GLY Construction — Q&A with Manager of R&D
If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve likely seen GLY Construction on jobsites. Their clients are some of the most innovative software companies in the world, and GLY is helping build some of the future-ready spaces that will sustain the region’s economic growth.
It makes Adam Cisler’s life easier that his client’s already speak his language. As the R&D Manager for GLY Construction, Adam’s exploring the future of construction— and in many cases, there’s overlap with many of the products that his clients are already developing (like Microsoft’s HoloLens). We talk here about GLY’s approach to R&D in their construction business and the emerging technologies that will impact them in the future.
Your title of R&D Manager is interesting because it’s a title that isn’t too common around the construction industry. I’m curious how it’s put into practice at GLY Construction. Are you doing in-house development of new tools for your construction workforce? Or are you researching emerging technologies that could be applicable to the workforce?
My philosophy is that nothing is ever fully baked. We have our core technology stack but technology is advancing so rapidly right now, and all of these seemingly minor disparate things are actually part of an overall technology evolution.
The basic R&D process is to take a a really high level view of business issues, with the ability to go down granular into many different segments. I don’t limit myself to saying, “We’re a general contractor, we don’t need to get into AI, or we don’t need to do this or that.”
I take an approach of trying and taking in as much of this as we possibly can, test as much of it as we can, while being respectful of our engineers, our field supervision, and everyone’s time.
What’s an example of a type of emerging technology that you’re really into today?
Something like NeRF is coming out. It’s an advancement in machine learning that allows photorealistic photogrammetry with just several images. It’s a perfect example of something where 99% of people in construction would go, I don’t care.
But I’m looking at this technology and I go, “Hold on a sec!” All of these other reality capture processes we’re doing could get a boost. What does this do to A.I. progress tracking solutions? What does this do to virtual project sites?
Internally, I’ve developed a framework for ingesting new technologies, evaluating them, and reporting out on them — analyzing to determine what benefit they have in-house, what benefit they have to our workforce, and what benefit they have to owners.
By not missing a beat, we have six or seven tracks that we’re focused on. And just keeping a pulse on what’s in front of us while keeping an eye out for those ones that we don’t know.
So your R&D approach is a heavy emphasis on research of new technologies and while development might not be the traditional software development, it’s more of a development of capacities and capabilities for the business?
Exactly. An example of that is where GLY went from zero projects doing 360-degree photo capture to now where we’re doing it all of the time. That developed by the R&D process, which is testing short pilots, testing on a project, and then testing on a couple of projects.
That was a key gap that I saw around 2015/2016. I was starting to kick the tires on some of the earliest AR apps when I was a full time project engineer. I put together a business plan for R&D internally and advocated for it and have been managing the R&D department since then.
I also think GLY Construction is the perfect sized general contractor for a role like this. You’re a big enough company that you need dedicated resources to track emerging technology, but not so large that it’s unwieldy.
I do see it as advantage. Like you said, I know where all the projects are. As something comes in the door, I can evaluate it and say, “Oh, do we have a place where this can fit?”
For example, I know if a project is already booked. Don’t even ask these guys do one more thing since they’re drowning in things that I’ve either already asked them to do or their work tasks. So in terms of managing R&D, having it smaller and in that local setting makes it more manageable.
It allows for a kind of creative application of technology on a small scale that can have a much larger impact.
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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