“An analogy that I've held onto for a very long time is that superintendents and foremans are always trying to minimize the number of times that a craft has to pick up a tool or material and move it to the spot where it needs to be installed,” said Jeremy Sibert, project manager at Hensel Phelps. “The more times you touch that tool or material, the less productive you are. You can view data in the same way. The more times our project and administrative staff have to touch a piece of data, the more productivity that’s lost.” Hensel Phelps embarked on integrating data for the original budget, contract invoicing, owner payment applications, and change orders since that data represented key financial transactions that both project staff and office staff had to actively input and manage to keep projects on track. “Vista was always accurate with respect to job costs to-date, money that's gone out or money that's received, but when subcontractor change orders were received, budgets weren’t always getting adjusted in ProjectSight, which was problematic,” said Sibert. “So it became important for us to integrate those areas to ensure the accuracy of our data and to help enhance employee efficiency and employee satisfaction.” Since the internal integration, project staff rarely have to access Vista and back office staff rarely have to use ProjectSight, which saves time and the headaches of trying to operate two systems at once. “It's not about us trying to limit their access, but if they don't need to use another tool to see the same data, that’s time and money saved for both groups,” said Sibert. Data integration also lessened the amount of training and adoption that had to take place because when employees use the same application everyday, it becomes part of their muscle memory. They can use it almost without having to think about it. “I don’t use Viewpoint Vista often enough so that when I do, I have to pull out the manual and walk through it step-by-step because I don’t have all the actions memorized,” said Sibert. “Whereas my accounting team never looks at the Vista manual because they use it everyday. This not only eliminates the double handling of data, but it also lessens having to keep up the knowledge of working in two different systems.” Data integration is also helpful for subcontractors, owners and design teams who may only know how to work in one software system. This is particularly acute with RFIs, which are a big pain point for project teams. “Before, office staff or project engineers would spend their time copying and pasting from one system to the next,” said Sibert. “Now on integrated projects, data passes automatically between systems without double entry, enabling everyone to be on the same page from day one.” Another benefit of data integration is record retention. Each stakeholder has their own record system that they use to track project information and outcomes, which is important for historical context and for legal reasons. When project teams use other systems, there can be gaps in information collected or information may only go into one system and not another.
“At the end of the day, somebody has to scrape all information back so that project records are complete, and we can close up the job,” said Sibert. “With data integration, each stakeholder can operate within its own system, with all project information automatically synchronized and records easily generated on demand.” Data Integration Goes Mainstream Thanks to Vendor Openness Since Hensel Phelps first integrated its own data, perceptions across the construction landscape have dramatically changed, with many companies, including Trimble, understanding the customer and industry benefits that come with having an open API framework. Instead of making contractors manage integrations themselves, many software companies are connecting the data between their own solutions and other systems because they understand the value it provides to their customers. “The fact that there are vendors that are publishing industry standard open API frameworks is a huge help,” said Sibert. “It takes a lot of work off of our internal teams and makes the data synchronization process much easier and smoother.” In fact, the Vista to ProjectSight integration that Hensel Phelps did internally several years ago is now offered as an automatic integration by Trimble so that internal teams don’t have to manually configure it themselves. It follows on the heels of the Viewpoint Spectrum to ProjectSight integration, allowing contractors to easily connect their ERPs to their project management systems, which is one of the most common requests. In addition to developing individual integrations, some vendors are also creating a marketplace of integrations that can be used by the contractor’s software teams. “You can get an API key from the administration side of the product, and the software team can follow the instructions, copy and paste the key and be done,” said Sibert. “We can start a job today and have this stuff up and running immediately instead of having to wait six months for a consultant to build it out.” The speed-to-market element is essential as contractors are expected to be nimble and fast, and they often have no time to waste between a project being awarded and a project starting. And because each project differs from one another, the less contractors need to re-think how to connect their data, the better. “The key for integration marketplaces to work is for the vendors to be thoughtful and allow for the right amount of flexibility and configuration,” said Sibert. “Integrations shouldn’t require excessive consulting, and it should be done in days, not weeks or months because that’s weeks or months too late. At that point, we're already creating data, we’re already moving on the project and the value proposition starts to drop quickly. Very, very quickly.”
Tom Stemm is Vice President and Category GM of Construction Integrations at Trimble, where he helps Trimble and the larger construction ecosystem build connections between commonly used applications and data sources.
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NOVEMBER 2023 csengineermag.com
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