HP SitePrint for Trimble Layout - Blog by Ryan Fisher

eBook: 5 ways HP SitePrint can help transform your building operations

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:55:57 +0000

Covering on-site digital adoption, project predictability, and the challenge of building the future workforce, this eBook describes five ways HP SitePrint can help transform your building operations.

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Infographic: From site to C-Suite: How can HP SitePrint support construction companies growth

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:53:38 +0000

Today, there are big opportunities in construction, for those that have solutions for the equally big challenges. Read this infographic to see how HP SitePrint supports construction companies growth.

Find out more about how HP SitePrint can fast-track your building layouts.

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White Paper: Digital Transformation in construction: why general contractors must adapt

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:52:08 +0000

Digital transformation in construction can help remedy industry issues—from labor shortages to sustainability to spiralling costs—but only if contractors can adapt. This eBook explores the topic.

Find out more about how HP SitePrint can fast-track your building layouts.

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How automation in construction can attract and retain talent, and drive productivity

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:44:04 +0000

Currently, the construction industry is struggling with a lack of skilled labor and cost inefficiencies. In fact, six in ten US firms surveyed by Deloitte are experiencing project delays due to workforce shortages. This has dangerous implications for profits at a time of higher competition for projects and tighter operating margins across construction projects.

But if every market challenge presents an opportunity, then emerging robotics and automation in the construction industry is key part of efforts to reverse the sector’s fortunes. Whilst not a silver bullet, it certainly has the ability to make work more satisfying for your teams, create jobs, and improve productivity.

Can autonomous construction equipment help attract and retain talent?

More detrimental than simply a lack of workers in the construction industry, is the lack of skilled ones. The problem is twofold: on one hand, not enough young people are entering the industry and, on the other, current, more experienced workers are having to spend more and more time doing labor-intensive tasks, that carry health risks.

67% of the younger generation take technology into consideration when looking for a job. As digital natives, they expect real-time access to information, smooth digitally enabled processes, and instant communication and feedback. Embracing automation technology offers all these benefits, which is why the use of it on-site is likely to attract these workers.

As well as this, autonomous construction equipment helps free up current workers’ time to focus on more value-creating work. Layout is one job on the construction site that, done manually, is time intensive. This can be problematic when there’s a labor shortage, not to mention that layout professionals’ expertise lies far beyond simply doing the layout. Daniel Martinez, VP and General Manager of HP Large Format Printing, notes: "Layout experts are a scarce resource who add a lot of value in terms of planning and strategy, but often end up dedicating most of their time to manual execution."

When skilled labor is a scarcity, automation in construction helps boost the productivity of your team, while attracting the next generation of talent.

Boosting the bottom line with robotics and automation in the construction industry

As well as attracting and retaining younger talent, one of the clearest benefits of automation is that it can also drive efficiency and productivity–by overcoming the slow speeds and high costs of manual processes.

Intelligent robots, for example, have been developed with the ability to lay bricks or tie rebar. One such rebar-tying bot can autonomously tie up to 1,000 intersections per hour, resulting in a 34% reduction in work hours across the whole project.

The construction industry, historically, has been slow to adopt new technologies. However, as a lack of skilled labor and decreased productivity continue to hamper its growth, 90% of construction decision makers believe that the industry needs to change. And according to a recent McKinsey report, indicators suggest that companies who have invested in construction technology and facilities are already gaining traction.

As the latest technology to enhance the construction workforce’s capabilities and increase productivity, HP SitePrint is a layout robot that automates construction site layouts. It’s just as accurate as doing it manually, and prints on a variety of surfaces and materials, plus it’s cost-efficient and predictable–making it easier for you to manage client, authority, and company expectations.

"We're continuing to put the layout professional at the center of the story, but also making it faster." – Andy Dickey, AMS Business Development Manager, HP Construction Services

Find out more about how HP SitePrint can fast-track your building layouts.

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How are building layout hidden costs hurting your construction business?

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:55:48 +0000

Most construction professionals know Hofstadter's law, if not by name, then by experience. It states that a project always takes longer than expected, even when the law is taken into account.

According to Hofstadter's law, the time estimated to complete a project will always fall short of the actual time required. Sound familiar?

Of course, it does: construction projects continually run over time and over budget. In fact, only 30% of contractors finish projects on time and within budget. Arguably, with so many variables and moving parts, delays in construction are inevitable. But if delays are inevitable, can’t they be factored in? Well, no (see Hofstadter's law).

What we know with clarity is that delays are costly. Every extra day on site incurs the cost of extra wages, extended equipment hires, and the loss of future earnings from the finished building (e.g., rent on a shop). Delays can be caused by a few big issues or hundreds of small ones. Sometimes it’s obvious what the impact of a delay is, but often they produce ‘hidden’ costs. Which is why it’s prudent to shine a light on every aspect of construction, to identify what can be made more reliable, to remove barriers to accelerated progress. For this reason, in this article, we’re specifically talking about building layout. It might appear to be a seemingly small on-site job, but with little visibility or control over it, there may be a relationship between layout inefficiencies, delays, and associated cost implications across other parts of a project.

The challenge of construction layout costing and forecasting

Forecasting in construction is nothing if not challenging. To be accurate, you need as much data and visibility as possible. And in an industry that isn’t fully digitized yet, much of that data and visibility will be missing.

Even with the information you can access, it’s still a complex art requiring multiple skills. You need to know the minutiae of a project (exact volumes, dimensions, and safety requirements); you need to understand some macro-economics (factoring in inflation, possible interest rate changes); and human resource skills help too (how many sick days will be taken? Where will I find a skilled layout team?).

What do we mean by ‘visibility’? Broadly, it’s having the tools to monitor progress, understand resource requirements, and identify bottlenecks, so you can help push projects along.3 The ‘tools’ will usually be a form of cloud-based digital application that links data generated at various data points (such as on site, from HR, from suppliers, etc.).

Every blind spot is a potential delay, a hidden cost. The total cost of construction errors made each year in the US is an estimated (and staggering) $273 billion.4 On the other hand, every blind spot is also a potential opportunity to be more efficient. Digitalizing processes, for example introducing HP SitePrint, the autonomous construction layout robot, improves visibility by generating digitized data, and improves forecasting accuracy because the process becomes more predictable.

Beyond the total station layout

Today, total station layout is a mainstay of almost every modern building project. Sitting atop its tripod, the robotic total station records measurements from a long distance via remote control. Its microprocessor performs a number of necessary computations and calculations. Introduced almost 50 years ago,5 the total station is one of the 20th century’s most instantly recognizable construction tools. It was an evolution of the basic theodolite that’s been in use for thousands of years and helped build the pyramids. And now, HP SitePrint, the autonomous layout robot is the next evolution for the robotic total station. The efficiencies that come with robotic total station layout (can you imagine life without it?) are about to become more efficient. Plus, there are some new ones.

HP SitePrint delivers breakthrough layout efficiency, with as much as 10x productivity gains. Combining HP’s printing knowhow and robotics technology, it accelerates projects, avoiding errors or redos. You can count on the same precise, accurate implementation of complex construction layout, but without anyone having to get on their hands and knees—important when 1 in 5 construction workers in the US are currently older than 55.

This innovation in robotics isn’t confined to building layout. The global construction robotics market was valued at $50 million in 2021 and is expected to grow to $164 million by 2036, highlighting the value of these tools’ abilities to support efficient construction work.

Building layout: Improving process and efficiency

To benefit from the efficiency of digital technology, it must be embraced by the workforce. This presents its own challenges.

The term ‘digital transformation’ threatens to alienate on-site workers and decision makers. It potentially gives them anxiety that their job is under threat, or they’ll be given a complex tool that they won’t be able to operate. So, how you communicate change matters. You need to be very specific about the benefits of change, and present your plans in relatable, simple language to remove any ambiguity.

Introducing an autonomous robot to a reluctant layout team may sound tricky, but HP SitePrint has all the attributes to make its adoption easy. It has a straightforward, single-minded benefit: improving building layout. Simply, it vastly increases what your layout team can achieve in a fraction of the time, while making their lives easier. Once the benefits of a new tool are communicated and understood, construction site leadership needs to make the transformation as seamless as possible. This means issuing the right training on how to use new digital tools and providing easy-to-follow guides for troubleshooting.

Conclusion

The hidden costs of building layout—delays caused by labor shortages and inefficiency—can be eliminated with digitalization. Turning weeks of layout into days, HP SitePrint is fast, predictable, and efficient. Its ease of use means you can cut costs and speed up by allowing expert professionals to dedicate their time to more value-adding tasks. And it’s competitive with—and can be cheaper than—conventional methods. HP provides a model where supplies, repairs, and support are wrapped up together as a service, based on usage. 

Through building layout digitalization with HP SitePrint, you can eliminate blind spots, inefficiencies, and hidden costs, in order to drive productivity and predictability to manage business risk.

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Total station layout is evolving, continuing a long-running construction industry trend

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:55:48 +0000

Enhancing total station layout at the frontier of digital transformation in construction

Total station layout is a mainstay of almost every modern building project. However, it’s almost unrecognizable next to its predecessor device–originally used by the Ancient Egyptians to help build the pyramids.

So how has the total station been adapted through the decades? How has it boosted workforce’s productivity and digital transformation in construction? And what might the future look like for construction layout technology?

The evolution of building layout with the total station

The early form of a total station was called a Theodolite. Incredibly, these were used by the Egyptians to measure areas and distances during the building of the pyramids. Up until the 1960s, these were the major surveying instruments for collecting geodata referenced in an Earth-fixed coordinate system. Over time, as technology advanced, the core design of the total station was extended with features to make surveying faster and more convenient.

Servomotors enabled horizontal and vertical angle movements to save time when staking out coordinates.
The prism was pinpointed through either radio signals or imaging.
Stepless magnetic motors were introduced that operated more quickly and silently than mechanical gears.
Wireless communication was employed so the device could be operated by an external controller, increasing the safety of on-site workers.
Inbuilt microprocessors were fitted to collect and store data that could be processed into angles, horizontal distances, and x, y, z coordinates.

This could then be transferred to tablets, laptops, office servers, or the cloud. This all led to what we now recognize as the modern, tech-led, and efficient robotic total station.

So, what's next for building layout?

In many ways, the latest iteration of the total station is already in use. The robotic total station can record measurements from a long distance via remote control. Its microprocessor records measurements in a memory chip and performs any necessary computations and calculations for the surveyor.

But construction robotics isn’t limited to the total station. In fact, the global construction robotics market size was valued at $50 million in 2021 and is expected to grow to $164 million by 2030. Construction companies are increasingly using technology like this to meet workforce shortages by attracting younger, more tech-savvy workers, and improve the productivity of their current teams.

Another piece of innovative technology to speed up layout work is HP SitePrint. As the next step in construction robotics, HP SitePrint automates the layout process¬–so the total station and moving robot carry out the layout work, overseen by one worker. It can help enhance your workforce’s capabilities, minimize health issues associated with traditional layouts, reduce costs, and boost productivity. And by combining HP’s expertise in print and ink with robotics technology, it can reliably and precisely print on a variety of surfaces and materials too.

Find out more about how HP SitePrint can fast-track your building layouts.

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Mythbusting digital transformation in construction: A guide for driving adoption among on-site workers

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:55:48 +0000

Construction has a reputation for lagging behind other industries in its digitalization efforts. The truth, however, is much more nuanced. In the last decade, digital technologies have created significant changes in the way construction projects are briefed, planned, designed, and assembled. However, one of the challenges is that digitalization isn’t currently implemented at the same level across the construction value chain. In particular, it’s on-site workers and trade contractors that are reluctant to adopt digital tools, despite research by McKinsey Global Institute indicating that digital transformation for construction companies can result in productivity gains of 14-15% and cost reductions of 4-6%.

90% of architects report using BIM whereas only 25% trade contractors report the same.

For field ops leaders, digitalization presents a huge opportunity to overcome current and future challenges. Amid spiraling construction costs from supply chain issues, a lack of skilled labor and more, adopting more digital ways of working are already facilitating more cost stability, productivity, and profit for the construction companies prioritizing it.

But on-site workers are renowned for their resistance, favoring pre-existing ways of working over new approaches they see as undermining their roles rather than supporting them. So, field ops leaders have to get them on side. Here are three anxieties construction’s on-site workers have, and what you can do to put their minds at ease.

"This seems over-the-top for a company of our size."

Too many on-site workers view digitalization as purely a solution for large companies. When most of the construction industry is comprised of SMEs, this is a problem.

David Barnes, Policy & Public Affairs Manager at the Chartered Institute of Building, notes, “A lot of these [SME] companies think they don’t have the time or capacity, whether that’s financial or administrative, to look at technology in the light that it should be.” For field ops leaders, this results in on-site workers viewing digitalization as a needless inconvenience rather than a supportive investment.

The best thing field ops leaders can do to bust this myth is point out the distinct benefits of digitalization for workers’ specific tasks. Digitalization can help SMEs because it offers benefits even when integrated into smaller parts of a project or process. Take safety inspections, for example: digitalization here is already working to make the sharing of documents faster, easier, and less error-prone. This is a very small but important part of safety inspections—that has to be right to protect employee health and business reputation. This shows how implementing digitalization can bring tangible benefits to a single task.3

"I don't understand it."

Another popular myth about construction digitalization is that it’s too complex to understand, use, and—by extension—see the benefits of. This attitude is termed “organ rejection”: whereby a new technology solution fails to deliver visible benefits and the workforce, noticing this, refuse to adopt it.

In many cases, however, it’s not the complexity creating the resistance. Rather, companies are implementing cutting-edge technology before they’ve figured out exactly how these can support their current operations.

This is echoed by David Philp, Chief Value Officer at the Cohesive Group “A lot of (digitalization) has been about for many years,” he says. “It’s not about trying to get better outputs. We’re very guilty of trying to digitize a broken process, then all we get is a digital broken process. We need to think more about better, more sustainable outcomes and process re-engineering.”

The best way for field ops leaders to avoid this “organ rejection” is to first look at troubleshooting their workers’ individual pain points. Take note of them and only begin to adopt digitalization, in a small way first, that works to overcome them. That way, workers begin to see clear and tangible benefits immediately and are less likely to reject the technology.

"It's replacing me."

The anxiety that technology will render workers unrequired and unnecessary is far from confined to the construction industry. Particularly as automation becomes more pervasive, employees across a number of sectors have expressed concerns that their job simply won’t exist in a few year times. In fact, staggeringly, 37% of Americans say they are worried about automation displacing them from their job permanently.

In reality, particularly in construction, there’s little evidence that technology is going to ‘replace’ anyone. It’s much more likely that it’ll work to help these workers realize safer and faster processes—and boost their productivity.

Field ops leaders tasked with convincing their workers of this have two options. Firstly, they should reiterate to workers that technology is there to support them and—importantly—have the knowledge and use cases to back this up. There’s the obvious argument that the workers resistant to technology on the construction site have no problem with the technology in their personal lives that makes their lives easier and more convenient. But also, construction industry-specific use cases are a great way to start convincing your workers of technology’s efficacy.

One such use case is that of multinational construction company, Skanska. They’ve invested significantly in the Internet of Things, using smart sensors, robust wireless networks, and real-time location tracking systems to transform construction sites into digital workspaces. The results? Real-time information flows, increased worker safety, and enhanced jobsite visibility, which allows teams and owners to make informed decisions while reducing risk.

As well as educating employees, field ops leaders should invest more in adequate reskilling too. Technology won’t replace jobs but will change them. Showing employees that technology is an investment in them is paramount, and giving them the right tools and education to make the most of these opportunities is key to motivating adoption. What’s more, it’ll make the transition as smooth and productive as possible.

David Philp is clear about the importance of reskilling. “Putting technology in place doesn’t solve things unless you put the right education and processes in place,” he says. Not only will reskilling help get teams on side but it’ll also mean the entire company can maximize its impact.

The potential of technology to help the construction industry through its challenges, now and in the future, is huge. And it’s field ops leaders’ jobs to make sure this potential isn’t undermined by worker resistance.

Whether it’s concerns about future careers or misunderstandings of technology’s efficacy, workers need to be on side–and shown that technology is there to increase their safety, fuel their productivity, and aid the company’s growth and profit margins.

One piece of construction technology that delivers all of these benefits is HP SitePrint. As a robotic solution for autonomous layouts, field ops leaders can help their layout professionals complete the same high quality of work, in a fraction of the time, whilst enjoying the health benefits that come with reducing manual work.

Find out more about how HP SitePrint can fast-track your building layouts.

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Applying marginal gains to improve efficiency and profitability in construction

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:30:24 +0000

Marginal gains is a sports performance theory first popularized by the GB Cycling team coach, Sir David Brailsford. In David’s own words: “The concept (of the theory) is to think differently about everything you do and to make minor changes to technologies, behaviors, and processes where there is an improvement in outcomes.” And following David’s subsequent wins, where this theory played a key part, it’s been adopted by businesses in every sector as a way of driving change impactfully, measurably, and successfully.

Currently, driving change is a top priority in the construction industry. Over the past few years, labor shortages, price hikes, sustainable demands, and more have collided to make construction leaders’ ability to manage and maintain growth more challenging. Things need to change. The introduction of marginal gains has the power to collectively deliver transformations in performance. Such approaches have already been successful in sectors including healthcare, aviation, and sport. For the construction industry, these marginal gains might range from digital communication tools and robotics to leadership-inspired culture changes, but all have one thing in common: they’re additional improvements with the power to make a big difference.

What can construction learn from sports performance ‘marginal gains’ theory?

Transformation efforts within the construction industry often attempt to change too much, too fast, and even successful changes can take years to show up as a strong, measurable return on investment. This has led to, what McKinsey term, “digital organ rejection” whereby a solution fails to deliver visible benefits and the workforce, noticing this, doesn’t adopt it.

The implementation of digital tools and the acceleration of digital transformation initiatives is likely to offer key opportunities to construction leaders looking to mitigate challenges and maintain growth. And the marginal gains theory might just provide an antidote to digital organ rejection within the construction industry. Simple, practical, small-scale changes—when done right—can deliver big impact. That’s what David Brailsford discovered as he, amongst other things, introduced antibacterial hand gel to cut down on cyclist’s infections and redesigned their bus to improve comfort and recuperation.

For the construction industry, similar ‘marginal gains’ have the power to accelerate digital transformation and start to deliver widescale efficiency and profitability improvements. Sensat, for example, is a construction software that brings information from different tools together, helping project teams to see their infrastructure project and more confidently make the right decisions. Implementing this software is a ‘marginal’ change and one that addresses a granular and specific pain point: the difficulty of achieving end-to-end project visibility. However, the software actually offers much more than that: time savings, cost savings, and the ability to more accurately plan, scope, and communicate projects. As well as this, wearable tech is being used more and more for worksite safety. By adding this marginal measure to aid worker’s health, productivity increases and efficiencies are gained across the whole project lifespan.

Read more about why general contractors must digitize.

Driving digital transformation using marginal gains

For construction leaders, driving digital adoption is key to their ability to manage and maintain growth more successfully. And marginal gains can offer a more impactful way to do it. So, how?

Business improvement vs digital transformation in construction

A survey carried out by the contechreport.com, the annual construction technology report from JB Knowledge, revealed that the most limiting factor in adopting new technology in the workplace is employees—with 35.4% of the team and 27.8% of management hesitant about trying new processes.7 In construction, this is a particular issue. Technical-sounding terms like ‘construction robotics’, ‘building information modeling’, and ‘digital transformation’ can alienate a workforce being asked to adopt new digital tools.

If construction leaders begin calling initiatives like this ‘business improvement’, they avoid the connotations of wholesale change associated with ‘transformation’. A small change in the way ideas are presented can minimize worker resistance, and boost the efficiency and productivity of these initiatives; a simple ‘marginal gain’ that can result in sizeable benefits to their organization.

Process change and governance

Any new process in construction is only as good as the governance introduced and enforced by construction leaders to ensure its adoption and consistent use. Yet when it comes to digital transformation, a recent EY survey of the industry revealed that only 25% of responding Engineering & Construction firms report a clear strategy, even though 98% agree that digital solutions will be critical to the future viability of their company. There’s also an added problem when it comes to process change and governance in the construction industry. Project deliveries often involve a combination of permanent employees and third-party contractors, with their own processes and ways of doing things. That means, implementing digital solutions across a project requires extra coordination effort.

In this case, however, the marginal gains theory tells us that one small change is likely to filter down to every worker on a project. Here, it’s leadership buy-in and support. In fact, the same EY survey noted that the efficacy of digital transformation is “directly tied to strong transformational leadership” and its ability to create “a strong culture of change.” A small change to the attitudes and investments of construction leaders can incite a larger, meaningful change in the attitudes and practices of their workforce.

Keep it simple, keep it relevant

Perhaps the most critical part in achieving any marginal gains is ensuring the things you’re changing, and expecting people to adopt, can be easily understood and applied to specific day-to-day tasks. The construction industry, as McKinsey pointed out recently, has been guilty of simply “installing IT solutions, rather than fixing pain points.”10 For this reason, construction’s top leaders can increase the likelihood that digital technology will make a positive difference by first identifying operational changes to improve performance. After that, defining digital use cases will help enable those operational changes.

In other words, construction leaders should look to keep their digital transformation efforts simple and relevant—just as the marginal gains theory dictates. One contractor recently developed an app, for example, allowing supervisors to sign completion certificates digitally. Not only was this a simple and relevant change, but it opened the door to further transformation in a more manageable way. After the app was developed, the team defined a new use case to push safety briefings and alerts through the app so supervisors could disseminate them to teams.

70% of digital transformation across all sectors and organizations don’t achieve their goals.12 But perhaps, by adopting a more incremental approach, construction leaders can ensure their initiatives fall within the successful 30%.

Conclusion

One new digital tool that can offer marginal gains for construction leaders looking to digitize their operations, and improve efficiency and productivity, is HP SitePrint.

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eBook: Bringing the power of HPs ink innovation to construction sites

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:14:20 +0000

Leaning on HP's ink innovation and expertise, HP SitePrint ushers in a new era of durability, versatility, and predictability to building layout. Read this eBook to find out how.

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