How to Manage Project Risk with Construction Data Analytics: Introducing Construction IQ

For most people, the phrase construction data analytics is enough to make eyes glaze over. But every day on construction sites, teams are coordinating hundreds of subcontractors, managing thousands of open issues, and navigating constant onsite changes. Construction projects continue to grow more complex, creating new challenges for minimizing risk and improving quality and construction safety initiatives.

Digitization of construction processes and the use of mobile devices on jobsites captures more data than ever before, data that could be used to improve quality and reduce risks. But, 95% of that data is going unused by construction and engineering firms, according to FMI.

We set out to address this challenge with the latest expansion of our BIM 360 prediction and analytics features, which include the preview release of Construction IQ. Construction IQ is a machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based capability that delivers risk analysis of quality and safety data from BIM 360 projects.

BIM 360 is, at its core, built to help construction teams better visualize and take daily action to minimize project risk related to safety, quality, and project controls. BIM 360 already allows teams to streamline workflows to improve outcomes. The new prediction and analytics capabilities enhance the platform to help you gain a deeper understanding of project performance and prioritized daily activities. It provides instant visibility into daily project risk, giving teams the information they need to improve quality and safety.

“When I see a subcontractor flagged as high risk, I know who to focus on and the action I need to take. I do this before the chaos of the day kicks in.”
- Tyler Hanna, Project Engineer, Swinerton 

Construction IQ: Construction Data Analytics at Work

As the foundational layer of the BIM 360’s prediction and analytics capabilities, Construction IQ moves beyond the traditional concept of static data and takes prediction to the next level with assistive, action-based intelligence. Construction IQ allows users to:

• Better manage project risk and outcomes by identifying high risk issues that have the potential to impact cost, schedule, quality, and safety

• Evaluate subcontractor performance and predict potential risks on a day-to-day basis and for future projects

• Help project leaders understand high risk quality problems and actions to mitigate that risk

• Help safety managers understand leading indicators to potential behavioral and environmental hazards and take proactive measure before incidents happen

• Help construction executives identify risks across projects and proactively take action and improve project outcomes

Most importantly, BIM 360 customers do not have to do any extra work to get the benefit of Construction IQ. All data captured during ongoing field operations in BIM 360 is continuously and automatically analyzed.

Action Today: Personalized To-Do List on Project Home

BIM 360’s prediction and analytics capabilities allow users to create customized views of project data relevant to their needs.  Users can easily customize their Project Home page to create a comprehensive view of their project combining data from BIM 360, Construction IQ, and many partner applications to create a comprehensive and actionable project overview.   With the new Project Design card, user can even work directly with drawings and models stored in BIM 360 -- all in a single project page.

Integrated Data from Partner Apps

In addition to displaying data generated directly in BIM 360 or from Construction IQ, Project Home and dashboards can now display data that you need from partner applications like site cameras, virtual reality, and business intelligence tools to keep all of your project information front and center. Leveraging the Autodesk Forge open API platform, these partner cards are essential to giving teams a more holistic understanding of their projects overall performance.

The list of available partner cards is continually growing, however, here are a few integration cards that are already available for you to use today: HoloBuilder, 3DR, DroneDeploy, Sensera Systems, TrueLook, OxBlue, EarthCam, Smartvid.io, onTarget, Openspace, Pix4D, Multivista, Power BI, Domo, Office 365 (Excel and Calendars), and Smartsheet.

One example of how users can take risk management even further is through the use of safety driven partner cards like Smartvid.io. “With the addition of partner cards like Smartvid, the BIM 360 dashboards have become a single source of truth for the risk facing a project,” says Josh Kanner of Smartvid.io.  

“Like a “safety inspector who never sleeps," the Smartvid AI engine will highlight any images with evidence of potential safety risk. By combining this visual safety inspection information with the risk management program in the BIM 360 dashboard, you can drive the best behavior and culture on your projects, reduce incident rates, and help everyone go home safely.
 

Project Performance: Dashboards & Reporting

With the prediction and analytics capabilities built into BIM 360, project leaders can view a summary of critical and actionable information through the reports and dashboards within the  Insight module. The Insight module shows different dashboard views based on Safety, Quality, and Project Controls, with the ability to customize the cards on each of the dashboard panel views. In addition, if users have data being analyzed by Construction IQ, a Risk tab is also available which display cards showing quality and safety risk.

And just like Project Home, any dashboard page can be easily customized by dragging and dropping cards from a growing card library and arranging them in any order.

In addition to the dashboard views, the Insight module also showcases a Reports tab that serves as a centralized location for all BIM 360 reports. Within this view, users are able to access all reports generated from other workflows in the product as well as share any report with project members. Reports can be shared to individual users, groups of users based on their role or company as well as any external users.

Simple and Flexible Customization

Project Home and all dashboards in the Insight module can be easily customized by dragging and dropping cards from the card library and arranging them in any order.

The card library includes a growing set of cards with data from across BIM 360 including Construction IQ cards showing high risk subcontractors and issues as well as static data cards including quality and safety checklists and issues, design packages, RFIs and submittals. The card library also provides easy access to partner cards.  

By combining BIM 360 data with the Construction IQ risk prediction capabilities as well as insights from partner applications, customers gain a best in class risk mitigation solution to identify problems early and improve project outcomes.

Improving Safety

One of the most important goals on a jobsite is to ensure everyone goes home safely at the end of each day. Safety management is by no means a new concept, but with the risk prediction capabilities built into BIM 360, teams are able to shift focus and spend more time looking into leading indicators rather than responding to lagging incidents.

For example, 60% of all construction related deaths are attributed to accidents occurring within one of the “fatal four” categories; fall, caught in between, electric, and struck by. BIM 360 uses its machine learning technology to categorize jobsite issues that fall into these categories so that teams can quickly see and prioritize what issues need addressing.

What happens when teams have the right information at the right time? According to Michael Murphy, a Digital Construction Operations Manager for BAM Ireland, his team was able to spend 25% more time focusing on high-risk issues for both quality and safety by using Construction IQ. This resulted in a 20% reduction in quality and safety related issues on projects across the board.

 

Continuous Improvement: Cross Project Views

With the ability to view company-wide performance data across multiple projects, executives can make more informed business decisions and gain visibility into overall risk assessment for current projects and apply that learning to future projects. Through the Insight module, executives can view risk levels of individual projects by location as well as drill down to see patterns of risk over time. Through analysis of repeating patterns, executives can optimize processes across similar projects.  

“The ability to identify risks across projects enables us to prioritize opportunities for improvement and reduce risk to future projects.”

- Anthony Colonna, Senior Vice President, Skanska

The BIM 360 prediction and analytics capabilities including the Project Home module, the Card Library and Partner Cards, as well as dashboards and reports within the Insight module are all available now through the Next Gen platform. Construction IQ is currently released as a preview and is available to BIM 360 Build customers using Classic Field. Learn more about the new Construction IQ.