The iPad will further digitize the construction industry in a way analogous to the way it will digitize the restaurant industry by replacing printed menus - those people looking to justify deploying iPads will find such justification and the product will be successful because there is a great deal of pent up demand among an increasingly well educated cadre of construction management professionals.
At the abstract level, construction is an exercise in estimating financial and temporal costs in light of various ongoing relationships and relationships of convenience. The revolutionary application will make playing "what if" a low friction exercise with a high degree of accuracy while accounting for the wide range of comfort levels with technology among people who actually build stuff. The 37signals paradigm comes to mind.
The tough problem is not replacing printed sets of plans, construction takes time and success comes from avoiding the sorts of crises depicted in the article through planning and information management - at the point the crane cannot swing 30kips of concrete into place due to lack of clearance, one is trying to minimize losses not maximize profits.
The focus on the iPad is allowing the team to address the non-critical problem paper plans present for construction professionals traveling between jobsites rather than the tackling the critical path impediments to radical change.
That critical path requires dealing with BIM. On the other hand, BIM is information modeling not 3D virtual construction. 3D is for solving design issues (and impressing lay people).
The representation of that information does not need to be 3D for most construction management purposes - i.e. answering the questions of how many, who can do it, when can they do it, and how much will it cost in terms of budget and schedule.
Except for trivial cases or those involving very close established working relationships, those questions are answered in days, not the length of time one is standing next to a trench with a broken sewer main.
Young guns shooting aggressively from the hip at design professionals during a crisis is not revolutionary, even if an iPad is involved.
AutoCad changed the industry because it lowered the cost of technology into the $10k range - $40 retail boxes of homeowner design software didn't even though they were a profitable product.
The revolutionary product for the construction industry utilizes business intelligence to better manage project timelines and budgets while weighing the impact on working relationships among the various parties in a way which minimizes uncertainty.
Comments
The iPad will further digitize the construction industry in a way analogous to the way it will digitize the restaurant industry by replacing printed menus - those people looking to justify deploying iPads will find such justification and the product will be successful because there is a great deal of pent up demand among an increasingly well educated cadre of construction management professionals.
At the abstract level, construction is an exercise in estimating financial and temporal costs in light of various ongoing relationships and relationships of convenience. The revolutionary application will make playing "what if" a low friction exercise with a high degree of accuracy while accounting for the wide range of comfort levels with technology among people who actually build stuff. The 37signals paradigm comes to mind.
The tough problem is not replacing printed sets of plans, construction takes time and success comes from avoiding the sorts of crises depicted in the article through planning and information management - at the point the crane cannot swing 30kips of concrete into place due to lack of clearance, one is trying to minimize losses not maximize profits.
The focus on the iPad is allowing the team to address the non-critical problem paper plans present for construction professionals traveling between jobsites rather than the tackling the critical path impediments to radical change.
That critical path requires dealing with BIM. On the other hand, BIM is information modeling not 3D virtual construction. 3D is for solving design issues (and impressing lay people).
The representation of that information does not need to be 3D for most construction management purposes - i.e. answering the questions of how many, who can do it, when can they do it, and how much will it cost in terms of budget and schedule.
Except for trivial cases or those involving very close established working relationships, those questions are answered in days, not the length of time one is standing next to a trench with a broken sewer main.
Young guns shooting aggressively from the hip at design professionals during a crisis is not revolutionary, even if an iPad is involved.
AutoCad changed the industry because it lowered the cost of technology into the $10k range - $40 retail boxes of homeowner design software didn't even though they were a profitable product.
The revolutionary product for the construction industry utilizes business intelligence to better manage project timelines and budgets while weighing the impact on working relationships among the various parties in a way which minimizes uncertainty.