We would all like to live in a world where there are easy answers, but there really is no one-size-fits-all solution for how construction businesses can recover from the recent shutdown. For Vallejo, Calif.-based Factory_OS, it has not only involved social distancing and wearing PPE, but also adopting new technology.
The modular construction company recently told Redshift by Autodesk about how it has almost returned to the rate it was operating at before the pandemic. This has included adopting “things like mass-texting systems to reach people directly on their mobile device, to communicate through some of the different cloud platforms that we have in terms of file sharing,” Vice President of Technology and Innovation Jordan Easterling described to Redshift.
“Having different people working from different locations, all looking at the same screen, being able to zoom in, navigate the model, ask questions, add comments directly in the model — that is really, really helpful,” he said, noting that this helped create a boost in productivity.
Autodesk BIM 360 also enabled the company to directly connect its architecture and engineering department with its floor staff. “One of the reasons that it’s worked so well for us is because we lump everything into a single point that we can look to,” Easterling told Redshift.
“The biggest improvement has been adoption because we’ve been forced to use certain systems very quickly,” he told Redshift. “And it’s bubbled up a lot of things to the surface that allow us to retool and refocus and wield some of these tools a little bit more efficiently.”
