Digital transformation and visual project tracking continue to change construciton
OpenSpace recently acquired Disperse, a construction progress tracking platform that was previously the partner behind OpenSpace’s own progress tracking tool, launched together in June to help construction teams identify productivity issues earlier in projects.Terms of the deal were not disclosed
The acquisition brings together 360° jobsite imagery, computer vision, and what OpenSpace promises is human oversight to provide a view of what’s been built and hasn’t been built on a contractor customer’s jobsite.
«We were a reality capture tool, which was incredibly successful,» said Jeevan Kalanithi, OpenSpace’s CEO, «But now we have grown a lot into a visual intelligence platform, which is a way for builders to do work more efficiently and make better decisions faster.»
Kalanithi said the acquisition and tighter integration between Disperse and OpenSpace will help contractor customers orient project decisions around reality data, images, location, as opposed to purely documents and word-of-mouth on project completion levels.
«You can look at this acquisition in that context, the idea of taking reality information, really what’s going on in the job site, and turning it into high level insights,» he said.
OpenSpace’s project tracking system integrates with contractor project scheduling tools such as Oracle Primavera P6, Asta Powerproject, Microsoft Project, and even the spreadsheet application, Microsoft Excel.
«Disperse was built to give construction teams a trustworthy, objective picture of progress,» said Olli Liukkaala, CEO of U.K.-based Disperse. «By joining OpenSpace, we can deliver that clarity at unprecedented speed and scale—and bring even more value to general contractors, owners, and specialty contractors on projects of every size.»
PCL, Syntax Partnership Bears Fruit
In August, Syntax Systems, a provider of global technology solutions and services for cloud application implementation and management completed a multi-year digital transformation initiative with PCL Construction.
PC partnered with Syntax to develop a phased enterprise resource planning consolidation roadmap and the project began with the lift-and-shift migration of all ERP environments to the Syntax Enterprise Cloud. In the final phase—completed last July—Syntax consolidated all 26 of PCL’s ERP instances into a single, unified environment on Microsoft Azure.
«[Digital Transformation], in this case, means going from a more traditional model where PCL as many instances of everything as they had offices in the areas for which they compete or deploy projects,» said Christian Primeau, the CEO of Syntax. «PCL basically they had 26 different locations that over time that deployed their own 26 versions of ERP back office procurement processes and, yes, HR and Payroll.»
The new cloud-based ERP platform supports all core business functions of PCL including finance, payroll, asset management, project execution, and supply chain management.
«Consolidating our ERP environment on Azure marks a pivotal shift in how PCL operates financially across its global footprint,» said Glen Anderson, vice president of finance and commercial risk and project executive sponsor at PCL, in a statement.
