{"id":177,"date":"2016-06-10T11:17:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T18:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2024-04-02T15:19:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T08:19:53","slug":"contractor-forecast-cloudy-big-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/blog\/cloud\/contractor-forecast-cloudy-big-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractor Forecast: Cloudy With A Chance Of Big Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

How often have you been out to a construction site when you see a foreman working on a plan and they are not sure whether or not it\u2019s the right one? What if the architect made a change back in the office? Or how many times has your client wanted to add last-minute changes to a half-a-year long project? Can the average general contractor manage all these requests?<\/p>\n

Technology has rapidly escalated the status quo for how we do business across every profession. Clients will be demanding more out of their projects than ever before. Particularly, as we take a look at the forecast of today's construction industry, we'll examine how whether or not new technology actually solves some of the problems or burdens the average contractor with more uncertainty.<\/p>\n

The field today<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With some rustling and soft breezes of change slowly gaining traction in the field of construction, certain trends have begun cropping up. Clipboards are now traded in for tablet devices, notepads being replaced with smartphones, and we\u2019re even budgeting for social media now! The days of yonder seeing pencil clippings and paper trails in the field are gradually fading as more and more job sites become \"paperless\" in a sense. However, simply exchanging PDFs to one another isn\u2019t the same as deploying a true \u201cpaperless job-site.\u201d This newfound digital approach isn't necessarily better or worse; on the contrary, it's an alternative<\/em>. Another choice for morphing the tried-and-true best practices we preach with the existing tech of today.<\/p>\n

After all, if it's not broken, why fix it?<\/p>\n

One of our very own founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, once ran into this same predicament and his rebuttal?<\/p>\n

\u201cAn ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Innovating new technology can be that ounce of prevention. With cutting-edge software solutions<\/a> in development today, we are slowly, yet surely seeing it make its way into the hands of project managers and every general contractor around the world. With the capacity to mitigate risks and provide laser-focused accuracy for surveying the field, it can make building larger projects less discombobulated, while at the same time deliver a more economical return on investment in time and resources.<\/p>\n

A new era of industry<\/h2>\n

The margin for human error is forgivable on an occasional basis, however tracking and measuring the reasons why those mistakes happen in the first place is what counts most. With better and improved ways for implementing, integrating, and executing projects of all scope and sizes, construction management software can make the jobs of every engineer and contractor provisioned in a much safer job-site and also offer a lens to progressive measurements for handling future workloads more efficiently.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Computer Aided Design (CAD) software is continually pushing its own envelope as well. It\u2019s not hard to believe that one day, we'll enable clients to virtually walk through blueprints and floor plans we once were only able to showcase through PowerPoint presentations. Geometric concept designs combined with virtual reality might not be too far off in our case. CAD systems will soon expand its reach to every engineers\u2019 workstation with the ability to generate higher capabilities for designing greater and more encompassing project schematics.<\/p>\n

We are even starting to see drones introduced into the field by giving a more aerial and dynamic real-time form of surveying. Remote controlled drones will offer an alternative way for mapping, monitoring, and video recording that only a few years ago, we thought was improbable. These new discoveries have completely reinvented the wheel for many of our traditional methods of surveying and tools of project management. Yet, will these new inventions stick? Or will they stumble and dwindle as just another fad of the week?<\/p>\n

Fundamentals<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The only caveat to this astronomical trajectory we are quickly heading towards, is will we actually have enough data to procure and store all this new and exciting technology? The flash of \u201cnew\u201d often beguiles or even eclipses our non-immediate understanding of fundamentals. We sometimes forget the most rudimentary basics of simple data requirements.<\/p>\n

In his 1974 collection, Where the Sidewalk Ends<\/em>, Shel Silverstein, author of The Giving Tree<\/em>, poignantly demonstrates this lesson on fundamentals in his poem titled: \u201cInvention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done it, I\u2019ve done it!
\nGuess what I\u2019ve done!
\nInvented a light that plugs into the sun.
\nThe sun is bright enough,
\nThe bulb is strong enough,
\nBut, oh, there\u2019s only one thing wrong\u2026<\/p>\n

The cord ain\u2019t long enough.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The cord in this scenario simply means housing more data and having enough computing power for your infrastructure. We can have all these flashy new systems and tools in place, but if we don't have a long enough cord to plug them in, we're left stranded in a state of motionless inertia.<\/p>\n

A simple solution could be to purchase and install more servers or expand your IT staff to take care of the problem. That's all fine and dandy, but just as one option offers a path to invest into your long-term goals, another route might provide you with a shortcut.<\/p>\n

The cloud for every contractor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As technology advances, so too will the complexities of managing your own internet infrastructure. Which is why those complexities seem rather appealing when we can offload them to someone else's shoulders, don't you think? Say a cloud provider<\/a> for instance. The cloud still works as a service to annex your already massive networking infrastructure, yet can also be much more integrated within your network to further leverage the benefits for delivering and receiving information in real-time. Including flexibility to scale up or down <\/span>instantaneously and custom-built architectures to layer for more security and disaster protocols.<\/span><\/p>\n

At its core, the cloud is just a powerful server(s) located at an off-site data center. It's a haven where your information can be stored and retrieved. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

For the general contractor, this means that your database, containing all of your software applications and Building Information Modeling (BIM) programs, accounting information, project management records; every single one of them can be stored 24\/7 and accessible only by you, anywhere, and on any one of your team\u2019s devices.<\/p>\n

Think of the cloud as segmentation, not separation.<\/h2>\n

The road through a cloud solution might just be what takes you to your destination quicker, yet the path can also intertwine and shift to meet your long-term objectives. As builders, you pave your own path. The cloud can supply the virtual brick and mortar to do so. All the while providing you with the knowledge and expertise of seasoned wilderness guides. So by the time those fancy new inventions become bug-free and stable to use, you've already been given a road map on where you need to proceed.<\/p>\n

As future headlines roll and our anticipation grow ever more steadily for newer and bigger tools of the trade, it is vital to remind ourselves of the basic undertakings before stepping onto these unearthed territories. Err on the side of caution and remember that it\u2019s okay to take a few steps back to secure your foothold. As you take that giant leap onto the fresh new concrete pavement of the world to come (this industry so illustriously has helped molded), just remember to build a long enough cord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How often have you been out to a construction site when you see a foreman working on a plan and they are not sure whether or not it\u2019s the right one? What if the architect made a change back in the office? Or how many times has your client wanted to add last-minute changes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[946],"tags":[1044,1045,1046,1047,1036,1048,988,1049,1051,1052,1053,1054,1055],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud","tag-bigdata","tag-bim","tag-business","tag-cad","tag-cloud","tag-construction","tag-contractor","tag-drone","tag-infrastructure","tag-paperless","tag-software","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","post-wrapper"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}