The IT Nerd

Procore Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of construction management software, announced an enhanced Preconstruction solution at its Procore Innovation Summit. This solution connects people, designs, and data across preconstruction and the course of construction on Procore’s platform, with analytics tools to support the entire process. 

According to a 2018 study conducted by FMI, correcting work that was incorrectly done, or rework, cost over US$500 billion in 2018. On average, 52 per cent of that rework was caused by poor project data and communication. Procore Preconstruction is tailored for owners, general contractors and specialty contractors looking to win and build more profitable projects, while reducing risk and rework. Every project stakeholder can now be connected to a project’s design, estimates, bidding and budgets within the Procore platform. 

Improving Estimates by Connecting Estimating to Financials

Procore Preconstruction starts with estimating and takeoff, and the data flows into bidding and financials tools. This allows users to better manage project costs through all phases of construction, by connecting the preconstruction teams with the field.

 
Procore acquired construction estimating and takeoff company Esticom in October 2020. Esticom’s technology is now integrated into the Procore platform and its user interface, enabling users to:

Automatically create their budget and prime contracts directly from an estimate with a single click, preventing important information from being lost in the transition from preconstruction to operations.

Streamline change management and ensure their total estimated profit is not lost between systems or teams — made possible by connecting drawing markups to estimating via the Drawings tool. 

Build more accurate takeoffs faster with Auto-Count, an artificial intelligence feature that assists in symbol recognition.

Use Procore’s new benchmark data, available within Procore Analytics, to compare the past performance of initial estimates to the final budget at project delivery. The performance of specific specialty contractors across projects of similar size and type can also be compared.

Better Design Coordination to Ensure Constructability

If the first half of reducing cost risk is to make better estimates, the second half is better design coordination to ensure constructability. Constructability review is an all-hands-on-deck process with the design team and the project team collaborating to flag issues and ultimately ensure that the plans put into action can be delivered as designed. 

Procore Preconstruction has tools for effectively managing design collaboration, including:

• Coordination issues: This new tool allows teams to track and manage all 2D and 3D design issues in one location, and to perform collaborative design reviews on drawings. 
• “Follow Me” feature in Procore BIM: Users can see all active users reviewing the model and navigate directly to their location with a single click, making design reviews more efficient and effective. 
• Dynamic 2D Views from Procore BIM: Users can create 2D drawing views of the design from the BIM model. Now teams can see all building systems consolidated in a single view to make sure everything is coordinated and properly located prior to construction. 

Learn more about Procore Preconstruction in this blog post and at https://www.procore.com/preconstruction. 

Procore Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of construction management software, today announced that Adera Development Corporation, a pioneer in sustainable mass timber construction, has chosen Procore as its construction management platform.

Founded in 1969, Vancouver-based Adera has built a reputation in wood frame residential construction. SmartWood™, its proprietary Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) material, further builds on innovations in energy, safety and sound efficiency. Adera used SmartWood™ on recent projects including Crest, a 179-unit residential project in North Vancouver. 

Adera needed a project management solution that was capable of tracking the complex Crest project and sharing timely information with internal and external stakeholders, especially its subcontractor partners. Following completion of the Crest project, Adera estimated that by using Procore, its efficiency during the framing process improved by 30 per cent. Moreover, Adera estimates savings of approximately $1,500 per unit using Procore when Crest was compared to other past projects. The savings stemmed from holding trades accountable regarding deficiency work.

The company successfully managed the construction of the project with Procore, including scheduling tradespeople, monitoring safety and managing RFIs. It was also able to leverage the platform to show government partners the high professional standard of its project management. With Procore, the Adera team supports its development side with greater transparency and more data than would otherwise be available. 

Adera plans to roll out Procore’s financial tools in the future, and further integrate the platform into how it manages projects. Learn more about how Adera is using Procore to manage the complex build of Crest: https://www.procore.org/en-ca/casestudies/adera. 

Procore Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of construction management software, today announced it has acquired INDUS.AI, makers of an artificial intelligence-powered analytics platform for the construction industry. This acquisition adds computer vision capabilities to the Procore platform, helping owners, general contractors, and specialty contractors realize greater efficiencies, safety, and profitability. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.   

The construction industry is undergoing a digital transformation. While this transformation is producing mountains of previously inaccessible data, up to 96 per cent of construction data goes unused. INDUS.AI’s AI engine learns from project management platforms, cameras, sensors, drawings, building information models, schedules, and more — and creates observations, recommendations, and alerts that help project teams make data-driven decisions. INDUS.AI’s solutions are used to track and review construction progress, ensure safety and compliance, gain real-time project visibility, view labor deployment, minimize equipment idle time, and resolve claim disputes. 

Every day, INDUS.AI monitors over 100 million square feet of construction sites with its AI engine detecting anomalies and progress. It has been trained with millions of images and videos specific to construction, and is able to identify more than 70 metadata labels per image. The INDUS.AI acquisition builds on Procore’s acquisition of Avata Intelligence in 2020, which brought world-class AI talent to Procore and is delivering smart automation solutions and predictive insights to Procore customers. Procore plans to integrate INDUS.AI’s capabilities into the Procore platform. In the interim, INDUS AI’s solutions will not be commercially available to new customers. 

Procore is a leading provider of construction management software. Over 1 million projects and more than $1 trillion USD in construction volume have run on Procore’s platform. Our platform connects every project stakeholder to solutions we’ve built specifically for the construction industry—for the owner, the general contractor, and the specialty contractor. Procore’s Marketplace has a multitude of partner solutions that integrate seamlessly with our platform, giving construction professionals the freedom to connect with what works best for them. Headquartered in Carpinteria, California, Procore has offices in Canada and around the globe. Learn more at Procore.com.

INDUS.AI’s construction intelligence solution enables real estate investors, owners, developers, and general contractors to have real-time visibility and actionable insights into all activities, productivity, and risks at their construction sites. A Procore App Marketplace partner since 2018, INDUS.AI seeks to make construction sites and projects safer, more efficient and completely transparent. Learn more at www.indus.ai. 

New data shows how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected construction activity in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, with worker hours dropping in March and recovering in late spring and the summer. The Construction Activity Index is an effort by Procore to support the construction industry through the current pandemic by providing insights from construction activity data within the Procore platform. The index tracks weekly changes in worker hours from a baseline the week of March 16 through the week of July 27, 2020. 

Across the provinces for which data is available, worker hours dropped through March to a low of 41 per cent below baseline the week of April 6. All the provinces were all above the baseline as of the week of July 27. 

The provinces have had different COVID-19 caseloads, timelines and policies, including protocols addressing construction activity. Insights from data within Procore indicate that Ontario saw the sharpest decline, dropping 57 per cent below the baseline the week of April 6. Worker hours in Ontario then climbed before levelling off in June. Alberta’s decline was not as dramatic as seen in Ontario, but lasted longer, with construction activity dropping below the baseline in 12 of the 19 weeks covered in the data. In contrast, British Columbia has seen worker hours remain above the baseline except for a drop of seven per cent the week of April 6. 

Provincial and federal data is available for download here:https://mkt-cdn.procore.com/downloads/pressrelease/ProcoreCanadaCovid_19ConstructionReportAugust_2020.pdf

Results are available for Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. The data and charts are for public use. Procore previously shared similar data on how the U.S. construction industry has been affected in a separate report: https://www.procore.com/covid-insights

Procore Technologies, Inc. has offices in Toronto and Vancouver, and provides construction management software to construction companies of all sizes across Canada.