Modern Contractor Solutions January 2025 - 32

technology solution
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Getting Started with AI
best practices for immediate impact
By Bob Salaj
D
one right, AI brings a lot of benefits
to construction. It can boost safety,
streamline the bidding process, help
close staffing gaps, and maximize profitability
on each project. Here is how to get started.
ELIMINATE GRAY WORK
Much like any construction project, the right
IT foundation needs to be in place before any
building can start. If you are unsure about
its stability, ask employees if the current
technology tools and systems make it easier
to do their jobs and deliver impact.
You may be surprised by how much
valuable time is squandered on busy-work that
eats up time and resources. In fact, a recent
productivity survey from Quickbase found
that 45 percent of workers are spending 11
hours or more per week chasing information
across different people and systems. This
wastes valuable time and resources that
should be better spent delivering impactful
work. This issue is known as Gray Work and
it's a productivity killer. Identifying Gray
Work gives you a starting point on where
connecting data and automation can make a
difference in making your people and projects
more productive.
3 PHASES OF A
CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
Think of your AI journey like a construction
project. It starts small-a focus on one welldefined
problem, with a desired impact and
clearly identified metrics for success. For
example, how many hours or days does it take
to perform a specific task? Working against
32
JANUARY 2025
that baseline, you can determine the best
places to apply AI and measure the results.
Breaking this down even further, here is
how to apply AI to the three primary project
phases: pre-construction, construction, and
post construction.
PRE-CONSTRUCTION
The pre-construction phase is focused on
bidding and project planning and is usually
done by pulling information from previous
proposals and projects. This is timeconsuming
and can sometimes overlook
vital information from previous projects, like
delivery delays or time spent verifying
worker certifications. That information has
a direct impact on project completion, and
failing to account for it makes it difficult to
forecast the profitability of a project-a key
factor in accurate bidding and planning.
Using AI to centralize, integrate, and
gain visibility into project data helps
identify productivity and profitability gaps.
It can also be used to pull language from
previous, successful bids and contract
reviews, and analyze takeoffs and bid
summaries. Since the content is based on
your data, it can be repurposed without
fear that the information is inaccurate. With
that confidence, you can create winning
templates for bids that highlight your
team's expertise while providing realistic
project costs.
Proper planning at this stage can
deliver substantial cost savings on each
project because you can identify potential
bottlenecks before they cause delays.
CONSTRUCTION
During the construction phase, the jobsite
is a busy place, with superintendents,
forepersons, architects, contractors,
specialists, inspectors, clients, and
others engaged in tasks, all of whom need
consistent and up-to-date information on
the progress of the project. This is where
the concept of dynamic work management
takes shape.
It brings together the physical work
and processes of labor, people/materials/
equipment management, and compliance
with the digital workflows that are now part
of every role and every stage of a project.
Bridging the gap between the physical and
digital lays the groundwork necessary for AI to
further streamline processes.
Here are two examples of how construction
companies are applying AI during this phase.
Verifying OSHA cards: Using AI and
machine vision, construction companies can
automatically verify the authenticity of OSHA
cards submitted by workers to demonstrate
certification completion. Those verifications
go into an easily searchable database, saving
even more time in the future when workers
come onsite. You can know instantly if anyone
on the jobsite has not been verified, and set
up automatic notifications on certification
expirations, helping with bidding and jobsite
scheduling. Automating this process can
shave valuable time from each worker checkin,
meaning less time filling out forms or doing
verbal check-ins and more time performing
their jobs onsite.
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Modern Contractor Solutions January 2025

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