Tel Aviv-based photogrammetry vendor Buildots has announced a new suite of tools that enable construction teams to plan and track weekly activities and milestones using project-specific data.
The new Plan Tracker functionality includes two essential tools:
- Workplan, which allows project managers to break down project plans into smaller tasks, set realistic due dates for each, share the plan with the respective trades, compare actual progress against plans, and use the system-provided feedback to continuously improve performance.
- Targets, which enables teams to set critical milestones in the system and accurately track progress against these goals, including subcontractor performance and supply chain issues. Users can add new operational and contractual targets, assign related tasks and activities, and set due dates in one place. This functionality helps to easily identify issues early on and take corrective measures to protect these milestones, preventing work stoppages and delays, while fostering accountability within the team and with subcontractors.
READ THE IRONPROS PHOTOGRAMMETRY WIKI
The Plan Tracker is built around lean construction methods, which improves accountability with teams and subcontractors, minimizing waste and maximizing value delivered. But the Buildots offering overall aims to use 360-degree photos to populate and update a digital twin of the asset. According to Buildots Director of Product Management Amir Berman, the product is more robust, too, in its ability to track progress, up to and including supporting application for payment, than rivals.
“Our competitors have a very strong foundation with reality capturing, and only then added progress tracking on top of that, which is like a major challenge,” Berman said. “For us, it was built out starting from day one, with a mission to eliminate subjective data collection. We started from day one with the technology part that allows us to collect data at scale and analyze the progress of various data on various construction projects, no matter the type, no matter the vertical, no matter the geography or the size of the project. You just need to go with a camera, and we're able to pick up 90 to 95% of your job site very easily. So the technology part, we believe, is a major blocker for different players in this market. And we kind of dealt with this first. We feel very, very comfortable and we have the evidence to back it up. We're adding new capabilities, which makes data more tangible at the job sites, and for team members. We feel that we have a very strong advantage.”
According to Berman, Buildots has strong market uptake of their tracking features, to the point where it is being used by customers to support application for payment.
“A lot of our clients are using Buildots to verify payments and to automate the payment process,” Berman said. “We take it all the way to what can be claimed by your subcontractors when they ask you to pay a certain amount of money. These claims are often today based on an Excel sheet. Buildots is automatically telling our clients, well, this was actually completed, but that wasn't completed so we don't need to pay for that.”
