Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) — Q&A with Senior Director of Construction
If you’ve been to CONEXPO-CON/AGG, you were likely impressed by the scale of it all. Measured by show floor area, it’s one of the largest tradeshows in the world — it’s physical presence is simply immense. Increasingly, the tradeshow has also had a larger digital footprint as more and more equipment manufacturers showcase their digital solutions.
As its co-owner and operator, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) highlights the latest and greatest of its member company’s technologies at CONEXPO-CON/AGG every three years. The organization’s Senior Director of Construction is Sara Feuling, who came up through the ranks of WisDOT and knows first-hand how important digitally modernizing our day-to-day field work is.
I realized that we share a lot in common in terms of cutting through the hype and actually getting things implemented at the field level. We talk here about CONEXPO-CON/AGG’s latest Tech Talks, how a heavy machine-based industry is shifting to the new digital era, and what AEM’s research about field technology adoption shows us.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG is a powerhouse in the construction industry and AEM is its owner. You’ve recently started planning for the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Tech Talks in 2022 that will continue to focus on technology for end users in our industry. Do you mind talking a bit more about the impetus behind these sessions?
CONEXPO-CON/AGG is North America’s largest construction tradeshow. Every three years, the industry comes together in Las Vegas to discover the new equipment and technologies that will take construction to the next level. We’ve realized that while it’s important and really exciting to look at the future of our industry in three or five or ten years, it’s just as important to look at the technology that’s available in our industry today.
We have technology solutions that are proven and readily available that aren’t necessarily being utilized in our industry to their full potential. So we set out to change that.
Beyond what you see on the show floor every three years, the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Tech Talks are a free live and on-demand education series to educate end users on the technology that they can implement today. Content features expert insights from leading technology providers, contractor-led training on practical technology applications, and demonstrations from certified instructors.
The Tech Talks focus on the efficiencies, safety, and business benefits of various basic technology solutions, including machine control, grade control, and telematics.
With our 2021 series wrapping up just a few weeks ago at The Utility Expo, we are starting to develop our strategy to educate the industry and drive adoption and implementation of technology in 2022.
There is already a lot of technology at our fingertips in the industry and somehow it’s going underutilized or unutilized. Do you have ideas around why that is?
Part of the research that was the impetus for these Tech Talks was asking, “What is that barrier? Why aren’t people using these new technologies?” It really did come down to awareness for one.
People hear the terms and they hear the names — machine control, grade control, telematics — everybody has a vague understanding of what those things mean, but they’re not necessarily aware of what the technology is and what they can actually do for them.
That awareness piece was really, really big for us in in developing the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Tech Talks program. If you check out our on demand substance, there are ones that are as basic and as simple as machine control or grade control 101. What is it like? What does it actually do?
Then there’s how you use it. For example, with grade control, our last series in September, we had an operator in the cab of a compact track loader and walking you through what buttons to push to get it to grade. It really is the hands-on, here’s how we can do things.
And finally there’s the piece about the business benefit, of being able to really understand the value that these new technologies bring to your business operations.
AEM has as its members some of the largest construction OEMs in the world, everyone from Caterpillar to JLG to Lincoln Electric. These companies provide a lot of different products across a lot of different parts of the construction value chain. But I see their common similarity as being that they’re all used for physical installation at the jobsite. For a traditionally hardware-focused industry, how are your member companies approaching the new digital era?
Our OEM members, the whole good equipment manufacturers, design and build the machines that quite literally build, feed, and maintain our world, and they have done so for hundreds of years.
They continue to build machines that we can rely on, trusted, dependable, and proven machines, while also embracing the new digital era, researching and developing solutions for the future. They are focused more than ever on meeting customer needs, customers who are wanting and needing to do more with less.
We are seeing more and more integral technology solutions in the industry, solutions that work together, solutions that their customers are demanding and have come to expect.
Our membership also does include service providers and technology companies, who work both independently and directly with OEMs. We have over 1,000 members at AEM, all of whom are placing themselves at the forefront of the future of our industry.
You yourself came up in the industry as a P.E. and as a construction project manager. Having yourself seen how the field operates, what do you see as being some of the biggest adoption barriers to AEM members’ newest technologies?
In general, we are an industry that is slow to change, primarily because we are so good at what we do. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
I think that mindset is slowly changing (pun intended) as the younger generation, my generation, begins to enter management within our industry. We are hardworking and driven but we also value a work life balance and personal time.
We are the first generation to truly grow up with technology integrated into our lives and we are using that personal experience to also be more efficient at work, we want to do more with less so we can go home to our families. Some of the older generations see that as being lazy, as caring less about our jobs or about our people, which presents a unique barrier to adoption.
I think there is also some fear that this technology will replace people, that technology is out for ours jobs. In reality, these solutions aren’t replacing people but are instead supplementing them, making an already good operator great or giving an engineer a second set of eyes. In an industry where we are struggling to find skilled workers, we need all the help we can get.
All this technology can be overwhelming and adoption can be a bit of a risk. It’s new, there’s a learning curve, it’s an investment, but that investment in your company and in your people will always be worth it.
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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