Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:14 My next guest has spent more than fifteen years in the construction technology field. In his current role, he leads the development of cloud software applications serving the construction industry. 0:25 Please welcome Marcel Broekmaat, Director of Product Management, Connected Applications at Trimble. Marcel, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm delighted to have you on the show. 0:39 Now, we've got to talk about this. We've all heard about the lagging productivity in the construction industry. I mean, how much have we talked about it, right? 0:48 But here's my question: Why do we keep talking about it, and why can't we fix it? That's the interesting thing. I mean, why haven't we figured out meaningfi-meaningful ways to do something better? 0:59 I mean, it seems like it just by now we could have figured it out, right? We could. We could have. [chuckles] And, and there's a lot of technology that actually, uh, would, uh, would support that. 1:10 It's, uh, just that projects are, uh, typically, uh, a, a collection of stakeholders who come together for a limited amount of time, and, uh, not everybody is set up to, uh, adopt a process that, that may be repeatable. 1:24 So I think that's one of the challenges. And of course, the, the way that the contract is, uh, set up plays a role as well. 1:31 Not every contract format lends itself for, uh, deeper collaboration or more collaboration between parties. 1:38 And, um, while the, the technology may be there, uh, adoption by all of the parties involved, uh, sometimes causes some challenges. Now, that's an interesting point. You said it's not repeatable. 1:50 You'd think by now when we think production homes, or we think, you know, commercial buildings or heavy roads, that some of that, you know, long stretches should be repeatable, right? 2:00 I mean, it just seems to me that we could do that. So I guess my thought to you is, you guys make some great technology. You've acquired a million companies. I-I'm exaggerating, you get it. [chuckles] Yeah. 2:09 But I mean, so with that, you have acquired some really great technology. 2:13 You think there's got to be some recommendations that you have that teams can do things more efficiently, more productively, more profitably to make this work. 2:23 And you've got some great digital solutions that should, should all come together right now and be more cohesive to make this work. Absolutely. And, and that is the case. 2:32 A lot of our customers focus on, on the, on the repeatable parts of those processes. 2:38 So if you look at, uh, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, uh, or, uh, concrete and, and structural, uh, the, the companies that we work with and that successfully implement our technology, 2:49 uh, do that the same on, on all of the, their, uh, their projects and lay out the process that we like to call, uh, the, the three Cs, so constructible, uh, content enabled, and, and connected. 3:00 So using standardized content, uh, repeatedly on projects to, to drive the planning and execution of that, um, putting that together in, in a higher level of detail, uh, design deliverables, drawings, and 3D models beforehand so that it's constructible. 3:16 And then the connected piece is making sure that everybody has access to that. 3:20 And a lot of our customers use that, that process, uh, today, uh, and they, uh, they repeat that on, uh, on every, every project to do exactly what you suggest. 3:32 So if you've got those three Cs, you would think that the owner would kind of dictate a lot of this and say, "Look, if you're gonna be... I'm, I... All of you are my stakeholders now. 3:43 We've all got to work in," and the owner's gonna say, "Look, we're all in this together now. Maybe we haven't done that enough in the past." And if you're using your three Cs that you just described, right? 3:54 Constructible, connected, and, and all of these that you have right there, can't you put all of that together and say, "Look, these, this is how the stakeholders of all of us are going to make some money here"? 4:06 Absolutely. And there, there's wins for all parties involved. The owner gets a, a higher quality building, typically, um, and, uh, delivered in time and, uh, at the expected cost. Uh, but it's... 4:19 Uh, part of that is, is creation of awareness, awareness as well. And once that is starting to, uh, to surface also on the, the owner level, I'm convinced that this will become the standard. 4:32 If it becomes the standard and, and companies, then would that become repeatable? You know, if it's the standard, it seems to me that you're recommending that everybody works better together. Together. 4:44 You have better collaboration. I see the whole BIM story that we've been talking about for many decades, and we ca-haven't been able to- Hmm. We're just starting to understand that. 4:53 So collaboration in all of those platforms seem to be more cohesive. And so I think- Hmm. H- Then how do you recommend that so everybody starts working like you just described now? 5:06 And everybody seems to be that they've got a better community, and it seems now, where we started off at the lagging productivity goes away. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It, it will. 5:17 It, it's, um, uh, what we see today, a lot of the, uh, labor time is, is still wasted because you're, you're waiting for the right set of information to become available, or decision-makers scramble to get to the right set of information. 5:32 Um, what we've seen in the past, I guess, with, uh, with schedules, um, 5:38 th-they, they were, uh, perhaps created on an ad hoc basis, but at, at, at one point, people started to recognize that a, a schedule needs to be part of a contract. Now there's no contract without a CPM schedule. 5:50 Uh, something similar I believe needs to happen with a process that, uh, addresses the collaboration, 5:57 uh, the, the, the content enabled-ness and, and, and connectedness, um, when owners start to recognize that the quality gets better, uh, the, the delivery times become more reliable.Uh, then perhaps that needs to become part of the requirements that are defined as, as part of the contract that's, uh, that is defined by, by owners. 6:18 When you look at all of these things and you look at collaboration, uh, platforms in general, you know, we say they're not new to the industry, and you guys have Trimble Connect, i- Mm-hmm. 6:29 You know, and you, you have that out there. Is, is that something we need to start seeing and seeing more implementation? 6:37 Do, do you think that, look, you've, you've gotta start getting people to say, "Look, you've gotta work together"? I mean, we've, we've seen that... a lack of interoperability. 6:46 We've seen the lac- uh, all these silos, and it's a frustration in the industry. Is, is that now when we have this collaboration and this unity in the industry, we're gonna change the way things are done then? 6:59 So I think what we're talking about is a lot of connectivity with all of these platforms, and I think what we're talking about is the way Trimble has put together a whole collection of different companies. 7:13 And that answers a lot of the industry's issues, because we've looked at this. 7:18 And one of the other parts I think we have to come together with is looking at the workforce issue right now, and I think that's what Trimble's trying to do, is Trimble's trying to say the three Cs, when they come together with that, put all the project stakeholders together to collaborate better. 7:34 Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So I, I guess a lot of companies do implement these tools for, for sharing of, of data. 7:41 Uh, there's a lot of solutions available for creation of folders and uploading of files and sharing those files, uh, but that doesn't necessarily create collaboration in, in project teams. 7:52 Uh, that's moving the problem from the local desktop to the cloud. Uh, you create the same set of, of 10-level deep folder structure. You're still searching for the right file. 8:03 And so what we believe the right solution is to put that data in the design context. Uh, location is what it's about. 8:10 When you are in a location as a worker, you need to know what data is relevant to you, and Trimble Connect does exactly that. 8:17 Uh, so we combine the, uh, design information, drawings, and 3D models with the data that can be shared either through files or through data available through the individual BIM elements. 8:30 So really delivering, uh, the data that's enclosed in the set of documents and spreadsheets and design information, uh, to end users, to consumers, through the design context. 8:41 And with a tool like the, um, MX10, so the, uh, the hard hat, uh, that has the, uh, the Microsoft HoloLens included in it, you can really quickly get access to the data and truly facilitate collaboration on a location basis. 8:55 So we're really seeing a lot of change at the job site and in the office in putting all this together. 9:00 In, in construction, maybe we'll finally see some nice integration, and that's something we haven't seen at this point, right? I mean, up to this point, it's, it's been disparate. Now that's what we're talking about. 9:12 This is going to be a, a leap. I, I agree. Um, it's, it's been bringing traditional methods into the cloud, uh, with location awareness and, uh, and the constructability approach, we're going to make a big difference. 9:25 Marcel Broekmaat, uh, Director of Product Management, Connected Applications, Trimble, thank you so much for your time today. Uh, your URL is, uh, T- trimble.com? That is correct. All right. 9:38 And for the Connect product, that's connect.trimble.com. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right, listeners. We are out of time. Remember, we are broadcast live every Tuesday at 12 PM Central. 9:47 Check out our website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. And remember, tweet at us at ConnectedWMag. As always, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. 9:59 Remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have an awesome week. 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