Transforming site communications through technology.

hi welcome Sentara and welcome along to our first live webinar you can see it's live uh with me Garrett Chamberlain I'm the operations manager from SIM table I spent 15 years in construction and have a wide range of knowledge started to Humble traffic Marshall to becoming the dreaded health and safety advisor people frequently asking Sarah about ask us all about the journey and they're always really interested to know about the story behind uh Sim Taber and just to find out a little more so we thought it would be a fantastic idea to host a webinar to tell our story and to give some insight into what cinterra is and how we are transforming site communication through Tech so I'm delighted uh to be joined by one of the brains behind the operation and it is well pleasure for me to say welcome along to one of our co-founders Sarah Cooley hi Sarah hello hi happy Monday happy Monday indeed you understand just uh give yourself a little bit of an intro and just uh tell us what you're wrong yeah so I'm I'm Sarah I'm a former senior project manager for a mace I specialized in mechanical electrical Healthcare refurbishment so um I've been working on site since a young age my dad was a contractor so I used to I was free labor and then have them worked kind of my way up kind of through it um and yeah I just like was working at maze for a number of years back to construction probably about 10 years doing different roles I am predominantly kind of on NEC projects and yeah I am then finished up on my last project and left a absolutely great job with mace to to build some Terror basically and then we are sat here now fantastic so what gave you the inspiration to to creating terrible what was the what was the story behind that the the the root of it was that on kind of all of my of My Jacks there was a real communication gap um especially around like with what people um like coming like from sight there was very little communication around what was actually happening there was a real lack of visibility of like what was actually happening at site um and that most software was top down so it was built for people in the office it just didn't benefit and then the amount of times I was being like rung or emailed being like what's happening with this and you know there were so many different businesses delivering on one project even on smaller ones and it was just chaotic and I thought there's a real there's a massive opportunity here to build something that's from site it's bottom-up that serves them and it can close that feedback loop you know so then the people in the office have that kind of a much better real-time information kind of what's going on so yeah basically I was sick of all construction Tech serving people in the office perfect but so so once you had that that that sort of spark of an idea what what happened next um well I think coding from probably the age of like 12 14. I'm not kind of on and off and so I really kind of talked myself to code from a mobile perspective um I then built like what in Tech we call the MVP which means the minimum viable product so I built like kind of a base it's like a base kind of product and I worked with the teams like the site team that I had at the time to really try and test out that prototype and we trialed it and it worked and then it started to kind of gain traction which was really great and we just kept iterating and I kept like each week I'd meet with different site teams and be like are we using it like what's working what's not and just really try to like refine the product off of that so we stayed away from all the people in the office it was just like how do we how do we solve this problem and how do we get people to like communicate very quickly off of a mobile phone so I then got investment uh from uh some Angel Investors and some Venture capitalists that's a whole other story it was a interesting uh experience that could best be described as a intense Period of Enlightenment yes very very different Beast to construction people um recruited like a kick-ass team obviously I coached you from a prior project I'm sorry and then yeah and then it's now kind of get is now kind of working it's live obviously the team's like 17 people it's been used by over 100 companies now so it's incredible and it's like and what I love is that we're still working with different site teams to get that input and feedback and help us grow that's a lovely thing you touched on there the the building up for people's uh feedback into the into the projects as a whole and I think that's where um that's why I thought a lot of our our past struggles have been in in construction with that you know the the difficult um situations you're in and around site reporting and site communication it is such a it's such a fuddle isn't it it's it's sort of all over the place how would you describe constructions um you know what it's like in construction in terms of site reporting and Communications what does it really look like for for people on the ground at the moment um I think it's very top down and what I mean it's not down is it's like it's very it's heavily very heavily driven around sometimes I used to joke that like a lot of our reporting was to keep other people in jobs like I never saw like it was like a larger like tick box exercise I think there's a lot of that in the industry I I think you know we talk about all this exciting Tech but I think it very much in kind of like my reality and a lot of the sightings that we work with you know they're using they're still using paper it's heavily paper-based Microsoft Excel is still I would say the most popular software and um you know and a lot like a lot of using like WhatsApp to communicate because it's faster than anything else and around so you have a what's that group and you're posting your photos and kind of updates and that so I would say that's very much still the reality I would say for most for most site teams would that be your experience yeah definitely I was gonna say I'll chime in on that as I'd say um also word is is a is a great tool for a lot of a a lot of companies still I mean you touch there on WhatsApp we've got teams and after teams just all firing pictures in and you know it's an absolute mess and paper unfortunately is still King you know we've uh um you know somebody's created their really bespoke Word document that I'm really proud of and they print off reams of it and I myself in the past have been you know going out and chasing Lads around site to get them to sign X Y and Z and it goes back it's a complete mess though isn't it you know absolute mess and it's still still driven by um by by phone you know it's it's still phone is there is is there is still the king really isn't it you know um I always remember um especially being on site is that I knew that there was if somebody rang me once yeah it's okay but if I had like two to three missed calls of them that's it I need to call them back as quickly as possible because there's a massive issue that we've um that we've got us all tough you know definitely and I I mean your health and safety but I mean I you know and some of I've I'm clear there's no webinar but on certain like Rams we just do like control R like you know control F and then like to find it and then do like and then replace it and then insert a new name tweak it a bit and then resubmit that never ever did that ever no no and I I think that's that that's a lot of it isn't it just returning the same old stuff and and the problem is is that a lot of people don't they're not really engaging with it they're sort of um you know uh Missing the point if it effectively you know what I mean and um so what um what with with just on that similar ilk then um if there's anybody uh in the in the webinar or if you're watching this uh retrospectively if you've got any experience in regards to uh um any pains that you've had uh with uh site Communications or you've got any interesting stories that you want to uh put into us then we'd really really love to hear um what you have to say won't we say well yeah perfect perfect so just moving on um so what why do you think that um just we're talking about digital adoption and you know it's quite difficult to get people off of these uh WhatsApp and and Excel why do you think that digital adoption has been really quite slow in the construction industry why is it so really hard for them to move away from you know something that they've used for for so long I think there's a legacy problem of software companies software companies like over promising and under delivering I think I see a lot of this all the time like oh yes yes it can do all of these things um and then a lot of the time it kind of can't that often monolithic very large heavy bloated kind of systems um I'm not particularly agile and like some of them still look like I've definitely for working for like even large contractors a lot of the software that's you know that we use looked like it was built in the 80s and it just it was it was it was it was almost archaic I also think on this like a secondary Point onto that is most tech in the industry is again as I've mentioned before is it's top down it's really heavy like it's really and it's driven it and it doesn't reflect how work is actually delivered on site with like you can have many people from many different businesses it is chaotic um there's a lot kind of happening and we're missing out so much in real time and I just think you know my experience within of of that communication is what would happen is you know at the end of the week we would then try and give like a summary and it'd be like okay I remember what we did today and yesterday what were we doing on Monday again and it was it wasn't in real time and that was it that was on a good week often it was not unknown to like wait four weeks to then kind of get a report and I also think yeah well we know this even just from watching it with our teams and I didn't know this at this while I didn't notice at the time before it surprised me a going Tech side and then also from speaking to all of our site teams is how worried they are about being tracked like there's this idea around tracking people seems to be getting more and more popular and I was with uh like I was with an investor a while ago and they were talking about oh we saw this amazing platform it can do all this tracking and all the spatial recognition and it's like all these different CCTV cameras that can help with all these different things around the construction site and I was like oh okay how would you feel about that being in your office no no no no no no no yeah and I play and I think I would hate that I would I would be like on the aspects and I think there is a real fear from teams on the ground about being tracked that I totally understand and kind of get like I really really disagree with this idea of like all of this tracking software that we're beginning to see and you know the experience of so many of the site teams like is this tracking me and then we do a lot of work explain to them like like no we're about tracking projects never people and I think three things have really um hindered kind of tech adoption um because and you know and there's a lot of skepticism around Tech coming in and stating or saying different things yeah definitely I mean my experience in the past is that we've I in my my experience within health and safety and uh there's been many strives many changes many really really good changes um to help with safely legislation over the past few years but Tech in my personal experience to come in they give you a big Dotty old tablet and they say like you said it can do x y and said to charge you a huge upfront fee and then it just all goes wrong but go into your your interesting point about the um about the tracking you know people on site have had trackers in their Vans for a long long time now and like you rightly said you know you wouldn't put a tracker on somebody working in the office or like what time is it you know clocking in clock and there was a huge focus on that I know it's almost as if you know these these uh um systems aren't necessarily there to make your life easier dead air just to just to keep an eye on you and what's going on and that is exactly you know the the distrust that that we see and and you rightly said you know um people are there is a bit of pushback you know I mean we've had conversations with people that they think you know you're tracking me uh uh through the phone and it's why would you want to look inside some somebody's pocket when they're working on site for you know what I mean it's absolutely ridiculous so with that just um you know are we are we ready for um for these digital Solutions and what really would be how do we change that narrative server you know we've we've got that distrust and we're just changing the narrative how do we do that I I think it's I do think I I believe that construction and utilities and rail are all ready to adopt new tech everybody has a smartphone most people have a smartphone these days they like know how to use it I think they are tech savvy but I think they're ready for solutions that work for them I think we will scale out these Solutions these Legacy systems that are in place that just don't work for them but I think the point I'm trying to make is they will adopt but it has to work for them and whoever whoever can you know traditionally getting information out of sight can be like getting blood out of a stone if you can take that and work with these teams to build a product that's for them and iterate and not over promise and be like we you know you are still working you will take on feedback is it working for them and then linking it back to these other systems like if it's SharePoint if it's procore whatever it is whatever information management system that they're using but I think it's to solve it down here because what's always interested in me is it's at the point of work where all the magic happens it's like further people they're the subject matter experts they're the ones doing the work and you know I think tapping into that knowledge is vital and I also think they do want to share it they want to showcase what they've done that you know they also want to cover their asses don't get me wrong but they also taste good work and I think whoever can make that as easy as possible for them in a way that reflects how work are delivered with lots of many subcontractors um I think we'll have a really great solution just to Echo your point there I think that it's you can you can have something that's a piece of um a new way of working should we say that it's all very much bells and whistles but if it doesn't make practical sense from the grounds and if it's not um something that the workforce will see as a benefit to them or making their life easier you're always going to have that pushback um I know I know myself that years ago we had these old heavy system remember the heavy wrist symptoms I don't remember that said Ladson bits and pieces like that they could just take that off and they they just no no bits you know it was just a faff you know and they didn't see it as a beneficial thing when actually it really was you know and and there was that pushback around that because they just saw it as a uh you know a a nonsense to them really but like you say if we can um make it really really easy and it's that usability isn't it it's that it has to be it has to be easy it has to be you know universally used and I think like you're saying the the the the the future of it really um especially in and around Tech is that you know as we've seen younger and younger people come through into the industry they are more um more you know let's they're more tech savvy aren't they really so they're going to take to it like a duck to water to know necessarily that somebody who I said a bit more experience than me might be a bit more resistant around it so that's where I think the tides will be changing yeah and I think as well like I see a lot of stuff around like um people promising the AI is going to solve all these conflicts on site but my experience on site is that if you can look at a 2d drawing and you can look at what you're looking at say like in the ceiling like that you can like look at a drawing of like oh the air handing unit Eight's there on the drawing and you're looking up and it's like it's not there in reality it's kind of like bidded off they don't need AI to tell them that they're trained and I think what I'm really interested in terms of the future of where site communication is going is how can you train like almost like an Adaptive learning algorithm from the people with the most knowledge on the ground and getting that information and then driving results forward rather than promising like top down like Ai and stuff like that actually can you do it from the bottom and take this knowledge and help them and them support training in an algorithm that helps like spot things because yeah I love seeing some tech being like Oh we can do this Clash detection and you're like it's like a solution looking for a problem because yeah no yeah you know the subies on the ground would be like mate that's not that's you know this is going to be an issue because a conversation event is coming yeah definitely and I think that that's a very good point imagine if I mean we've been to a few uh um sort of uh Expos recently and we've seen some fantastic stuff some really clever stuff but not necessarily practical I I I was talking to the chat that had one of those 3D sort of looking at glasses and bits and pieces and you think if you rock up to a to a normal site and AR Lads I've got my I've got my special glasses on it's not going to land is it you know it's not going to be that practical element but because people are just they are as you said still using the paper they're still using basic bits and pieces and if we jump from you know not even learning to crawl first and then we're interested into you know running a a marathon there's that massive divide and I think my observation of of of um uh of of uh people in in Tech uh or other Tech firms that I've observed before coming to see in terror is that that it's that they're trying to run before they can walk you know and it's that it it and I think the the disjointed is the is comes from that because if you go up to any sort of normal man-in-the-mill uh person on site and you show them them fantastic glasses they're just what's the point you can't you know what is the what's the absolute point of it all you know um but yeah it's uh it's a is there um is there uh um so just taking it back to uh to transforming site communication are our topic of our our of our webinar today so with um uh should can we go back to the story of of sim Tara then so we've we've seen Tara what are what things can we expect in the in the future on what sort of elements stuff we you know what would you speak to the audience a bit more about um who we are and and what we're doing to to solve this problem um well I think we're communication pipeline from the site for the whole supply chain to communicate on and we definitely have some exciting new features coming up in particularly around activities and they kind of like link back to kind of close like kind of full visibility we also have some great Integrations with um different systems kind of coming forward but I think in terms of transforming site communication at its base level it's just getting the teams on the ground using something it could be anything their knowledge and their Works record that's the starting block and then once you've got that starting block covered you can then push out onto much more interesting things it's like okay while who last touched you know you can then see like who last touched that asset or actually who would see all different updates against that activity and therefore better forecast if you're on time or not but in terms of like then driving forward around like planned preventative maintenance work you can then start to kind of do forecast stuff on that and then I think you can begin to you know use go into the buzzwords of like machine learning and AI That's only going to work with starting with something because you've mentioned you can't you know you need to walk before you can kind of run so I think there is huge potential going forward within site communication um and I think there is some really Jazzy snazzy stuff but it has to start with getting the teams on the ground and getting you know projects and teams to communicate how work is actually delivered and then using that as a base to build on for the really cool ship yeah yeah perfect perfect well I mean there's there's loads within uh um in terms of uh uh through technology that we didn't discuss today obviously there's there's the big elephant in the room there's the uh building safety act which I know John um our our other co-founder um has been doing some fantastic webinars on possibly maybe that's something that we could uh take up again um in enough webinar event because we were quickly running out of time here but just to reiterate to to anybody uh who is in uh watching us live or is um uh is watching us uh um maybe on a recording that we'll send out to everybody if you've got any questions or any comments around this subject then please just drop it into the uh comments below um and if you are interested in hearing more uh uh from sintera please get in touch um you can either reach out to yourself anyway one of the teams we're on LinkedIn and and all the other socials and I think Sarah just to just to sort of um uh begin to wrap up here just wanted to say thanks um thanks for this in our first event I don't know about you it was slightly nerve-wracking from yourself um we will uh make this a a lot more Slicker and I'll stop Irving so much so yeah sorry about that you're definitely giving this loads to to think about lots of insight um to share and I think we've really covered quite a lot there um and you know even just to just go back if anybody does want a demo please let us know drop me a name in the chat reach out um and we'll be doing another nine of these really soon with Sarah yeah I think I think with the debating and people can definitely input into this but I think what our next one we're doing is like how you can use your data to build dashboards that serve kind of you within if it's um on Microsoft um it name is just power bi if you want to come up on how to kind of do that so it kind of tailors to using the data in in the format of how kind of how you want but yeah you've obviously Garrett you can email out at garrettsonterra.com you know I'm Sarah you can find us on LinkedIn but I think thank you so much for your time everybody and yeah I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes yep thank you thank you very much and just to just to Echo though um what Sarah has said um if you've got any any subjects that that you'd like us to to to uh to cover um or or any any sort of feedback we love a bit of feedback here is don't we Sarah um good good or mainly we know you know good or bad anything the phrase for this they used to say on this drill it into us all the time like feedback is a gift and it's like it's like burned into you like every day you get they just and it's like in real time so oh and this is something that I'm really there's nothing like site teams as well giving you like the blunt honest truth like I love that it's unfiltered it's like that doesn't bloody work they say they use it to substitute the word bloody for something more but um you know I like that and I think that's so crucial around like so if you have any ideas or you have opinions or you have something you know you think can be improved um ideally it's constructive criticism or kind of feedback um we are open to all kinds perfect perfect and on that note um I think we'll we'll wrap up there so uh thank you very much again everybody and um yeah take care and uh we'll uh see you on the next session thanks all bye bye for now

2022-12-05 06:02

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