The Construction Blog

The latest talk of the town in the Apple blogosphere is 3D head-tracking. Apple recently filed a patent for technology that allows users to change perspective of an object by moving their head or body. So instead of dragging your mouse to rotate a graph or chart, you simply look behind it; a more intuitive approach (at least in the eyes of Apple engineers).

We’re big advocates of “going paperless.” Our desks are free of folders, pens, printers and sticky notes. There’s not a single TPS report to be found. We’re also big advocates of software. So, when a visitor to our website shared their concern about the paper waste from printing blueprints, we were intrigued. Can estimating and takeoff software end the destruction of forests.

This is the first in a series of “state of the industry” reports in which we will share our observations on construction software industry trends. While reporting the recessive state of the industry is not breaking news, there are some interesting trends that we can share. Not everything is gloomy, and significant technological shifts are underway.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had big plans for the construction industry – $131 billion big. That stimulus money is supposed to help an industry that is still hemorrhaging jobs today. So far, the ARRA has sent money to all corners of the construction industry, from residential building construction to highway projects to water and sewer line maintenance.

Dexter + Chaney has launched an equipment tracking system for heavy construction companies. The product, “Spectrum Equipment Service System,” tracks equipment hours, fuel consumption, and maintenance activity. Staying true to their mission – solving problems for construction markets – Dexter + Chaney has done it again with this latest addition

Whether you’re the general contractor of a major construction firm or a local home builder, the completion of a project’s “punch list” is the final barrier between you and receiving payment for your work. The explosion in popularity of smartphones begs for a solution to the traditional, low-tech way of approaching a construction project’s punch list.

Software Advice, a free online resource for software buyers, has moved its headquarters from San Francisco, CA, to Austin, TX.Founded in 2005, Software Advice matches technology buyers with the right software for their organization. The company serves a range of vertical markets, including the construction, medical, property management and retail industries.

Given the recent deadline for registering LEED v2.2 projects, we were reminded of a post we wanted to write: how construction project management software can be used to track LEED credits. Tracking LEED credits requires software functionality similar to that required for more traditional construction project management. A few leading vendors have re-purposed their technology to make this possible.

Unless you’ve been holed up at a job site for the past six months, you’ve probably heard of Twitter, the website that allows you to post 140-character updates about virtually anything. Nearly every news organization has written about Twitter, thereby contributing to it’s exponential growth and user base of ~1 million. Twitter was first adopted by tech-savvy computer engineers and web designers.

Forecasting construction costs is one of the most challenging steps in the pre-construction process. Estimators must calculate costs of materials, equipment and labor for the entire life cycle of a project. Adding to the difficulty of the task, costs vary in price based on a project’s location, size and type. Many contractors outsource this to a third party.