模态图像。

当Autodesk于2021年退休其软件即服务构建项目管理平台构造软件时,位于匹兹堡的MIS项目负责人Dennis Dipalma总部位于匹兹堡的承包商PJ Dick发现自己处于与许多IT董事的尴尬位置 - 试图获得多年的项目项目data out of a vendor’s SaaS platform that was designed to ingest customer data, not release it back.

“他们在文件夹结构中以PDF为您的数据,然后向您提供数据库中的原始数据。这就是他们想做的。“因此,我与他们进行了很好的协商,以给我所有数据的SQL数据库。那就是我们最终做的。”

SQL或结构化查询语言是一种编程语言,用于以更容易搜索的索引方式组织数据。Dipalma和PJ Dick按照他们的需求获得了20年的项目数据,但是按计划将其移至另一个平台是不切实际的。他们最终将SQL数据库放入Amazon AWS Cloud Storage中。

Dipalma说:“当我们需要时,我们基本上必须将其从亚马逊拉下来,将其通过共享网络驱动器将其交给我们的项目团队,他们必须弄清楚他们的需求是什么。”

This is just one of many scenarios where construction technologists are being asked to break with the old ways of saving project data—in filing cabinets and bankers’ boxes—and find new ways that incorporate project data stored in cloud-based, construction project management platforms from vendors such as Autodesk, Bentley, Oracle or Procore.

Contractors must not only consider how they are going to optimize data and make it searchable for future project teams, but they also figure out how to gain business intelligence insights from all of the raw project data stored either on a technology provider’s cloud, their own rented cloud space or their local servers. All the while, they must still consider what to keep and how to limit risk while staying ahead of rapid changes in data storage and analytics technologies.

芝加哥汉堡咨询集团(Burger Consulting Group)总裁Christian Burger说:“许可语言有两个要素:访问数据和集成访问权限。”该组织向建筑客户提供有关如何与技术供应商协商更好的协议的建议。“公司正试图立即制定数据仓库策略。问题变成了,该云解决方案的数据如何到达您的数据仓库?”

欧特克和Procore高管说,他们想要的to help their customers achieve their project goals, but they also have priorities of their own. The two CPM cloud providers are keen to use aggregated, anonymized customer data to provide industrywide insights, such as regional employment data based on hours worked as recorded in their platforms. By offering such views into the economic health of the entire construction sector, both say they can assist industry groups and modernize construction’s business practices.

“将项目数据数字化是一回事,” Procore全球合作伙伴和联盟副总裁Kris Lengieza说,他曾是Stiles和Weitz Co.的虚拟设计和建筑主管,然后加入了技术公司。“我们都迈出了一大步,并从笔,纸和excel中迈出了一大步。现在,我们必须谈论标准化数据。安排它,组织起来,然后我们必须弄清楚如何分析它然后可视化。”

Lengieza says the contractors he worked for in the early years of this millennium were still in the process of understanding and utilizing project data to inform future decisions. “It’s not necessarily related to size. It’s related to how invested contractors are and how important their data maturity is,” he explains.

精炼施工过程,在施工期间为项目绩效提供可见性,并帮助所有者提供高质量的结构是许多技术提供商的关键目标,因为承包商不是唯一的客户。许多行业都为设计师,所有者和承包商提供服务。他们将施工过程视为可以并且应该进行完善的施工过程,并将项目数据视为可以告知这些改进的东西。

“如果你是一个老板,圣杯是你ability to ‘round-trip’ a lot of the relevant operational data of the building back into the design process,” says Sidharth Haksar, head of construction strategy and industry partnerships at Autodesk. He says in manufacturing, a customer creates machine parts, then puts them to work out in the field with sensors transmitting information back. Designers look at that information to gain insight about the next revision of their design. “Because we start with the design authoring tools all the way through construction, we believe we are best positioned” to bring that operational data back to the design stage for the next iteration or to inform the next design, improving on costs and scheduling, he says.

对承包商的持续关注是限制风险。尽管可以通过供应商的云访问项目数据很方便,但无论其安全性如何,它仍然代表着持续的责任。一位主要承包商ENR对本文的交谈表示,其任新利18备用务是决定要保留哪些信息以及项目移交后可以放弃的信息。

来自各种云产品的信息

Mortenson sought to standardize how it keeps the information from the various cloud products it uses on its many projects in Sharepoint and Office 365
图形由莫滕森(Mortenson)提供
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与云连接的档案柜

Minneapolis-based Mortenson has 13 offices and ranks at No. 19 on the 2022 ENR Top 400 Contractors list. Its projects run the gamut from local bank branches to the $2-billion Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.

该公司将项目文件,文件共享和协作最佳实践标准化的举动是由Mortenson Project Solutions高级经理Alison Hart共同领导的深远努力。自2016年初以来,那里的项目解决方案团队一直在推动现代化公司的项目管理技术现代化,不仅关注CPM平台,还关注从CAD或BIM文件到铅笔在现场进行的测量的所有内容。

In late 2019, Hart’s team, along with other Mortenson information technology leaders, started an effort to migrate project documents and file collaboration during project delivery from in-house network file servers to the cloud, using the Office 365 platform with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint as the new standard interface. This included simplifying folder structures across Mortenson’s many operating groups, as well as incorporating the access and permissions needed for various internal and external project stakeholders. The team had to do this while ensuring there was enough flexibility in the system for project teams to manage and organize documents based on the unique needs and challenges of the project.

“Our clients have been well served with [retaining data], as we’re able to use past successes and best practices on projects today.”
Alberici首席技术官Aaron Geiger

Microsoft Teams became the visual interface of a project and Mortenson used channels hosted on a separate SharePoint site to be the external facing platform for project partners.

Moving to Teams and SharePoint offered Mortenson’s project solutions group and IT team the ability to standardize and separate project data for internal stakeholders in a private channel, and external collaboration through the general default channel. External channels were open to anyone on the project.

“There’s no sensitive documentation—this is for you, for your trade partners, your owners, and your designers.” Hart says.

Internally, the team went to great lengths to keep confidential information private, putting restrictions and security controls in place to safeguard sensitive project details. Project teams would still use a variety of other tools to manage the project, but the collaboration and final deliverables were all collected through Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. This approach allows Mortenson’s 13 groups and all of its project designers, owners and trade partners to create their own experience in the cloud and not have to rely on the contractor's servers as the main point of access to data.

“有什么对你更直观的?”哈特问。“它是通过SharePoint访问它的吗?它是从团队看的吗?它是否将其同步到您的OneDrive,这与[Windows]文件资源管理器类似?”

哈特说,现在莫滕森使用了Microsoft团队和SharePoint已有几年了,其项目文档管理团队总部位于公司总部,在2020年受到任务,并进一步改善了系统的原始设计和概念。BIM,CAD和其他丰富数据文件等施工文件类型继续发生变化,用户反馈促使Mortenson重新访问了它如何使用Microsoft平台。

哈特说:“我们采用了我所说的“文件柜”文档管理方式,我们已经将其现代化,以考虑当今现场办公室中使用的所有协作应用程序。”“仍然有很多冗余,我们开始对其进行一些定义。”

规定性的指南以及在哪里澄清项目文件的关闭过程以及在施工过程中使用的各种应用程序的关闭流程仍在确定为新的标准程序。

建筑项目管理平台(例如Autodesk Build)越来越多地对施工过程本身进行分析。
Dashboard screenshot courtesy of Autodesk
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From Cloud to Data Warehouse

总部位于密歇根州的Southfield Barton Malow在Enr的前400名承包商名单上排名第30位,正在对其数据采取新利18备用不同的方法,而不仅仅是将其保留在供应商云上,也不只是将其藏在私人的内部云上。作为Autodesk Construction Cloud的长期用户,该公司使用Autodesk构建来捕获跨项目团队的数据。业务转型总监Ted Jennings于2019年开始与供应商合作,将其项目数据与Power BI等分析工具联系起来,以筹集项目洞察力。

“我们使用Autodesk Build,这是创建项目管理数据的地方。我们已经建立了一种系统的方式,将数据传输到我们的环境中以用于商业智能报告中。”他说。詹宁斯(Jennings)与Autodesk合作建立了数据连接器,他说:“该连接器使我们能够提取数据。我们利用Autodesk平台服务来编程工作,将数据直接带入我们的数据环境中。”

Jennings说,Barton Malow还使用Microsoft Azure和SAP中的工具来管理其数据仓库。“We want to be better stewards of our data so that the data that we’re generating on projects today is not only useful today, but there are subsets of that data that we want to leverage in two years, five years, ten years down the road.," he says. "That is currently the journey we are on.”

“我们希望成为更好的数据管理者,以便今天我们在项目上生成的数据不仅有用。”新利18备用网址
Barton Malow商业转型总监Ted Jennings

Construction schedules is one area of its business in which Barton Malow has learned how to better leverage data. “There’s a lot of data and information that goes into a construction schedule. Learning to capture and use all information from a data analytics perspective can be challenging,” Jennings says.

经理和Barton Malow的应用程序开发团队与Autodesk的Construction IQ团队合作,利用其整个建筑生命周期的商业智能功能。詹宁斯说:“ Autodesk帮助我们的一种方法是,他们建立了机器学习分类工具来查看问题。”Autodesk的Construction智商可以在问题中分析文本,然后对其进行分类并附加有用的上下文标签。

“The text that a team member enters into the description field of that design issue is analyzed by a set of machine-learning algorithms, then Construction IQ applies tagging based on the machine-learning model," he says. "The benefit to us is that this additional information helps improve reporting and downstream analytics.”

在Autodesk构建中使用施工智商是Barton Malow如何利用机器学习从其数据中产生见解。以前,对问题进行分类是一项手动努力,需要在组织中很难标准化的主观判断。借助Construction IQ,该标记是自动化的,为数据分析提供了一定程度的标准化和见解。

graph

Pre-pandemic, contractors’ methods of creating project data were siloed and manual. Remote office work and communication to sites from home accelerated the transition to cloud storage.
Graph courtesy of dodge data and analytics
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留在云中

从法律的角度来看,即使在项目完成后有潜在的见解,承包商通常有两种方法来处理项目数据保留。

承包商必须做出选择 - 他们是否想长时间保留数据来保护自己在潜在的纠纷和诉讼中,或者他们认为保留数据比机会更重要的风险?

圣路易斯承包商Alberici首席技术官Aaron Geiger在Enr的前400名榜单上排名第35位,他牢牢地在机会营地。新利18备用他说:“如果公司认为数据带来了风险,他们会处置该风险。在Alberici,我们认为数据支持证明我们做正确的事的证据,因此我们对数据的平均保留政策比平均的保留政策更长。透明

该公司使用Procore的CPM平台,并发现能够重新访问云中的封闭项目的能力是有价值的。新利18备用网址由于供应商会根据施工量向客户收取费用,因此一旦一个项目关闭了,该项目将永久保留在其平台中,而无需额外费用。

Geiger说:“我们所新利18备用网址有的项目都存储在安全的云解决方案中,例如Egnyte和Procore。”

对于Alberici与政府客户的合作,它使用了调整的系统来符合NIST/CMMC安全标准。根据Geiger的说法,将数据存储在Procore和其他构建技术工具等平台中,例如用于调度的Oracle Primavera P6或用于工作现场数据捕获的结构地点。

“我们正在接受过去几年中学到的知识,丰富了团队成员的经验,并研究消耗数据的方式”新利18备用
Alison Hart, Senior Manager of Project Solutions, Mortenson

他说:“如果您要查找三年前的数据,这些平台可让您看到三年前从事的所有项目,无论它们是活跃还是关闭。”新利18备用网址

Alberici仍在自己的数据中心托管少量的旧系统,但Geiger表示,云数据存储今天非常便宜,以至于从技术角度保留实际项目信息的成本非常低。Alberici的整个公司核心云存储提供商是Egnyte。操作和支持组都将文件存储在Egnyte中,该文件一旦不活动就可以根据公司规则移至一个低成本的档案域。一旦数据年龄大于保留期,它就会自动删除。

当Alberici将项目交换给客户所有者时,它会使用Procore中的数据功能来使所有项目与该项目保持一致。

“We’ve found it’s not worth the time to cull through project files and data to delete things,” Geiger says. “[We focus on] retaining and archiving data based on business value. Our clients have been well served with this strategy, as we’re able to use past successes and best practices on projects today.”

他说,Alberici位于在其项目数据上使用商业智能的爬网和步行阶段之间,只是因为大多数施工数据仍然不是自动生成的,并且需要野外人员的手动输入。根据盖格(Geiger)的说法,解决限制的技术的最新进步现在是许多承包商的主要投资领域。

他说:“目前,我们正在对不同的项目类型和不同的不同市场进行基本比较。”他补充说,该公司还认识到没有为现场人员创建更加繁重的数据输入任务。

截屏

Contractors say Procore’s analytics dashboard is useful during the job and is also available in the cloud for years afterwards for project comparison purposes.
屏幕截图由Procore提供
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施工数据下一步在哪里?

While project data is less siloed than it has ever been, contractors and construction technology providers are still grappling with how to get needed data from one party to another. Many vendors are charging for integrations that use their APIs, which can be a very expensive added cost for contractors, says Burger.

Construction technology providers can also limit a contractor’s bandwidth when accessing the cloud, a practice known as "throttling," which makes getting project data out of a platform time-consuming.

The strategies contractors are deploying to deal with project data after closeouts show an industry still struggling with how to store and discard data, even as the era of storing everything on paper in a box or filing cabinet is rapidly fading.

用于施工项目管理系统的各种定价模型也在发生变化。PJ Dick的Dipalma说:“如果我们要把它固定在您的收入上,那就是荣誉系统。”

他指出,给定的技术提供商不会总是看到承包商在任何给定时间所拥有的所有合同量。由于在施工管理平台中新利18备用官网登录未跟踪许多成本和项目元素,因此确定整体音量可能有点像外壳游戏。但这一切都回到了供应商与承包商之间的谈判。

Lengieza表示,基于批量投票的Procore定价最终对承包商来说更好,因为然后在项目关闭后的数据存储无限期地保留在施工管理平台中。“With our pricing model you can manage your projects during the preconstruction phase for free," he says. "Any projects that don’t go under construction won’t count towards your volume, so you don’t have to pay for them.”

哈克斯(Haksar)表示,在过去的几年中,Autodesk的定价模型已经发展起来,为客户如何购买软件即服务提供了灵活性和选择。他说:“我们一直专注于以他们希望购买和消费我们的解决方案的方式为客户提供灵活性。”“您想要一个与无限用户访问的施工量相关的模型吗?大胆试试吧。如果每个用户定价模型对您管理建筑业务的方式更有意义,那就去做。如果您想采用更多的消费模型,付钱的方法,我们也可以使用。”

Haksar补充说,Autodesk在合同期内没有审核施工量。

Despite the range of approaches to the data storage problem, all of the contractor technologists ENR spoke to for this article agree that available methods to store and better use project data are changing, and no one is sure what the perfect solution is today—or will be tomorrow.

“我们正在接受过去几年中学到的知识。我们仍在研究消耗数据的方式。”哈特说。