Associated Builders and Contractors — Q&A with Vice President of Construction Technology and Innovation
Not even a decade ago, most of the attention in construction technology was focused on the big building contractors. Ones with revenues in the hundreds of millions or billions. As one of those people helping to create an Office of Innovation at Bechtel, along with a number of other large EPC/M and general building contractors, these companies were seen as the forefront of the industry’s transformation.
Fast forward to today and it’s clear that the momentum has shifted. Now it’s the smaller contractors that are exploring ways to use emerging technology and a new wave of start-ups are looking to maximize on that energy.
Associated Builders and Contractors is perfectly positioned to ride this wave. It has 21,000 member companies, with around 97 percent of them in the small to mid-sized range — a nearly mirror image of the industry as a whole.
Their new technology and innovation initiative is led by Matt Abeles, who brings great experience as a co-founder at BuiltWorlds, to help ABC members find clarity and meaningful ways to use new technology in the sometimes noisy construction tech space.
Associated Builders and Contractors was founded in 1950 and has seen the industry undergo many changes during that time. Why is now the right time for a technology focus and what was the impetus for starting the technology group?
Any time is the right time for a contractor to prioritize technology and innovation because they prime these firms to be safer, more profitable and win more work. Investing in construction technology will help construction companies innovate, differentiate themselves and attract and educate their top talent. Our industry is composed of problem-solvers who build America.
Technology in construction creates two important wins for our member contractors, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In digitizing safety efforts for safety inspections, incident reports, audits, checklists and toolbox talks, we can improve profitability and make jobsites safer. Contractor members are also gathering data and analytics that support a safer jobsite. Secondly, by simply digitizing timing in and timing out, members are ensuring a more profitable jobsite and erasing consequential errors caused by manual clocking-in and clocking-out processes. This gives management better insights into workers’ productivity and streamlines important jobsite processes.
ABC has over 21,000 members and represents a huge swath of the small and medium-sized contractors that make up the majority of nonresidential construction firms in the United States. What are member organizations saying about new technology and in what areas are they looking to improve?
In the past decade, construction technologies have revolutionized how we connect through the design, build and delivery processes, but our industry remains ripe for change. ABC’s technology initiative makes essential contributions to our chapters, members and industry as we assess how to best integrate, advance and leverage the digital age in the years to come.
Our membership is very diverse in size and type of commercial contractor. We have general contractors and also many specialty contractors. There are some members that are in the billion-plus dollar range but many that fall on the lower end.
Every contractor loves data, but many don’t know where they should be looking for data that would help them maximize profits and efficiency. It often goes back to strategy and implementation: realizing the challenges, how to get the data needed to solve those challenges and identifying which technologies will help get us there.
Given your unique position representing thousands of building contractors, mostly at the local level, what do you see as the industry’s primary challenges with technology and technology implementation?
According to ABC’s 2021 Tech Report, seventy percent of respondents listed an operational issue as one of their top three challenges that technology can help solve. Executing world-class performance requires contractors to continuously innovate, and if we choose to lead, commit and innovate, we can create the conditions for all to do their work without incident, be more profitable and win more work.
The three biggest things that I talk about when it comes to implementation is having a technology champion, first and foremost, because you don’t have a chief innovation officer when you get to mid-sized and smaller contractors. This also can’t just be a CEO decision. Number two is getting buy-in from multiple levels in the field who are going to be using the technology. And third, technology is hard, so celebrating small wins is key.
ABC members know that technology is not a shiny object — it is a need. When you have 650,000 jobs that need to be filled, technology is one of those tools that is going to help us get past that.
Nate Fuller is Managing Director of Placer Construction Solutions, advising leadership teams to transform their organizations in ways that improve performance and agility at the field level.
He provides construction companies with a field assessment that delivers transformative information about their field operations and is proven to accelerate innovation & technology adoption for Top ENR contractors.
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