
need to spend all their money on new technology,
but they need to do it smartly.
And I think this white paper is gonna be helpful.
- That's awesome.
Yeah, there's definitely a different buying process
for some of the smaller mid-sized contractors
than there are for the big enterprise,
big enterprise dogs that are out there.
- Yeah, that sounds amazing and something I think
that we should get our hands on.
- Do you think at that national level,
like where would you say you're gaining the most insight?
Is it from the boots on the ground?
Like you, I mean, one thing you did great
was going out to jobs so often
and taking people to launch,
how are you doing and what's been, you know,
eating your lunch and up unintended,
but like what are the things,
which ways do you feel the most effective in?
Is it kind of a combination of both of those
at a national level?
Like, yeah, my ears are out there for everything
and then personalizing it down at a job sale level.
- It's both, yeah.
- Asking and then looking for information
that I can dig into kind of what Paul was saying
is once I hear about a program or a feature
just being able to get on the internet
and investigate it further.
Finding people, hey, up there in St. Louis,
are you using, oh, you are?
So tell me more or up in Milwaukee.
You know, you're up there where Milwaukee tool is
and this kind of ties into Milwaukee tool.
What, are you guys using this?
And I think that's the key thing.
It's being able to talk to peers
and then finding out what's really going on.
- How much do you weigh the value of the conversation
with a peer who's referring you to something
versus getting presented or getting,
what's the right word?
- The broad.
- Or having a technology company come to you and say,
hey, we got this next great thing.
- I hate to say this.
I do not want to hear from a technology company.
- Okay.
- I don't. - That's perfect.
- I don't.
- Turn up the heat, Jeff.
Come on. - Yeah.
- Tell us. - Turn it up.
- Tell us.
- No, no, but just think about it.
I mean, they're selling cars and I don't want to buy cars.
I want our people to be able to do the best they can
and I am not technologically superior.
- What do you mean by that?
- Yeah.
- I don't understand technology as well as you two,
the atoms and the grants.
You guys understand technology.
I'm not all that good at that.
- So good. - But I am good at listening
to what our people need and what they want.
- So when a tech company comes and presents to you
all the whiz bang and all the wonderful stuff and all that,
to a certain extent, you're not as adept
in understanding the value of those things right away.
So you're looking for the value statement first
from a peer that says, "Hey, we went and got this thing
and this was the benefit that we,
and we're going to keep doing it.
We're going to keep buying it.
We're going to keep implementing it for our people.
- That would be helpful. - That would be helpful.
- That would be helpful.
- That preferred route.
- Sounds like the teak guys of the modern day
vacuum cleaner sells people.
(laughing)
- Wow, the hot takes here are just amazing.
- Got a rainbow for it.
- Hey, vacuum cleaners are still around Paul.
We still use them today.
They look like robots now.
- Yeah, they're on themselves.
- Yeah. - I don't intend
that to go down that ground.
- Well, that'll take the least German.
- Right.
What's, well, I'm curious to maybe question back
to you though, Paul, is like,
there are a wide spectrum of superintendents
who love technology, like even just the question
at the get go, you're like relationship with it.
Open, I would say is how you, like,
would summarize what you said.
What about your peers here,
whether at the company or close adjacent companies,
like how do you elevate them around you
to see the things that you're seeing
or are they coming to you and asking like,
hey, like, man, this is just, you know, not working.
And then you provide the opportunity, like,
tell me about interactions of technologies with peers.
Like, and how does, how do those conversations happen too?
Because to Jeff's point, like, you know,
Jeff's going out, asking these questions, you know,
how can this better help you?
You're obviously surrounded by folks that have a broad spectrum
of like, I don't want to touch it until like, dude,
I just had an amazing opportunity, like,
gained with this last tool that I use.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah.
I think on some of the teams I've been on,
so if I go back to TCU when I worked there,
I had Justin Trucker Miller and Jordan Christensen.
They were big on technology and they would often come to me
and be like, hey, what do you think about this?
Or we should implement this?
And we would bounce between the three of us different ideas
and what if it could do this and what if it could do that?
And so from that point, that was really good.
That was my peers coming to me with ideas.
On my more recent projects, I feel like I'm kind of leading
that a little bit like, hey, we need to implement this
on the job, we need to use this and this is what we,
and this is why it's going to make your job easier.
Now some of them grasp that and some of them don't,
some of them struggle a little bit.
And there's a little bit of coaching involved there.
But yeah, I'd say for right now,
probably more trying to lead it.
Like, come on guys, let's use this.
It's going to help.
- Yeah, even outside of a superintendent level,
you're saying like any role on a project team?
- Yeah, yeah, for right now, that's what I'm seeing.
- Do you think it's because it's seen as like a distraction
or hey, I can't quite like connect the dots?
Like in those cases, I'm not to stereotype,
but I feel like the superintendent has traditionally been
the one that gets marketed to, meaning like from the project
team to you saying, hey, we should use this.
In this case that you're saying like,
you're the one marketing it back to them, why is that?
- Well, to Jeff's point before, like I don't know that it's,
it's any good gun of Jeff to say, hey, we got this really
good tool because Jeff's not on the job site every day
to understand fully what that tool's going to do for him.
So I really think the vacuum cleaner salesman
should go to the end user, which is going to be
the superintendent, right?
So like if you guys were coming out to tell us
how your tools can work and it goes back to what I said
before at the right time and approach it right midway through,
like the superintendent is going to be like,
no, I need you to bugger off, I don't need you here.
Right now I've got to finish the job.
- Bugger off, is that a New Zealand phrase?
- Yeah, sorry, bring those legs and bugger off.
- So I was writing down here.
- But yeah, if it's the right time and you guys were coming
to say, hey, we got all these tools, then, you know,
for me on my jobs, I guess I would take that in
and then run it through my project management team
and say, hey, what do you guys think about this?
And then bring some of them, the more senior superintendent
and send to be like, hey, you guys like this?
I think this is going to work and this is how we could
utilize it.
So that's kind of how I see that playing out.
- Okay, so one thing we haven't talked about,
and Jeff, you got to see really this play out
in your career from not being anything
to having a full team.
Like, let's talk about like an innovation team
or a virtual design and construction team or an IT,
like, let's just talk about a corporate overhead team.
Call it whatever title you want,
innovation director, virtual design director.
Like, talk about how your relationships with those teams
has played out into technology being implemented
out in the field because oftentimes, I think to the,
I would call it sales process, it's like,
go talk to those guys, those guys are going to go
talk to you guys, you guys are going to go then
talk back to them and say, hey, this is like,
but that wasn't around 40 years ago,
I'd argue maybe 20 years, 15 years ago.
Sorry, Jeff, but like, how has that changed
how technology is implemented on a job?
Because there's a lot of talk of, you know,
grassroots implementation, there's top down implementation.
I think that innovation team almost kind of sits
in between there that they're like,
all right, I got to go get the buy into the folks above
and I obviously got to go get the buy into the folks
on the field, innovation teams, helpful, hurtful,
too early to tell, like, what's your guys' take?
'Cause you've both interacted with them
in different ways, does that make sense?
- Very helpful, I think it begins, Adam,
and you touched on this earlier,
it begins with the presentation, the interview,
and what you can do to make the owners live better.
So that he feels that we understand,
it could be with the model,
it could be with scheduling 4D,
it could be with safety and how we're doing things
at a high level, but by able, it begins very early grant
and then from there, you will have dollars
in your estimate, in your budgets for that
and it makes a lot easier.
- And are you saying that the innovation team kind of
takes on that process that makes it helpful?
Meaning like instead of-- - Pieces, pieces of it.
- Not the whole thing, but pieces.
The job site team will also have their own
and they're well versed in certain areas.
But if you've got a really good quality coordination team,
it makes sense to have them get involved
and do the coordination, or it's the same way of a schedule.
If you've got someone that can deal with P6 faster
than our project team, it's good to get
that person involved also.
- So what I hear you saying is like,
"Hey, one of the most helpful ways that innovation team
"called operational technology, it's got so many titles."
You think it's the most helpful is at that product
pursuit level to help communicate that story
to owners to-- - Initially, and you set the baseline,
you set the fundamentals, you set the expectations
that the owner can expect, and then you have to deliver,
which sometimes you over deliver in your zest
to win the job, but now you gotta make sure
that you have that money set aside for it.
- How do you weigh the ways that you hear about tech?
We talked about your AGC peers out in the world
in the industry, you have your job site staff,
and then you have your innovation, VDC,
whatever it's called, hear it back.
- Optech team. - Optech team.
You have three sort of inputs.
How do you, if you had to force rank those three
to say this is the one that carries the most weight
versus this is the one that maybe I need to do
a little more digging or come back into the day?
- I feel that the virtual design team
is probably up at the top of that pyramid.
- Your internal team. - Yeah, okay.
- Because they're pretty sophisticated.
They know what's coming out, they've asked a lot of questions.
You're trying to have consistency across the project
so that if you go from one to another,
the technology is reasonably the same.
So every project is 100% different, that's a problem.
But if there's a consistency and you can be innovative,
I feel that that team understands the process better.
- So they'd be number one, who's number two?
- They would be. - Or people.
- So your job site, who's asking for it?
- Absolutely. - And your industry friends.
- Yep. - Got it.
- What'd you say the same, Paul?
- No, the field's most important.
- For sure. - For the field.
- Yeah.
- Well, what's interesting though, so tell me about
your relationship with the Optic, BDC team.
Because, I mean, that was the role that I met you in, right?
And I was coming out there being like,
Paul, what do you think of this thing?
Like, it's an interesting dynamic,
'cause again, 10 years ago, those roles didn't exist,
those teams didn't exist.
And now it can be helpful because it's like,
oh yeah, you are coming in at the right time
or at the right part of the job,
but it can also be overwhelming when it's like,
dude, we're blowing a go in here.
We're like, we're topping out next week
and you're wanting to do something that we didn't.
So like, tell me about your relationship
with those types of teams.
Is it good?
Is it bad?
Is it like still to be determined?
- I think it's good.
I think I agree with Jeff.
Like, it's helpful, but I don't know
that we fully utilize it.
Like, when we were asking before about like,
how we hear about the new technology coming out,
I feel like they are probably closer to it
than what I would be to understand what's coming out
or what is already out and what we could utilize.
I think internally here at BEC,
I think we should do like lessons learned
at the end of projects or before we're starting a project.
So we could say, what worked really well?
What do we need to implement on this job?
'Cause this is a really tough job.
So, and they should be trying to help us navigate
what that looks like as far as what technology we're gonna use
and how we can improve the process for everybody,
for them to be able to get the job set up early on for us
and then when we're in the field,
everyone understanding how to use the technology.
- Yeah.
Question that comes to mind too,
what would you wanna tell those teams?
Like, what's something that you,
'cause a lot of the folks that listen to this
are at that technology manager, VDC, Optech,
and person innovation role, like,
you coming from the field, what would you wanna tell them?
You coming from ops, what would you wanna tell them
about, I don't know, an encouragement,
maybe a challenge, maybe like,
something that you've seen that you would think
that that would be helpful?
I see you smiling over there.
- No, I think about Adam
and I think about his previous podcast, "Feed the Field."
I think it gets down to give the superintendent
what he wants, when he wants it.
And if the field is looking for the right kind of equipment
to do that, whether it's a laser scan or whatever,
I think that is so important,
because it saves time in the field,
and that's where 85% of the cost,
90% of the hours, the man hours are taking place.
And if we can affect that,
it will affect that project very positively.
- So you would tell them, hey,
if you haven't been out to the field,
- Go.
- If you haven't, go talk to the superintendent,
go, take them to launch, walk the job with them.
Paul, what would you say?
- Yeah, the same.
Like, I know when you were here with us,
you would do that from time to time, come out,
and we're just trying to kind of chat
and get excited about different things that were coming out.
But I would suggest definitely talking to your field team,
seeing what they need, how you can help them out,
and how you can maybe coach them
into using some of the technology that we have.
Yeah.
- So what you didn't know, that was a set up question.
Why doesn't that happen?
- I think it happens.
- Well, okay, so--
- It had a bunch of prickly superintendents out there
that don't wanna hear about your phone now, but--
- So it's very interesting.
So Bryce Morrill, who used to head up IT,
and now he's our chief corporate officer.
He asked, I'd like to go out into the field
for over a year to really understand what's going on.
And I think it really paid dividends to have him go out there,
and what he was dealing with was the VDG, or that piece,
but also all the VIT.
And so he came back, better prepared,
willing to look at things differently,
and is just really, I think, impacted back positively.
- Why don't you think it happens, Paul?
- I think that-- - At the Optech
or corporate level, or Optech, VB, or whatever you wanna call it.
- Well, from my point of view,
is I think the fields are stretched a little thin,
and then when you finish a job,
you're kinda already have planned your next job,
and you don't really have time.
I don't know why on the other side
that the technology groups don't come to the field.
I feel like maybe they're the same.
They're not working on one job, right?
They're probably working on several jobs.
So they're probably just head down,
working really hard on what they're working on.
And we just, well, we don't make time.
I wouldn't say they don't have the time.
We need to make time.
- Do you feel like a mantra like that?
I mean, Adam, I'm not gonna steal it from you,
but do you feel like a motto or a motto,
or a mantra or whatever you wanna call it,
is helpful as a reminder?
I mean, all the companies have core values, right?
It's like, okay, yep, the four that back had,
and the mantra or the motto, in a sense,
that's what you gotta be reminded of, right?
That's the thing that, you know, culture leaks.
If it's not plugged up, if it's not well taken care of,
it's gonna leak and change over time.
Are those helpful mantras that you feel like
those teams could put a little sticky on their desk
of like, does this feed the field?
Does this help my superintendent?
Like, I mean, again, a lot of the listeners
that are on here, hopefully,
that some of the takeaways they would hear from,
even just this conversation,
is like, hey, what's the time you've been out to the field?
It's the time you put your boots on and like,
walked a job and like,
sat across from a superintendent at their desk
and said, hey, what's your pain points right now?
Like, do you feel like models like that are helpful?
Or are they kind of just like,
'cause core values are huge, right?
I mean, you talk about them in interviews,
you talk about them at new hire orientation
and all that kind of stuff.
Like, I mean, what's your take on that's just like a saying?
- I think that would be good.
I mean, I think that needs to be the way of thinking, right?
I think some of these tech folks maybe assume
what the field needs rather than asking what they need.
And I think that's where the prickly superintendent
probably get frustrated, right?
'Cause they just get told, hey,
you could use this that's gonna help you
as opposed to like asking them like,
hey, were you struggling?
How can I help you?
Like, tell me what went wrong on this project
and maybe I can offer you some solutions.
- I get to say this 'cause I did the job,
but the best way to get a superintendent
to adopt something new is make it seem like it was their idea.
Go in and go in and hey, you know,
if you see this thing lately, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You say, we gotta get that on the show as well, we do.
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- Yeah, prickly is I like that too.
- We've said a couple of things I wanna come back to.
Lessons learned has been one of them,
I'm gonna get to that next.
Paul probably, primarily from your point of view right now,
where are some of the biggest holes in the field?
Or are some of those biggest pain points
that you're experiencing kind of job-in-job out
that the tech industry, the innovations folks out there,
the people way smarter than me, smarter than us,
what could they be looking at to improve?
What does the field need now or soon?
- I think we need to have those conversations with the tech
and understand what's out there and how it's gonna help us.
Like I don't know that all the folks in the field
truly understand what's actually out there.
For me, like I try to ask our trade partners too,
like what they're using or I'll look on their iPads
when they're out in the field and stuff like that,
and I'll be like, man, that's a cool,
like we're working with Donatene right now
and they have some really cool stuff
of how they can look at everything they're installing
in the building.
So that kind of perks up my ears a little bit.
I'm like, hey, what are you guys doing?
And maybe we could use that for the whole building sort of thing.
So, but yeah, I think just getting out and talking to the field.
- Is there a traditional kind of aspect of the project
of the building process, right?
We talk about safety and scheduling
and even all the way back to like pre-construction estimating.
Are there any of those kind of lanes, if you will,
those categories that you haven't seen much innovation in,
and lately, I mean, we threw up P6 a minute ago,
but you threw out some newer tools
that you're using as part of your planning process.
What else in kind of the building process
just feels kind of stale?
- I can't really think of any right now,
just because I went to Atlanta for a real fast paced job.
And before that, I was kind of sitting idle
a little bit for a couple months
and then I'm just coming to this one right at the tail end.
So, yeah, I can't really think of anything that's--
- What about the 40 year over there, Sargef?
I got four more credits of those, so I'm down, two more.
So, I mean, what do you think?
I mean, you've seen stuff change over that amount of time
that, I mean, which ones do you feel like
of the construction lifecycle,
which ones have you been like, whoa,
that really has been infused with technology
and innovation, one that's like, wow,
how is it still, how is it still in here?
- Currently, I feel the biggest area that we suffer in
is incomplete documents.
Because every time we have an incomplete detail,
that corresponding subcontractor has got to stop,
wind up as tools, move to another area.
I'd say that the biggest loss of profit to our subcontractors
is the level of completeness of documents.
I feel that if we can--
- Specifically the drawings.
- The drawings. - Yes.
- Absolutely.
I feel that if we can get a handhold on that,
and we have made incredible strides toward that,
that will benefit the field about as much as anything,
in my opinion.
- That's an interesting, I agree with you.
It's an interesting call out,
and I'm not gonna use one of Grant's credits here,
but we talked initially about your background,
looking interesting, drafting and design,
my background, drafting and design.
He didn't even get the foot in the door just yet,
but having a father who grew up,
his career was all vellum, right?
May line drawing, he was also a builder.
The architectural practice back then,
I think were more of that master builder.
Would you say that the completeness of those documents,
and for everyone speaking specifically,
the drawings, would you say that those details
have gotten worse over time?
- Because of technology.
- Because of technology?
- It can be.
If you're taking, what is happening is owners
are pinching down fees, which on an architectural
or design side are man hours.
So when you have less man hours,
you've arrived then on technology to help you,
and in some cases that technology
proves to be incomplete.
Case in point, you might have 17 different
type of joint sealants, and you should have only had two.
Okay, and that happens all the time.
Or you have multiple details that are not coordinated.
I remember on my very first integrator project,
meaning we designed it and we built it.
We had the architect who designed the skin
out on the job site, and he also was involved
with the layout of the interiors.
We get ready to lay out partitions,
and the drywall subcontractor said, "I can't do this.
"This dimension string is wrong."
So what do you do?
You ask the guy that designed it to go out there,
and he goes, "Well, wait a second, I need to just look at CAD."
No, you're not gonna look at CAD, you're gonna look,
and this is before the advent of iPads, it was drawings.
You're gonna go out in the field,
and you're gonna lay it out with the drywall guy.
He comes back in two hours later and goes,
"I can't do it, it's incomplete."
I didn't include enough information.
Guess what?
That next building, he's gonna have a dimension string
that people can rely on, and it's just interesting
that sometimes technology will help,
and sometimes it will push us back.
The very first set of drawings, 41 years ago,
I'll use it.
Come on.
Was interesting.
It was about, I'm gonna say an inch and a half thick,
maybe two inches thick,
of drawings that were in different colors.
Annotations in black,
MEP in red and green and blue,
and each one was layered.
It was fantastic.
And we ended up doing the job with something like that.
Again, a 37-story building.
- That was the hot tech back then, it was the light table.
- Yeah. - Overland those drawings
and looking for clashes.
- Do you think that Paul,
because that worked back in the day,
that's maybe made some of the pricklies?
I think we're gonna coin that here.
Do you think that's made some of the pricklies
less excited to try any things?
Is it almost a sad or frustration of like,
ah, it just wasn't the way it used to,
and I'm never gonna go back to that,
and I'm always gonna have to fight this uphill battle.
Do you feel like that's been an anchor in a way
for pricklies to get on board?
- Yeah, I think so.
I think the level of detail and drawings,
from my point of view, 15 years ago, 20 years ago,
were a lot better than what they are today.
But I agree with Jeff, like I think our owners,
you know, our clients are dictating
like how much time we can spend on the details on these drawings.
And again, it goes into what tech we can use
and what we can't.
And they want us to submit a price and then start tomorrow.
And we don't have much time for planning.
And then it's like, we need 24 months,
we'll know you got 20 months to do it sort of thing.
So I think our clients are dictating to our field,
or to ask a lot of what we can and can't do.
- I think you bring up an interesting question.
Again, go ahead that both of you
have different perspectives on this.
How do you educate them?
How do you educate the owners?
Because you are right, they are dictating a lot of things,
whether it's time, schedule, cost, material,
like means and methods in a way.
And these things that you guys deal with,
work with, are in the trenches with,
like how do you help elevate that to that level,
to eventually say like, hey,
because it may not be helpful,
it may not be as helpful for them as it is for you,
but it is like vitally important to use.
Like what education ways outside of,
let's just call it the interview process
because that's probably the most of like,
hey, here's what we do,
here's what you're gonna get with using us as a contractor.
Like what ways do you educate owners of those challenges
or technology to helping that?
- I'll let Jeff on so that more so than me,
that my take on it a little bit is in this industry
that we're in, it's very cutthroat, right?
Everyone's willing to, everyone wants to get a job.
So if they go to drop their price and cut things out of it,
I mean, if you're an owner or one of our clients
and you're looking at a $80 million price tag
or a $72 million price tag,
it's probably a no-brainer
if you're a developer or something, right?
So it makes it hard to then kind of sell them on,
hey, we need this technology and a job
and they're like, well, this guy down the road,
he can do it and he doesn't need all that technology.
So then how do you argue that?
- Oh boy, that's the best for Jeff to answer.
Sorry, do you?
- So I think this is interesting.
So within the National AI/A/AGC Joint Committee,
we're having the same discussion.
And really, one of the key things that we're looking at
would be partnering and collaboration with the owner
and the designer and the contractor.
And if that's done right, every time that we've had
good, solid partnering,
we've had a very, very successful project.
And a lot of times, what will come out of that partnering is,
well, of course we need this.
No, we'll write you a change order
or we'll give you this or we'll,
there'll be some give and take, some creativity
and it's always been successful.
- And you're saying the partners with the architect
and the owner.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- And the parties, my last job was a partnering job like that
as well.
- Yeah.
And really, so, Grant, one of the key things,
not just the partnering aspect or you can call it
the project expectations.
What are your expectations?
What can we expect from you?
How will you operate?
But I think it gets back to that
in putting together a charter.
This is what we're gonna do in this situation.
The I will do this or I believe in how you deal with that
but time and time again,
and it gets back to kind of the last podcast I did with you.
And when I was trained back in 1990
on how to go ahead and facilitate partnering,
those projects are successful.
- Mm-hmm.
Here's the hot take though.
You're ready for this?
I think Adam and I maybe see it more so
being on the tech side now,
a vision from other software, technology companies
that are like, cool, let's go out for the owners.
They're the ones dictating everything.
Let's get them bought in.
We'll make them aware.
We'll educate them.
They're the ones that are forcing.
Calling you guys to use certain tools,
is that a good thing?
Or is that a challenging thing from your guys' perspective?
Because it's tricky.
You guys get said a set of requirements,
a division one spec that says this, this, this, this,
and this, and you're like,
I've never even used half of these things.
Where did these come from?
Like is that a good thing for you guys to have?
An owner that has said like,
I've done my due diligence, I've been sold this,
you should go do it,
and then now it's tossed to your hand,
and you're like, where did this come from?
- I don't know.
I think I'd rather see like you guys partner with us
and then go to the owner and say,
this is what we got,
and then you guys could talk
at a better level than we could
and sell the product to the owner
and tell them the benefits of it,
rather than go directly to owners,
because then again, it's just open up to everybody,
like lowest price,
but you're gonna use this tool in this tool.
- I see it many times with project management tools,
and there's like three, four, five that are out there
that owners may gravitate to,
and we think it's pro-core,
they think it's something else,
it makes it tough to understand new languages,
but if it's a longer project,
you have that opportunity,
if it's a short fuse, it's difficult.
- Well, let's shrink into one of those categories
though, like documentation.
Pretty typical, an owner wants to know what's behind walls
when their job is done,
and they'll go hire a service,
and then that service then has to coordinate with you guys
and when to come out to the job,
so now you're managing another contractor
on behalf of the owner,
and now it's democratized documentation.
You can go walk a job with a 360 camera,
you can go five drone anytime you want.
Like talk about that change a little bit too,
because that's what's tricky in a sense,
that if an owner is requiring one of those services
to be done,
you don't necessarily get the value as the contractor,
but now you're still coordinating them to come out,
whereas on the opposite end,
you could be the one doing the documentation,
and it's helpful for you,
'cause you're pulling that up in your standup meetings,
and you're pulling that up in your owners meetings.
Does that make sense?
Like documentation's kind of taking this two different,
it feels like our perspective,
that it's like taking two different approaches.
One, it's like owner led,
just go out and do it as another contractor
versus like you guys on a job,
democratizing that documentation,
you're walking the job anyway,
you're getting the value of using it as a coordination tool
for your side, does that make sense?
Somewhat.
So,
as long as the owner led,
benefits the entire team,
architects and subcontractors and contractors,
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, okay?
As long as everyone gets to,
you brought it up, you got a subcontractor meeting,
and you wanna pull up in exact detail.
If you have that ready at your hands on,
it might be better just to use the owner led piece,
instead of being in charge of a 360 and going,
okay, well, today's Thursday,
Grant, it's your turn to walk around the job,
oh, Friday, Adam, it's your turn to walk.
Sometimes things drop through the cracks
and you don't get what you want.
So, owner led's not necessarily a bad thing.
I know you've coordinated some owner led stuff,
and I'm not saying one is better than the another.
I think what I'm referring to is how documentation
of jobs have changed in the last 10 years,
where it used to be,
that was the only way you would do it.
You'd hire someone to come out and do your job
to now like, hey, you got two tools under a couple thousand
bucks to go do it yourself,
and it has appeared that the level of engagement
and desire to document jobs has like,
significantly increased over the last five years
because of those tools being available for folks like you,
and using them more in meetings that you would have.
Like, would you agree with that, or is that a like,
no, I don't.
- Yeah, no, I agree.
And I think the only lead ones from a field standpoint,
if we're having to coordinate it,
it's just the fewer people that touch something,
the easier it is to coordinate and get a job done quicker.
And I think with Procore,
I mean, that's a one-stop shop,
and my mind as far as documentation.
So, and I really feel like that's a pretty easy sell to owners,
even if they were pretty stuck on a certain application
that they wanted to use,
I think if you went in and showed them,
and Grant, you know this,
like we use Procore pretty good,
and we were pretty innovative with how we use it.
I think we could easily sell them on how we're gonna document
and show them the benefits of it.
- Mm-hmm.
- But yeah, only, I'm not a big fan of that.
- So if we-- - Ah, it takes, come on.
- Yeah.
- If we shift gears just a little bit
and kind of take the project fast forward it
to a successful completion,
or maybe a rocky finish, you know,
that we've, I think we've all had those
in both ends of the spectrum.
What processes, maybe one here at Beck
that you guys have implemented over the course
of the last number of years,
or maybe anywhere else you might have worked,
or any other piece you've seen,
what are the process,
what is the process for kind of collecting
the lessons learned, collecting, you know,
primarily at the field level,
what did we do really well,
what did we suck at, right?
What do I wanna take with me to the next one?
Like, is there a formal process for that?
Is it just kind of each individual?
- Lots from there.
- I don't know from a company level
that we have anything,
but I know on the project teams that I've been on,
so that the current one I'm on right now,
we have like an Excel spreadsheet where everyone's just
dumping a whole bunch of lessons learned,
and through the course of the job,
through the course of the job, and updating it,
I like to keep my own list, like on a one note,
as we go through,
but I do like to review with the team,
if we can, sit down for a couple of hours,
and even if there has to be a couple of times
between phases, maybe between jobs to kind of review
what went well and what didn't go well,
how we could improve,
maybe what our trade partners did well,
and didn't do well,
and how we could help them, support them.
Yeah, I'm pretty big on that.
- Yeah.
What's your take on that, Jeff?
- Two things.
One, I'm getting back to the partnering,
and the expectations,
that at the end, if you have an after action review,
what is it that we set out to do?
What happened?
Why did it happen?
And what are we gonna do to make sure it never happens again,
or always happens again?
One of those two, right?
I think that can be really successful.
I think most companies are really good
at collecting lessons learned,
where we, most of us fail,
is with how do you share that?
And how do you have that available
so that when your fellow superintendent
is in the mix of something similar,
that he has that information at his fingertips.
That's, to me, the holy grail.
I think it happens.
- Yeah, you bring up a really good point
that I hadn't quite formulated in my head,
and I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- Yeah, I think that's the best way to get back to it.
- What frustrated me is that when I went from one job to the next,
I was like, "Why are we doing this again?"
We just did it over there,
and I'm now being presented with this same issue.
Now we gotta figure it out.
We're gonna job three.
What the hell's going on around here?
Is anybody listening?
There's a number of variables and factors
that go into those things.
It could be design incomplete.
It could be, you just got a bad sub on a job.
It could be x, y, and z.
I think there should be, and data is,
I don't even know if this is a question actually.
There's just me on our soapbox.
There should be more of a focus on the industry,
disseminating those lessons learned in a lot of those cases.
Maybe it's just a do you agree or not kind of thing at this point?
- No, I think you're right.
There's a lot of factors that go into it though too, right?
So if you change, like if I go to phase two,
half of my team could change.
And so they could bring their habits to the job
and not be part of the lessons learned.
We could do a better job with integrating that team
into the team that was originally there
to review the lessons learned,
to get them up to speed of what worked and what didn't.
And then different projects, right?
Every project's different.
So whether you're going from a renovation at a school
or whether you're doing a high-rise or whether you're doing a museum
or something like that, like,
and you set it to like trade partners could be different, right?
You could have some that are really not good
and you could have some that are really sharp
and that varies from job to job.
So that changes your lessons learned too a little bit.
You know, you're like, "I'm never going to have that happen to me again
with a sub like that."
And then all your subs on your next job are really good.
And you kind of forget that they were really bad.
And then that comes around on your third project
down the line or something.
You're like, "Man, and you think back halfway through,
like I should have probably reviewed my lessons learned from 2001."
Maybe something at that like operational technology level though.
Like going back to talking about kind of who owns that.
Someone has to own it, right?
No one owns it, probably doesn't going to happen.
And it's interesting.
We talk about like the benefits of that team
and the fact that they do see across a lot of projects,
a lot of things are going on across the company,
but yeah, that man lessons learned.
That to me feels as much of a hot topic as ROI
because it's like it's this elusive rabbit in the night
that you can't catch and you know that it's there
and it's, you know, I don't know, tricky.
Yeah.
Well, one other thing too, and going back to something that I think
maybe before we started recording you throughout
the word "tacked" and the method of planning that you're,
I would assume we didn't talk about it very much.
You're implementing that as a planning method on your projects.
That is something that you've adopted and kind of are carrying
through your work.
And then maybe a little more discussion on that.
Yeah, I'm trying to, again, Jordan Christensen and Justin Trucken-Miller,
we kind of introduced that at TCU and we used that through
the housing projects there and I tried to use it through the
through the school.
I don't have it on this project, but I'd like to pick it back up.
I think that gives a real clear picture to the trade partners
of where they need to go, what they need to get done,
and how long they have to get it done.
So I think it sets real clear expectations.
And then from a superintendent or field or our team in the actual,
on the job site, we have a real clear picture in front of us too.
And again, it's a, you can have your meetings,
you can pull up the tech time on the screen and you can talk to it
real easy and and sub should be able to follow that because they're
just looking at a colored box.
And if they're the other blue box, that's all they got to kind of
worry about getting their work done.
Whereas if you're, if you're showing them a P6 schedule or something like that,
they have no clue how to read it.
Right.
They don't even know if you're, we don't know how to read it.
We put it together.
Yeah, I don't know either.
But my last reason I bring it up and ask about it,
my last project to the superintendent on that job brought with him the
tech planning method.
And it really changed my view on, on traditional scheduling, right?
I mean, having only worked with kind of CPMP six schedules prior to that
and being introduced to tech planning was the only job I've worked on
where I told subs to slow down, right?
You know, going too fast is just as bad as not going fast enough, right?
If you're over producing, you know, you're, you're, you're not,
you, it's not benefiting the project.
So just want to throw that out there.
I feel like we, with, with a lot of what the industry is talking about,
with Lean and kind of, you know, you said every building is different.
Lean in its, in its essence is, it originates from manufacturing process.
It's like a lot of things, what people don't understand is construction is
different than manufacturing.
We're building something different every time,
whereas manufacturing is geared to produce mass produce the same thing
over and over again.
And so trying to adopt those principles is, is generally tough and tact is kind
of not adjacent lane that I think has been successful.
So it's cool to hear you guys are doing it.
Yeah, it is hard to get people to understand to slow down, but you know,
the big thing with tact is just trusting the trust, the plan that you have in
place.
Yeah.
While on the plane fells, thank you for giving us so much of your time.
And always a technical challenge, I'm sure swapping batteries and getting
cameras working, but Jeff, saving the day here for the second half.
But yeah, I appreciate you guys making the time.
I think my takeaways is I'm thinking of like who listens to these and what kind
of
the resounding lesson learned, just like get out of the field, go talk.
I mean, you obviously have done that so many times and formalize it in a lot of
ways when you were on the VEC team and you know, Paul's saying, hey, like that
's, that is what I think helps these things come from ideas to challenges to
implements to successes.
And I think that's what, yeah, just get out there, shake some hands, sit in
some jobside trailers and talk to some folks that hear what they're doing.
So any last thoughts, anything?
We're not that prickly out in the field to come and see us.
We're not that prickly.
Jeff, is that true?
Yeah.
He's awesome.
I just want to end with what I started with.
Give the superintendent what he wants.
What he wants.
If we do that, this will be a successful project.
Yeah, well said.
Well, team, thank you guys for making the time.
It's fun.
I love the clouds have cleared a little bit now as we, we've put that as your
guys as backdrop one because it looks really good behind you, but too.
Yeah, it's fun to look back on.
I have one more credit.
I mean, Jeff, your 40 year career and see, yeah, just all that.
I think what's cool is the projects, right?
But you guys both know it's the people and those are the things that you
probably remember the most of the teams you built, the, you know, folks
that you've gotten to spend many hours with on jobs and the buildings are just
a representation of that.
But it's cool.
It's fun to sit up here and talk through that.
So appreciate your guys's time.
Adam, any last thoughts you want to share?
No, this has been awesome.
There's another conversation that I'm thoroughly enjoying.
Yeah, it's great.
Well, thank you guys for tuning in.
We hope you guys are encouraged.
Take some good notes.
Get out to the field.
Go talk to your superintendents and we appreciate you guys listening.
We'll see you on the next one.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thanks.
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