“Every day, a contractor has to look at the job site and write reports. These typically focus on safety, construction and job flow. The reports take the form of punch lists, inspections and progress updates. A construction crew can spend an hour a day generating the required reports,” says Prasad. InspectMind speeds up the process by capturing report-ready information about a site. Workers
A wide variety of tools Beyond programs that capture images, videos and notes, technologies consist of drones, which contractors use to take progress shots, comparison shots, final photographs and survey ongoing work. Then there are drone-specific software platforms DroneDeploy and Propeller. These allow contractors to review and analyze drone-captured images and videos. Contractors also use project design modeling software from ETS and AgTek, project management system software from ProCore and Trimble, scheduling software from
accumulate this information by taking photos, videos and
Eric Bostrom, IT director for Midstate Construction in Petaluma. [Photo courtesy Eric Bostrom]
Sean Burns, president of B&D Excavations and Construction, Inc. in Novato, left, and Paul Foley, CEO and co-founder of Bulk Exchange. [Photo courtesy Bulk Exchange]
written and audio notes on their smartphones or tablets throughout the day. “The app then generates a report using AI. This document is typically
Microsoft Project, office management and accounting software from Trimble and estimation and bidding software from HCSS and Building Connected. Sometimes they use satellite internet services like Starlink to access data stored in the cloud. Still, construction lags behind many industries. “We still receive faxes from some vendors,” says Eric Bostrom, IT director for Midstate Construction in Petaluma. One technology that is not yet helpful is AI processing to read invoices. “We process between 1,100 and 1,500 invoices a month. We trialed AI software for this purpose for three months. In practice, it took just as long to correct the invoices as to enter the
more accurate than a report filled out at the end of the workday. The process also saves time and energy. Team members avoid unnecessary repetition,” says Prasad. In founding a prior company, Design Everest, Prasad worked with many North Bay contractors who completed rebuilds after the 2017 fires. “That’s actually what pushed me to create InspectMind, seeing how much time it took to fill out fire-related inspection reports and paperwork,” says Prasad.
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August 2024
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