Related Links: Software Advice landing page for construction software A new report on the software aspirations of contractors, based on analysis of thousands of inquiries from software buyers in 2014, shows that improving the accuracy of estimating is the goal driving most software shoppers, but the desire to improve doesn't align with a willingness to pay.The desires are not surprising, considering the analysis also found that 52% of the prospective buyers currently use pen and paper to conduct estimating, takeoff, bid management and other construction processes. In 34% of the inquiries analyzed a desire to improve estimating was cited. Improving
Photo Courtesy of John Russo/ARC A worker scans back-of-house utilities at an airport terminal in Los Angeles. Image Courtesy of John Russo/ARC Captured data creates a point cloud model. Related Links: Industry Tech Advocates Make the Case for Hastened Adoption High Performance Teams Needed to Meet Construction Challenges As the construction industry expands the adoption of reality capture, more contractors are using the technology to assess accurately existing conditions, verify work during construction and provide an as-built model of finished work to building owners.Because developers and manufacturers continue to improve scanning hardware and software, contractors "are able to find a
Enlarge Related Links: Pinchot University Yau Lee Group The idea of "intrapreneurship"—that is, nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit within big corporations— resonated with attendees of ENR's FutureTech conference, held in San Francisco on March 16-17. Gifford Pinchot III, who coined the term, said the idea is relevant to construction, particularly now as it pushes toward high-performance buildings.Intrapreneurs exhibit curiosity, often spend free time developing an idea and see the big picture, says Pinchot, author of "Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation." He offers an online program that helps intrapreneurs build business plans and teams and coaches them as projects
Related Links: Sunshot Catalyst Hackathon Pitches The SunShot Catalyst Prize program is a 60-day virtual hackathon that was launched in mid-February and sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. The program awards innovators that make a product that can reduce the soft costs associated with the solar industry, such as financing and permitting. “The work that’s being done in this hackathon is really work that’s being utilized to advance the solar industry as a whole,” says Debbie Brodt-Giles, digital assets manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). She connects SunShot Catalyst participants to NREL data and tools to
Rising cybercrime has executives on edge as the industry increasingly relies on electronic project data. Risk experts chafe at lack of data on cyber attacks, saying ignorance hampers defense. Federal regulators agree and new rules are expected. What should company leaders do?
No cyberthreat better represents the difficulty of hitting a moving security target than ransomware, which encrypts a computer's files and demands the owner pay a ransom, usually in Bitcoins, to get the data back.
ENR asks an array of vendors serving the industry how they assure customers their data is secure and their services will not become a vector for the next cyberattack.
Related Links: Intellinote Intellinote's Evernote Importer A cloud-based enterprise collaboration system released a new field management tool that allows users to edit, annotate and share service requests between the field and the office with iOS devices and desktop computers."We look to have a holistic environment that allows people to get work done in conjunction with their existing tools and processes," says Tony Lopresti, CEO of Intellinote, Reston, Va. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel."By not recreating programs such as Adobe Acrobat, Google Docs and other entrenched software and, instead, piggybacking on and extending their capabilities, Intellinote's Field Service Management
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