Built Environment Matters

Bringing Data to Life on IoT Connected Construction Sites - Jaimie Johnston in conversation with Craig Lamont, CCO, asBuilt on our construction podcast

• Bryden Wood • Season 1 • Episode 10

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In this episode, Board Director Jaimie Johnston MBE talks to Craig Lamont, Chief Commercial Officer, at  asBuilt Digital in Sydney about 3D spatial technology, IoT connected construction sites and how we should use the tech to return the time back to human.

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Hello, welcome to Built Environment Matters. A monthly podcast brought to you by Bryden Wood, an international company of technologists, designers, architects, engineers and analysts working for a better built environment. Bryden Wood believe in Design to Value to cut carbon, drive efficiency, save time, make beautiful places and build a better future.

Jaimie Johnston:

So hello and welcome to another edition of Built Environment Matters, the Bryden Wood podcast. I'm Jamie Johnston, Head of Global Systems at Bryden Wood and today we're joined by our furthest flung guest, Craig Lamont, who is Chief Commercial Officer at asBuilt Digital based in Sydney. Hi, Craig.

Craig Lamont:

Hi, Jaimie. How you doing?

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, very good. Thanks. You're right.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, very well mate. Very well. Thank you very much.

Jaimie Johnston:

Awesome. So for those who haven't met you, can you can you tell us a bit about yourself, your career and what you're currently doing?

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, sure. I grew up on a farm. And went and did maths at university, walked out with a electronics and electrical engineering degree majoring in electronics. Moved into the Telco field. And that sent me all around the world actually. So I'm fortunate enough to be up to 58 countries and counting. A lot of them have been with work. So Europe, Middle East Africa, spent a bit of time over in London town about seven years over there, then I eventually met my wife, she was a beautiful Aussie girl and we moved to Auckland, I got a job at a big engineering consultancy doing project management, and realized the folly of my ways that with all the things going digital design was where it was at. So I moved from design into more the digital field, became an executive at a large engineering consultancy about three and a half 1000 staff. And, and left in about January last year to join asBuilt Digital as effectively the Chief Commercial Officer. So we are a team of about 50 over here in Australia and New Zealand, headquartered in Auckland. So that was February the third that I joined. Something happened last year, which kind of put a spanner in the works around about mid March. But I joined I left a big, big consultancy, because I just want to go out and do things right and be different. And enjoyed coming from a very big team where I had 950 staff down to a team of 50, it's been a delight. And now I'm out innovating, talking about what we can do and actually delivering on the promise on all things digital and so that's kind of been my journey in the last sort of 25 plus years of of moving all around sort of different worlds in different countries in different industries to land on the space of doing digital. Digital in the built environment really.

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, that's a that's an incredibly, it's a very interesting journey. I mean, I don't know if there is a typical way into construction, but that certainly one of the more roundabout ways I've heard. So the over that sort of period. Did you sense that you always had an interest in digital? Did you sense that the construction industry was getting more digital? Was it a sort of better fit? Were you always kind of heading towards it? Or At what point does something tell you what I should go and do something over there and in the built environment space?

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. I've never applied for a job. So I've always fallen into a space. And I got into construction and realized I really liked it. I recall the moment it happened, actually, I was on a Skype call prior to Teams and all these other things. In fact, I think it was Lync prior to Skype. And I was sitting in a site shed in Malaysia and a place called Shah Alam, which is just outside of Kuala Lumpur. And we were doing the design for Maggi 2 Minute Noodle factory. So you know all I can't think of what the UK version of a Maggi 2 Minute Noodles is, but we all know what they are. Pot Noodle possibly is something quite similar. And I remember sitting in a site shed projecting through Lync on a projector onto a screen wall with the Nestle design team and showing them how the pipe work didn't fit inside our building. And my guy who was driving the model from Sydney at the time, got out his mouse. And he drew a circle around this area that was wrong. And he took a screenshot. And I saw the future of project meeting minutes, little did I know that will become the reverse type cloud based platforms of the future. But that was about seven years ago and I just realized there's a better way. So from then, I just stuck my hand up and stuck my nose in and I found a way a bit like a seeking truffles. You had to kind of dig a bit to find out what the real good stuff was. And I really found myself bringing this whole concept of commercial management and design delivery really melding together to be something that could be a lot better than what we're currently doing and I would get myself in all sorts of hurt, and I had many smart people teach me a better way. And I've bumbled my way in to become someone that knows a lot about this digital space now, so it was never a target that I was aiming for, I kind of maybe shot for a star and hit the moon. But I'm very much realized that there is a lot of efficiency and very cool things to be done when you go digital, and I've just kind of followed my nose. And that's kind of where we've landed up. So, again, a very different journey and a very different career. But, you know, some of the stuff that we're playing with now is, it's just quite off the charts. And I've freak out almost every day, how smart the people are that I work with. And yet they turned to me say, Craig, can you explain it. And I think that's it happy landing between technical brilliance and actually a little bit of age and experience and being around the traps a bit, understanding what people are trying to do. So from building, you know, maximum security, prisons, to land reclamations, to data centers, to Office towers, the language of people is kind of where things still really remain. And even no matter how digital we go, I think the more digital we go, the more human we can make projects as random as that sounds. That's what I truly believe. And so being part of asBuilt is very much about our team, and then what we can do digitally as a result. And I think that's where the future of this technique is to go, return the time back to the human so that we can get onto something useful, rather than a spreadsheet.

Jaimie Johnston:

It's a great point. And it's a recurring theme actually on for a lot of the guests we've had on this talking about the Yeah, the cultural aspect, the human aspect is not necessarily attended technological shift. So let's come back to that. But can you tell us a bit more about asBuilt for those who haven't come across it, what it is, what what it does and what the benefits are.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, sure. Listen, asBuilt's a really neat, small company, we're rapidly growing actually. So we're a team of about 50. At the moment, as I mentioned, we've got about 30-35 now, and our, what we would call our typical

professional services:

BIM Consultancy stuff. Dave, who started the company started off doing laser scanning, because he figured there was a better way to capture site data, which moved into developing models, which moved into fabrication detailing for contractors, which moved on to 'Oh, my goodness, I've got all this information, how can I share it better with my own team and others.' And that started the journey within. We've got about 15 software developers in our business, who have developed a platform called Vault, which is a spatially connected database. And we can come back to that a bit later, as well as then enabled us to think of a whole digital ecosystem. So asBuilt now is like a fiercely independent digital specialists that actually trying to unlock the services side of doing all the BIM and clash and all that stuff. And then... helping it make value and onto construction sites. So unlocking the digital playing field of the construction site, and I think, there's a great unlock coming in, I think that so that's kind of where asBuilt's playing. Services we do BIM management, you know, 19 650, Level 2 stuff that you guys'll be very familiar with. And that's the terminology, but then taking that into a contractor and saying, 'Hey, mister rebar guy, did you know that you can count your rebars in a different way and sign off, that you've installed the right amount of tonnage, you know, today, and doing that all sort of digitally.' It's a really interesting space to be in, actually. So that's kind of who we are.

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, we talked about this with them. Josh Johnson, McKinsey, this sort of ecosystem of platforms that are emerging, and the kind of the core connective pieces that are starting to grow together. So presumably, so it's not trying to replicate sort of some of the other software products, it sounds like it's stitching together software products, and allowing them to talk to each other in a particular way. Perhaps you can expand on that a bit.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, sure. So look, I mean, you know, if you're talking to McKinsey, then they'll tell you that construction is one of the least digitized industries in the world. I mean, collectively, there's pockets that are doing things amazingly, when you think about advanced manufacturing, an d itself, that's, you know, factories and DfMA, and all those other Kanban and just-in-time (JIT) systems and things like that are really pushing technology and construction and different avenues. But that industry as a whole is still relatively undigitized. We've still got a lot of illiterate people on site. And so they're not necessarily getting that uptake that again, McKinsey reports for Africa will describe that in great detail missing great information in there but my personal view is, I reckon a big reason is a lack of digitization wholly in construction is not actually because of a lack of industry uptake and technology. My firm belief is it might actually be the oversubscription by industry to find that silver bullet to to solve all the ills of a construction site. And so we might actually be a product their own successes and actually using more and more technology help us make things more efficient. Thereby we become less efficient, the great pendulum swing of conversation. So what's the problem? I think it is the connectivity, the ability to connect these different platforms together as the great unlock. And so we don't think of technology by platforms or systems, we think of technology and being able to unlock it is where are we trying to unlock it in. So spatial connectivity on a construction site or in a design, or elements of the digital and physical time together, that for us is the great unlock. So it's not a technology platform issue. It's a technology landing issue, I think of where it lands and and why that's effective. Many companies out there are solving problems in isolation, but who are the people who are aggregating the data to bring it together. So you can look at everything at once. And I think that's what we've landed on at asBuilt. And I think that's really where the great unlock for the future is going to come from.

Jaimie Johnston:

You made a little side comment about measuring rebar. I think one of the blockers that we see is that, you know, trying to get digital down into the supply chain, there's this sort of massive long tail of kind of small suppliers. And yeah, the big contractors, general contractors, the big consultants, like they're all sort of quite digital, but there's always this gap between, yeah, how do I get that down to the individuals on site, the small contractors, the lower tiers, because a lot of the magic happens down at that level, if they're not also connected, then either you're getting connected, the data is just evaporating, or you're not gathering it. But that's a great example of someone who does a rebar saying, 'look, there's a better way to do it,' and how do you engage those people? So yeah, that's an interesting point.

Craig Lamont:

We, so the great unlock is not at client level, you know, everyone's chasing the people with the money to improve, and part digitization, they're looking for systems that will look after the ....., and, you know, all the building stuff, and everyone can walk into a room and control the temperature. When you got two people in the room, they want a different temperature, what's the temperature going to be? I mean, that's not the great unlock, right? So it's a bit like two watches, you know, if someone if we they've got a different time on what's the correct time, well Greenwich Mean Time. Cool. But if I don't have that available to me, then you know, it's a conversation around that stuff. There's a there's a, there's a real problem that you say the consultants are very digital, but are they really I mean, they kind of digital for some of the processes, but are they digital to unlock the rebar guy. If they're not, then I think there's a disconnect there, that's apparent, we're pushing contractual risk and other stuff down onto contractors who push it down the chain. So the great unlock actually is the guy on the rebar site, if he could use technology and not even realize he's doing it, then we're gonna unlock more technology more of the time. So you know we really need is something that's going to change the entire world all at once. And I think the greatest way to unlock the guy, at a rebar site, or it might be a plumber, might be an electrician, or whatever would be to stop him going to the pub, unless he signs over the QR code on his mobile phone to say where he is and where he's going to be. And so, because if he can't get a pint of beer, or a gin or the wine, whatever you might be into, he'll find a way to use digital to enable that process to happen. So if we use that same technology to unlock construction, possibly not a reward with a beer, but maybe a reward with you've done your job, it's already logged back at the site shed , you don't have to go and fill out paperwork, you can go home an hour early, then I think we're going to see the platform unlock, and also the technology unlock. And then the conversations unlock about we using construction digitalization all the time. And then when we start to bring all that to bear , you'll start to see some real platforms come forward that are thinking not at the level of the consultant. We they're kind of right. It's actually how do I unlock the guy that can't read so well, to get him to use technology. Once we unlock that, then the sub trades are unlocked, the main contractors are unlocked, suddenly, we're in the the ecosystem is unlocked. And that kind of genuinely how we feel about what needs to happen on construction sites. More BIM is not going to save the day. A drawing numbering system is not going to save the guy installing rebar on site.

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, it's always like habit forming, isn't it? I mean, it's, the guys on site will have picked up their phone 50 times a day and looked at I don't know football results out of Google something, or they've bought something on Amazon, they'll have checked in with the kids, it's all of those things. Again, it just needs to be part of that habit of going'Oh, and I should take a photo of that or I should scan that. And I should ping that.' That's that's really where it's going. Isn't it the if you can get the people who already use that technology all the time, just for slightly different purpose, then? Yeah, you're right.

Craig Lamont:

Correct

Jaimie Johnston:

The the impact is massive, isn't it?

Craig Lamont:

Yeah. And again, logging those photos. And we talk about AI and machine learning, quantum computing, and all the other buzzwords that are out there at the moment. They're all nothing without data. So if we collect that data, and we can map it spatially that this photo was taken at this point, well, then you've unlocked where that data lands and suddenly it adds more value to that information set. So I talked about this often that that you know, data. People say like data is like the new oil. And I agree with them completely. Crude oil coming out of the ground is absolutely useless. You know, it's thick and sludgy and useless. It's great when you refine it and turn it into plastic or fuel or whatever you want to do with it. But in itself, crude oil is pretty darn useless. So, in fact, that causes all sorts of environmental disasters, a bit like raw data out in the world, causes all sorts of disasters as well. So you've got to refine it, you got to give that data, some value, got to give it some reason for being there. Once you start doing that, it becomes information. Now information is the great unlock data is just ones and zeros or states of ones or zeros if you're into quantum computing. So, yeah, something as simple as a photo reference to where it is on our site suddenly adds value to that photo being taken. And then you can check that it was taken, and that guy knows that he's done his job as well. So a very different way to look at things actually.

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, there's always that sort of disconnect, I think, or, I mean, you mentioned ISO 19 650, even people who are sort of BIM experts, argue like hell about the individual terms, the individual words, and you go here by time that sort of filtered down to the person on site who's going I just want to get this done. You're not really telling me you're right. But the disconnect between sort of BIM and real world is a bit.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah. But it's not unwarranted, though. I mean, we need that language. And we need that connectivity to make sure that we are getting the sort of output that we require. Dave who started our company calls it BIM bollocks, though - excuse my language. Yeah, so there's if 9650 and 50, we really need prescription to deliver us an outcome. Think of something real world where our friend Elon Musk has just been talking about various different cryptocurrencies. He was driving Tesla into the ground, because he was so innovative all the time talking about all these different things that were available. And they brought in someone to manage the business and took him out of that role, and let him be the innovator. So prescription has a place that's required, and it's needed to make sure we get a consistency of outcome. But it's not going to save the day when it comes to trying to drive industry change. So you got to you got to recognize that they got to work together. The true innovator hates prescription, prescription hate innovation, you got to find that happy landing point between them. And I think it's a challenge that will be going on a bit like sales and manufacture, and any other sort of industry as well. Why don't you sell what we can make? Why don't you make what I can sell? Is that same conversation going on all the time? So we tried to remove ourselves from prescriptive language? What if we called every single thing on a construction site blue? And the only thing that would determine what's the difference between them as essential physical location on site, we could get things built, they used to build things with paper before computers. And so digital hasn't necessarily save the world in that regard. You know,

Jaimie Johnston:

So what's the sort of um? We've mentioned? 19 650. UK standards? what's what's happening down there in Australia, New Zealand in terms of digital adoption first and the way you've approached it? And then maybe we'll come on sort of Modern Methods of Construction and Design for Manufacture and Assembly? here as well. Yeah, so far so common

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, yeah, look, can we can go both ways. So Yes. Right. So you've then got the other side of things with you're really getting? So what is it, there's a recognition here that we do have to have some sort of standard to meet the requirement, we've gone, a little bit of everyone go and do your own thing. And then the output that's coming out as people don't know what they're receiving, they don't know why they're getting at the type of industry have over here being especially in Australia being more a design and construction market, the designers almost come up with a concept design, which is tested in some engineering thought that goes into it, then it's all handed over to the contractor to derisk the program and the contractor that then goes and makes a whole lot of changes in and, you know, basically works out a way to make it work for them, and then deliver what they've kind of got left back to the client. I mean, that's a very crude way, consider how a large majority of the built environment has worked governments trying to lead innovation path. So certainly following what's happening in the UK with Level 2 BIM and the conversations there. You've got different states in Australia that are applying different approaches. And Queensland is very much any project over $50 million dollars now for government project has to be fully BIM detailed. So there's a whole set of requirements that are there is an output and deliverable there that fee or promote contract the market is I will just do it to be compliant. They're not necessarily doing it to be more efficient. Moving down the country, transport for New South Wales has come up with an amazing digital engineering framework to set the output requirements that they want industry to meet. But then again, I think it's got lost and some other sort of government context of what's going on there. So but it's certainly trying to try drive large infrastructure programs of work because they are so complex with so many bits, feeds into health and schools and other things as well. Government lead, commercial was kind of doing it to make a buck would be my honest view. It's not the delivery of BIM as a professional service is getting more and more and more commoditized. So once you commoditize, something, you tend to lose the value and why you're doing it. And yet rates are going up all the time, people are wanting more money for doing less. You know, it's that all that sort of adage. But so there's a combination of some DfMA Modern Methods of Construction as driving different thinking, which is, which is really, really cool. But yet, it's still contesting with the old ways of making money. And so the cost of MMC is really, really high. Again, it's being driven by schools and health infrastructure sort of uptake. And then we have other things that are happening from a pure compliance perspective, things like aluminimum cladding replacement programs, and other stuff that are government pieces of work coming out there looking for really innovative ways to deliver such things, which are trying to push boundaries of not the more normal way of doing things. So there are the similar standards, we're seeing 11, nine or 19 650 type stuff coming in here. We're seeing with Level 2 coming in here and the language, how are we tying smart contracts into those sorts of outcomes? It's a lot piecemeal, actually. And I don't think because of the size of the beast, that the government itself can get it all under control, certainly driving their programs of work, but then we're getting cost overruns for what those the benefit that they're realizing for the inputs that are going on. So probably similar to what you've seen in the UK, it's the swing in the roundabout. Unless you do something, you get nothing unless you've once you prescribe something, then it's too much. It's a, it's a balance between the whole thing so people are genuinely though looking for ways to derisk programs or work, they genuinely looking for ways to make additional profit. Programs are coming down, build times are coming down. And so they're looking for ways to modularlise and make stuff work. And you can only do that with proper digital coordination. So yeah, there's, I think all sides of the fence over here, Wild Wild West, right up to highly prescriptive. It's a it's an interesting place to be and, you know, job for life mate! Be honest about it, because we can find our happy landing in any of those sorts of spots. So yeah, yeah, the big Tier 1 contractors here are trying to drive innovation on a different way, the smaller guys are looking for a point in difference. And so we kind of landing in both those zones really.

Jaimie Johnston:

The drivers for DfMA must be slightly different, because they're just the the geographic spread the size and the kind of low density of population that must tell you something about how you how you do DfMA and how you deliver things. Is that sort of having an impact yet? Or is that still...

Craig Lamont:

...the conversations are starting for sure. I mean, we've got large contractors now that are setting up their own DfMA plants, and again, but we've got two schools of thought. In that regard, we've got the and I'm going to use terminology here, we've got the 'Apple' school of thought, the own the whole integration chain, the whole vertical delivery model, they own the factories, they own the designs, the pushing out of consultants, what's required for the kit-of-parts and getting an output as a result. And then you've got the other schools of thought with large contractors going, why am I telling people how to innovate? Why don't we let the innovation ride, and they're looking for ways to bring all that information together to land digitally, to enable them to get the best innovation out of these companies that are thinking about how to be smart all the time. Tyranny of distance is an amazing one, really, it's the whole of continental Europe or the whole of Europe itself, fits within the landmass of Australia and then we've got room to double it, we can do it again. So you do distances along a big deal, but 90% of the population lives on the east coast. And then we have Perth, so anything can sort of South Australia all the way up to sort of Brisbane. So tyranny of distance, yes, but we're not traversing across the gan. And during those wonderful you know, three days slow mo videos where we just watch the train going on the track sort of stuff. We're not doing that. Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, regional Australia, there's some unlock happening with trains and stuff. I'd say it's mainly the centres are looking after the centres at the moment, so, an then yeah, DfMA has got a lo g way to go though. supply ch ins trying to push, clients ar trying to push as in government and other people. And then we just haven't quite got the unlock with the contractors yet because it's expensive. They're under cost and time pressures And they haven't got it righ yet. So we've got really thos two schools of thoughts, own t or distributed model. Th y haven't quite landed on t e perfect one yet. Both of th m are right at the moment, I d sugges

Jaimie Johnston:

I'm presuming you have a role to play in both of them whether it's a sort of Yeah, sitting within tying up that entire ecosystem or joining up all the all the disaggregated parties

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, depends on we've done a whole DfMA cycle where we can add value and if we can't add value, we don't get involved in the conversation because we're not just there to suck money out of the market, we want to be adding value with whatever we do. The integrated model, we tend not to be able to help too much with the kit-of-parts design. So to use Autodesk language of the Inventor and those sort of other platforms, we're developing those unit unit bits, although we can land them on a platform like Vault to bring it all together spatially. And we find that people are finding their own way to house that, but then taking that sort of thinking to the consultant world and going out to the wider market, that enables us to bring in our BIM services actually, our professional services. So within the language of talking around that, yes, we can help there as well. But then, the great unlock, which I'd like to get onto at some point as an IoT construction site, because it's not what people think it is today, as my honest view, we need to go simple, we need to go smart. We need to go low tech, not all this high tech wazoo stuff that's going to tell me how many times I've eaten now, a Weetabix in the morning, we need to be looking at basic senses. And you know, again, a bit like bringing the rebar guy up to we need to slow down to go faster is one of those old sayings. So IoT construction is a great unlock for all of us to happen. And the DfMA side, again, kit-of-parts been designed by one person or been designed by many, we've got an area to play. It's that the vertical versus distributed model. There's no happy landing yet so certainly at Bryden Wood and what you guys have done in some of that work over in Europe and other places, could help a lot over here to unlock some of the thinking for contractors who don't know what to do.

Jaimie Johnston:

Can you expand on the IoT site of the future? Because that sounds dead interesting. It's a sort of thing we're, you know, we're not there yet. But we're about to bump into, I think fairly quickly. So yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, actually.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, look, I've. So my background is telco. So I've kind of fallen into this again, it's again, it's not a journey that I thought I'd ever come across. But here I am landing talking about medium range frequencies and long range sensor device. stuff. So bytes of data, as opposed to gigabytes of data being produced. So an IP camera on a site to monitor and get all the AI of learning of camera feeds and vehicle tracking and various other things like that. It takes quite a lot of digital infrastructure to make work. You need to have good bandwidth, but you need these items, to do your sort of high level tracking of things 90% of what you need on a construction site, is the door open or closed? You know, have I got, where's the machine located, is it vibrating? How noisy is it? What's my packet data coming out from? What's my light reading, what's my temperature reading, all of these can be done on really low power devices, that there are 10s of 1000s of them in the market. What they need is something like a LoRaWAN network to connect to, you know, what LoRaWAN is it's long range wide area network, it's on a different frequency band to WiFi. And so we're not trying to compete with cell phones and all your other devices that are connected via WiFi on on any sort of construction site, really long range. So you can be quite remote construction sites. And that's a great unlock for Australia, we have a lot of sites that are...it's nothing to dry five or 10 hours to get to a construction site in Australia, or even longer, depending on where you're going in the infrastructure that's available out there is really, really limited. So mining sites are looking at the investment and this quite heavily because with a single gateway, which you'd stick in, you connect, you need one cable to connect to or even, they even go over a cellular network now because they're not large packets of information going in. With what that one gateway connected to, you could have five or 10 kilometers of distance, picking up your gate sensors, your you know someone walking in an area they're not supposed to be Have I got movement happening, you know, what's tracking the sensor, you might have on a structure to see if there's movement, or it has moved over three to six month period, really low power devices that you don't need a lot of infrastructure to make them connect back to the interweb. And then, you know be communicated out with what's happening on site. So this 1000s of these devices that are looking for a home. But we are so busy a bit like BIM services thinking about all the really high tech fancy stuff, I think we're missing the real opportunity to put the really low tech stuff on sites and start the sites telling us what's happening. That information that we can then interrogate and see what's really happening on sites will allow us to do better designs, you know, better implementation of modules and various other things. And I think there's gonna be a great unlock. You're gonna hear a lot about that this year. Europe's covered in LoRaWAN as a technology. I think there's something like 10,000 gateways across Europe. I think there's something like 800 in the US of A and there's, there's there's over 1000 in Australia, so we're both beating the US and that's always a good thing. Because they've got a highly what they've got a whole cellular network across their states. You can't get any of that stuff to talk easily. across those different states, all the different contracts, you get assigned to talk from one network to another. So if we can remove from that high tech network stuff, I think IoT construction really open up, I can't talk to the sensors at length, although I used to design those types of things back in a very long time ago. But the technologies and they're changing so rapidly, you know, what we're using today will be much better in a year from now. So that these are the sorts of things that will unlock construction. So...

Jaimie Johnston:

But it's that sort of timescale you're looking at. I mean, this is it's all technology that exists already.

Craig Lamont:

It's there

Jaimie Johnston:

to do it that hasn't, you know, no, I think...

Craig Lamont:

...Yeah, yeah. Genuinely, people maybe don't know they are getting worried by 5g. Is 5g made an impact in your life yet?

Jaimie Johnston:

Not at all? No.

Craig Lamont:

No. So yet, all we hear from the telco companies is 5g is the way of the future, you'll have faster internet, faster mobiles, you know, faster screening of football games on your phone? Yeah, most of these construction sites don't require that level of technology on them. So I just, if you can land all those devices spatially and know where they are on a construction site, and look at the data that's coming through and interrogate that, then I think a lot of this technology is available now. And I think others are, it's not my game LoRaWAN, but we've we've seen it as an opportunity to enable a bunch of different sensors on sites to be unlocked now. And there are networks out there of people that are doing it a lot of is free to air public stuff. But there are private networks, they can be established. And I think those private networks are where we're gonna see some real Genesis and IoT, on construction, actually, WiFi is full. IP addresses, you know, we just can't get hold of them anymore. And change the frequency bandwidth is noone. And suddenly, we've got millions of addresses available to us.

Jaimie Johnston:

Yeah, that's interesting. I talked on this show about IoT in buildings and operations in the future. We haven't ever talked about IoT on sites. But yeah, that sounds like a really obvious thing that we should be looking at. And yeah, it sounds like it's on the precipice. Sounds like it could be that could be done now, if people started to lean into it. So yeah, that's really interesting.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah. And you got to think about, again, this digitalization of the built environment, right, we get all excited about, I mean, we've been doing some work with the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a while now where we, we've scanned their site, and we've been originally having them work out some, some flows and throughputs of people through the stadium itself, you know, a game that has 50,000 people, a game that has 100,000 people, where do you stick your points of sales and the way they make money? And how do you distribute your crowds, and what's your emergency response times and that. And I mean that the stadium has been going for 161 years, they kind of get it. But if we can map that all spatially, we've got now to the point where we're doing point of sale flows through a spatial model to say, at this point, this amount of money is flowing through your tills, and these bars and mapping them with cameras and stuff. It's really sexy. I mean, it's really sexy. And I'm thinking, I can come back and watch Arsenal get slammed for another year. But I can do it all digitally and map it spatially, that would be quite exciting for me to come back to England and see my team getting beaten. If you can help out in that regard, I'd really appreciate that for next season, I think this one's gone. But that's really, really exciting. But you know, those permanent installations are up, and we can do a lot with them. But how many construction sites are going up every year, and temporary in nature, we put them up these all that data being delivered, and then we shut them down and move on to the next one. Right. And so this is temporary nature of IoT, that really needs to be considered because the amount of information that you can take and how these things are being put together. A lot of that disappears by the time the concrete has set. And by the time we got the finishes on the walls, you know, we worried about temperature in rooms, how about how much movement there was in a column as it was being pulled in, and the bending? And there's all sorts of stuff that we've been getting, you know, how now, how did that concrete cure? These are the sorts of things that we can gather with sort of IoT construction that we might not, the investment might not be there, because I guess fund managers and stuff are not as excited about that, as trying to get a better return on the investment when they've gone. I've got the latest wawa thing in my building isn't amazing, you know, so yeah, it's interesting where the money's driving stuff, but the data sets available from construction, I think are immense if we look at a different way of gathering them, that's going to unlock it. It really, really is

Jaimie Johnston:

Well, we talk a lot about value on this podcast and yeah, you're right. It's the value of that information is vast, it might not seem that attractive. And yeah, point of sale and sexy things in stadia sounds quite groovy whereas monitoring what the cranes doing sounds a bit less interesting. But yeah, the value of that and understanding. One of the things I was I was a judge on a tech awards a few years ago and one of the things that won actually was a company that were putting, just monitoring everything about when they laid tarmac. So what the temperature was like and what the mix was and what the temperature was and all the rest of it. Everyone's goin' yeah, that sounds quite interesting. No, no, but in the future whe you know a crack appears we can tell you why that crack appe red, where else it might appe r and the kind of predicti e maintenance impacts of being able to do that it's the same thing, understanding exactly ow the concrete cured and what ent on and what stresses ight be left in the building nd you get the long term impa t or value of that data shou d be vast. But yet, no one's col ecting it because it doesn't p y off instantly. It's sort of a longer term thing, or then fuel ng the kind of next generatio of concrete mixes and the kind f AI technology, that's starti g to plan schedules and plan p ogram on site and logistics. Yeah, the long term benefit is massive, isn't it? But yeah, t doesn't pay off in the short erm, you got to keep doing it c nsistently.

Craig Lamont:

That's right. I mean, these things are really, really cheap. They must be a couple of quid some of these sensors, you can just throw in the concrete mix, and it's broadcasting for the next five years, and then it dies. You kind of don't care, right. So But yeah, I look, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a roading engineer. And I used to work in an engineering firm and, and I said, What is it about roading? You know, and he goes, there's nothing like doing the walk test. And I said, What's that? And he goes, you walk behind a weighted truck, essentially. And you're looking for deviations in the truck and recording the deviations as you're going on the road? There's nothing brings you more joy when the deviation is within tolerance. And I'm just like 'oh man,' you know, yeah, I could see with these different this. There's different strokes for all folks. Right. So yeah, But to your point, I, I couldn't think of anything more boring. But yes, there's absolute real power and value and, and gathering that data set. And yeah, we've just got to find a way to unlock it. You know, you're talking about craneage, go to any construction site and say, I'll give you half an hour more crane time on a site to lift stuff on the same work day. And you watch your programs change immensely. Yeah. So crane hook time, there's people looking at that sort of stuff. What if you were mapping the crane hook spatially? Did you have the crane in the right location for the number of movements that you're doing, ' well, we always stick it here Charlie, you know, because that's where it goes on the side.' Well, then what if it moves to the middle, which is a real annoyance for a bunch of other activity goes on. But you start to prove that you get more use out of your crane for the rest of the time. And this is where data from construction sites will come to really help us in the future. And I just think we're looking about maybe in a slightly different way,

Jaimie Johnston:

Where we're delivering projects using Platforms, actually, what we're seeing is that the quicker the assembly time of the individual components. So when we use sort of color coded things, you put it, you put something together in minutes, actually hook time is massive, it's a lot more than any other activity. Logistics is massive, and the just not having things to hand. So as you start to get rid of some of the normal kind of that sort of inefficiencies hidden by the general low productivity on site. Again, if we're going to move productivity, all of those things, you know, hook time on a thing of slinging it, lifting it up, getting it back is like 20 minutes you go and yeah, that's five or six times the cycle of the thing it's lifting, actually. So suddenly, that becomes important and getting logistics in the right place. Again, all of these things are going to are going to kill the productivity if we don't get a handle on them. So you're right. This is a phenomenal way of unlocking all of that, which is Yeah, brilliant, actually.

Craig Lamont:

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's kind of where we're playing and what what we see. And because we've got our platform, Vault, allows us to map those things spatially, we can actually track that data where it's located, not just reams of data sets coming out. Because just like looking at a spreadsheet, it means nothing. It's a bit like the lines of a matrix yeah. I'd much rather watch the movie, then watch the screen saver. You know, and everyone had the screensaver for a while, because they thought it was amazing. So yeah, so it's about visualizing that data set. And I think that's really, really another great unlock, has been able to actually visualize what's going on. And we see it in modeling and things that we do now in design, and we've been doing it for a long time. But then if you start to visualize what's happening on a construction site and starting to get real data sets coming through, then these are the these are the things that are going to change the way that we operate. So I'll give you an example of a site, an IoT construction site. And we think this is a great leap forward for the industry in Australia and many contractors here are looking at us as a point of difference. But I'll give an example of an IT construction site where we were doing a proof of concept, we have three or four sensors, noise sensors set up on a site. And they've all got conditions, consent conditions, the hours, they can operate noise levels, and all that sort of environmental stuff. And dust and we have joyous stuff over here called asbestos. There's lots of that around. And we're not doing many of those sensors. But you know, dust created and things like that. But there's a real problem for people on on job sites here. And so three noise sensors located spatially create an effect a cone of where they're triangulation or where the noise might be coming from. Right. And we had a situation where lovely dear council turned up at the construction site at nine o'clock in the morning and said,'oh, we've received a noise complaint that you guys have been operating outside of your consented hours,' and the site manager said 'Oh, really,' and walked up to the computer screen and said, 'What time did the noise complaint come in?' And he looked at the screen because it added IoT sensor data there and said 'Right, it's six twenty am, but our hours don't start till 7am.' he says. This may not be the truth of the story, but I'm embellishing for a good story, but, but the context is the same. He said, 'you know, we

Jaimie Johnston:

But going back to that earlier example, just don't open till seven in the morning. In fact, we recorded that noise going off at twenty past six in the morning, these three sensors here went off on this corner of the site. You can see from our camera vision that the gates to the site were closed that that time, because we're going to record all of that. We know that the council buses drive up and down there at that sort of time. We think the machinery you heard was actually a bus driving past at a very still morning, not the machinery on a construction site working.' The council officers said,'Gosh, that's good. Could you give me a report on that?' And in the project manager says,'Would you like me to email it to you? Or would you like a hard copy now?' And that site problem has gone away. Now. It's not an ad for IoT construction. That's an ad for a construction manager not having to deal with a noise problem that day on the site, which has, he's got enough going on with supply chain and movements and activities. The last thing he needs is to find out who was driving the machine. And was anyone on site, you know what I mean? So it's a human factor, again, technology enabling humanity to return a construction site, he now doesn't have to stress about that. That's IoT construction, not 1.37% of efficiency gain of a crane operation and time. Yeah, it's that kind of context of conversation different. We also found out somebody coming and stealing things in the middle of the night. They'd forgotten that cameras that are motion sensitive record who's coming in and out. And the police were given their footage and lo and behold, they got nabbed. So, this is where IoT construction really started to help simple environmental stuff. Crane clock time. If it's if it's measuring, saying I'm free or half an hour, these guys on't need me. How many more ifts can you do in 30 minutes, f you could do one more? Again, ust what you're talking to the aimie, you can start to add your productivity. And it's almost like an unquantifiable number once you start doing it. It's like how did we ever do thi before? So that's where we thin the great unlock is in IoT, a d some of those sort of more s mple devices, as 'I'm not busy, sending out a signal, 'Oh, gos, I wonder how we can make you b sy.' the reputational thing of the Council and going yeah, those guys are slick, they run a tight site, that's a very good, you know, operation. And you know, that becoming a sort of differentiator that you're known as being the people that run you know, very tight, very lean, very safe, productive site that won't cause issues, considerate contractor type things. So yeah, the reputational bit which which never gets factored in starts to become, might be a narrow window, but that becomes a differentiator. Everyone goes flipping hell, we had better get that technology because they're running away with it. So that starts to become an interesting sort of,

Craig Lamont:

yeah, it is an interesting conversation for sure. So of course, you know, do it once is not enough. You got to do it every time. And I mean, that's our challenge. And we we see and growth in our market in in organizations like Skanska, and others from Sweden, have heard about how we're doing and go, 'oh, that's interesting.' And we saw them at the end of February in Auckland, actually, last year. Apparently something stopped world travel a little bit. So we haven't really taken that on much further. But yeah, these these things are definitely coming and people are thinking about it, for sure.

Jaimie Johnston:

Perfect. We always ask our guests this. Where do you think, if the brakes are off, and everyone led into this, what what do you think the industry looks like in 5/10 years? And how achievable is it? I mean, I'm really interested that you've kind of reiterated things that we've heard a number of times on this podcast, that it's not really the technology, it's the people, it's the mindset, all of this stuff is at our fingertips if we choose to adopt it. So yeah, maybe what's the sort of optimistic view of where we could be heading in the next next decade or so.

Craig Lamont:

Ah, look, again, just to go back to an earlier point, I don't think the the uptake of technology is the issue. So I'm not going to talk about the technology itself. There's technology everywhere. Everyone's going for it all the time. I think what might happen in the next five years, is people start to realize the technology platform is not going

Jaimie Johnston:

That's a great answer. No, that is a fantastic to save me. So why am I doing it? They'd be a lot if we got a lot more to the why context rather than the what and how and efficiency and numbers triggering thing, I think we get a lot of growth in the in the marketplace. I see then in the next five years, I hope to see a lot more of industry actually engaging to just jump in boots and all and try it a little bi. If we can remove som of the technology hurdles of etwork connectivity and engagem nt and all those sorts of pl ns and things. So just let peop e ever crack on some sites acros broad industry. I'd love to s e more of the sub trades and supply chain, asking to use tec nology on construction sites and not be battered down. That w uld be a great five year plan. nd in 10 years, why can't we ave five day work weeks t at we're starting to build as m ch as we could in six and a alf days now. Because until w can use technology to release t e humans to be more normal and enable the businesses to make profit as a result. Guess what? no profit equals no uptake, then I don't think we're really solving anything. If you if you think the answer is we can do 10 more jobs. Then that might not be the right answer. I think if you can do the answer, we can do team more jobs without people going home stressed. Look at all the other McKinsey reports about suicide rates and all the other things that happen in our industry as a result, then then I would like to see us having an impact to return more time back to the worker. Now, if they choose to do other stuff on the weekend, that's cool. But I don't necessarily want to be on our watch. So humanizing the workforces, and humanizing workshops through technology has got to be the cratch cry. And how do we do that we need to do some sneaky engagement, few more QR codes, please. Because once they realize they're using it, then they'll they won't be so reticent against that. There's a lot of 35 year old dinosaurs on construction sites, who are scared to use technology. So it's not an age barrier, I think it's the ability to make it look make it adjustment easier to access for all i think that's, that's kind of where we've got to go. And that's not going to come unless, you know, the likes of Bryden Wood, and othe consultants understand that. An what we're trying to impart o the industry is being so smart And I think that's going to be great unlock too. We've got o get more consultants back n construction sites, to see h w they detailing just doesn t quite fit. When you're sitti g in a boom lift nine meters of the ground, and you drop you spanner you know what I mean, s that kit-of-parts and that t inking it's, it all starts to tie together. And that would be my great hope for 10 year from now. And please, can you use an asBuilt connected constr ction site all over the world,'d be very happy with that sales pitch. But if we can unloc that for a whole lot of other companies as well, then a bit like buying a cup of coff e. If you only bought it from my cafe, I'd tap out on money. Bu once people start wanting offee everywhere, thing, cafe will open up everywhere. And I think that's the great unlo k for industry. So not sure i that answered the questio. answer. But yeah, your point about Yeah, re humanizing it...better working weeks... it's how you start to address actually some of the bigger trends around not enough people in construction, the ageing demographic and things like you need to make it a much more attractive industry or we can't, can't build enough. And yeah, like your point about consultants understanding the impact of their design decisions more in the in the fields, I think you're right, that's the kind of thing we've talked about on this podcast before sort of disconnect, maybe between some of the design decisions, and actually how they play out, as you say, when you're halfway up, but I'm trying to get something in the wind are really, really i portant.

Craig Lamont:

I'd love for engineers and architects to go back to construction sites because they were just genuinely interested to spend their time there on the weekend not getting paid for it right. Just we kind of need to return that somehow. I don't know the answer to that. But that's kind of a thing when industry gets back to the beginning, we're more humanistic across the whole thing. We'll see some great outcomes as a result.

Jaimie Johnston:

Brilliant. That's fantastic. Craig, thanks ever so much for your time. It's been really, really interesting to talk to you.

Craig Lamont:

Okay, you're most welcome, Jaimie, and thank you again for the opportunity to give my views on some stuff.

Jaimie Johnston:

So thanks for listening to that episode of Built Environment Matters. I hope you found the conversation with Craig as interesting and fascinating as I did and join us next month for more Built Environment Matters.

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