iSqFt (Cincinnati, OH)
Where Contractors Do Business
After reading The Company of the Future by Frances Cairncross, Dave Conway, CEO of iSqFt,
was convinced he was on to something. Having grown up in the building products manufacturing
industry, he figured if Federal Express made millions of dollars shipping blueprints around
the country, "there might be an opportunity if you can get some technology adoption." From
100 projects per month to over 10,000 now, iSqFt is changing the industry, "one contractor
at a time."
Problem: The Plan Is in the Mail
If there was ever an industry slow to adopt technology, construction management was it.
Before iSqFt, contractors sourced projects by going to plan rooms organized by local trade associations and selecting blueprints literally hanging on racks on the walls. From there, the real pain set in-the bidding process. General contractors mailed blueprints to subcontractors, not ever knowing if they were going to respond with a bid. If the architect made a change to the plan, every participant in the project had to then be alerted. For a $40 million new school construction project, that could mean contacting as many as 400 subcontractors to request that they amend their project bids accordingly.
Solution: An Innovative Foundation iSqFt set out to minimize the inefficiencies that exist in the estimating and bidding phase of the construction project life cycle. It first created a web-based application, which was met with interest from local subcontractors. Still, they said, "There is no way you will get a fat-fingered subcontractor to come online and use technology." But iSqFt persisted, partnering with a Georgia-based company that had determined a way to web-enable blueprints to build a subscription-based business model. Eventually, the power of the technology won over the resistant contractors, and iSqFt won the endorsement of the 100-chapter Associated General Contractors of America.
The application facilitates every aspect of the preconstruction process - from helping companies find work to streamlining bidding - bringing everyone together in one more effective, cost-efficient place. The Private Construction Office lets general contractors distribute project plans, specs, addenda and other documents to subcontractors and suppliers - securely and efficiently. With the ability to designate access to each document available in their Construction Office, contractors assume total control over the entire preconstruction process. The Internet Plan Room® provides subcontractors, suppliers, and professional estimators with around-the-clock access to project information, plans, specs and addenda for publicly bid construction projects. Software tools are included to view and print plans, specs and addenda, as well as conduct on-screen takeoffs (surveys of labor and materials required to complete a project). From a new business development standpoint, material suppliers also benefit from the ability to search an entire database of specifications for upcoming projects.
"This may sound odd to you, but we're not ever upset when one of our customers leaves and goes to another company, because the first or second call he makes is to us," says Conway. "He will say, 'I can't do this without you guys.'"
If there was ever an industry slow to adopt technology, construction management was it.
Before iSqFt, contractors sourced projects by going to plan rooms organized by local trade associations and selecting blueprints literally hanging on racks on the walls. From there, the real pain set in-the bidding process. General contractors mailed blueprints to subcontractors, not ever knowing if they were going to respond with a bid. If the architect made a change to the plan, every participant in the project had to then be alerted. For a $40 million new school construction project, that could mean contacting as many as 400 subcontractors to request that they amend their project bids accordingly.
Solution: An Innovative Foundation iSqFt set out to minimize the inefficiencies that exist in the estimating and bidding phase of the construction project life cycle. It first created a web-based application, which was met with interest from local subcontractors. Still, they said, "There is no way you will get a fat-fingered subcontractor to come online and use technology." But iSqFt persisted, partnering with a Georgia-based company that had determined a way to web-enable blueprints to build a subscription-based business model. Eventually, the power of the technology won over the resistant contractors, and iSqFt won the endorsement of the 100-chapter Associated General Contractors of America.
The application facilitates every aspect of the preconstruction process - from helping companies find work to streamlining bidding - bringing everyone together in one more effective, cost-efficient place. The Private Construction Office lets general contractors distribute project plans, specs, addenda and other documents to subcontractors and suppliers - securely and efficiently. With the ability to designate access to each document available in their Construction Office, contractors assume total control over the entire preconstruction process. The Internet Plan Room® provides subcontractors, suppliers, and professional estimators with around-the-clock access to project information, plans, specs and addenda for publicly bid construction projects. Software tools are included to view and print plans, specs and addenda, as well as conduct on-screen takeoffs (surveys of labor and materials required to complete a project). From a new business development standpoint, material suppliers also benefit from the ability to search an entire database of specifications for upcoming projects.
"This may sound odd to you, but we're not ever upset when one of our customers leaves and goes to another company, because the first or second call he makes is to us," says Conway. "He will say, 'I can't do this without you guys.'"
Q&A with Dave Conway, President and CEO, iSqFt
Q: You mentioned that you're able to download the actual source file, are you're able to do take-offs on a regular blueprint?
A: The only take-off that we enable is on the online version of the blueprint. We can extract data out of the source file, but we have to have the permission from the architect to do that.
Q: Do you see that as an opportunity?
A: Yes - I think the market's kind of moving in parallel. The more sophisticated owners - there's a group actually, based in Cincinnati, called CURT, Construction Users Round Table, 50 of the largest construction buyers in the world. And they're driving to really get the industry to adopt technology at a more rapid pace, and there's a product out there that uses 3-D and 4-D parametric technology that enables you to extract data out of that file and make it potentially available to subcontractors. The challenge, of course, is that there's a very disparate kind of level of sophistication. If you've got a graduate degreed mechanical contractor who's willing to go into a 4-D parametric file and use conflict resolution software to understand where the duct work crosses the electrical, there are some guys out there that are interested and willing and able to do that, and there's software out there that will do that for you. But if you think of the painter, he's not going to go into a sophisticated file and figure out how much wall area there is. So either companies like ours will translate that file, take that data, make it available in a format that the painter is willing to use, and comfortable in using, that's part of what will happen in the more sophisticated end of the market. The other part is that it's still going to end up on paper, and we're still going to end up scanning, and it will continue the way we're doing it.
We've thought long and hard about it, and I don't know. The only way that it would be feasible is for us to offshore the takeoff, and we haven't spent enough time to really understand whether or not we can do that. Plumbing is an example where you need fixture count. The image on a blueprint of a fixture is pretty simple. I think that that would be valuable to a building product manufacturer supplier, and they would price it out, and then we would post that price list and know who to post it to. So yes, I think that's where it's all headed, and how it gets there is going to be a function of whether or not we can generate enough cash to continue to invest.
Q: You mentioned that you're able to download the actual source file, are you're able to do take-offs on a regular blueprint?
A: The only take-off that we enable is on the online version of the blueprint. We can extract data out of the source file, but we have to have the permission from the architect to do that.
Q: Do you see that as an opportunity?
A: Yes - I think the market's kind of moving in parallel. The more sophisticated owners - there's a group actually, based in Cincinnati, called CURT, Construction Users Round Table, 50 of the largest construction buyers in the world. And they're driving to really get the industry to adopt technology at a more rapid pace, and there's a product out there that uses 3-D and 4-D parametric technology that enables you to extract data out of that file and make it potentially available to subcontractors. The challenge, of course, is that there's a very disparate kind of level of sophistication. If you've got a graduate degreed mechanical contractor who's willing to go into a 4-D parametric file and use conflict resolution software to understand where the duct work crosses the electrical, there are some guys out there that are interested and willing and able to do that, and there's software out there that will do that for you. But if you think of the painter, he's not going to go into a sophisticated file and figure out how much wall area there is. So either companies like ours will translate that file, take that data, make it available in a format that the painter is willing to use, and comfortable in using, that's part of what will happen in the more sophisticated end of the market. The other part is that it's still going to end up on paper, and we're still going to end up scanning, and it will continue the way we're doing it.
We've thought long and hard about it, and I don't know. The only way that it would be feasible is for us to offshore the takeoff, and we haven't spent enough time to really understand whether or not we can do that. Plumbing is an example where you need fixture count. The image on a blueprint of a fixture is pretty simple. I think that that would be valuable to a building product manufacturer supplier, and they would price it out, and then we would post that price list and know who to post it to. So yes, I think that's where it's all headed, and how it gets there is going to be a function of whether or not we can generate enough cash to continue to invest.