Musselman & Hall Contractors LLC, based in Overland Park, Kansas, has spearheaded construction projects throughout the Midwest focused on concrete, asphalt and railroad for the better part of the past century. Employee owned and built on long-lasting customer relationships, the company has in the past 20 years broadened its work beyond its historic specialties and government projects to include more general contracting to a wider customer base.

Like most seasoned construction firms, Musselman & Hall has incorporated industry technology as it has evolved over the years, embracing tools that allow the firm to remain on the cutting edge of speed, precision and efficiency—critical tenets for any construction outfit.

“We’ve always aimed to be an organization that is ahead of the changes with technology and things in the marketplace. Sometimes we get behind, but we always strive to be ahead and give our people the best tools to do their jobs,” said Kyle VanSlyke, Musselman & Hall’s chief operating officer and a 25-year company veteran.

But in 2021, the company found itself at a crossroads with one of its technology tools, particularly in its pre-construction group responsible for conducting project acquisition and building cost estimates. At the time, the pre-construction team was using takeoff software for calculating estimates that was reaching its limit. “The files were in a specific OST format, and our construction was moving to PDFs,” said Christopher Leheney, the company’s pre-construction manager.

OST is a file type that would need to be converted to PDF after takeoffs were complete, adding a layer of work that made it difficult to use in an industry increasingly centered around PDF plan documents. If the company received documents in PDF, for instance, it would have to convert to OST to conduct takeoff work before converting it back to PDF for the client to review.

The team wanted something that could work with PDF more natively, allowing for markups and other takeoff functions to happen seamlessly in one document type, thus eliminating that extra layer of work.

After a thorough search, Musselman & Hall quickly settled on Bluebeam as the solution. “We had several [tools] on our list, maybe four or five, and as it came down to studying and refining and trying to figure out what would be the best fit for us, Bluebeam elevated to the short list,” Leheney said.

Picking Bluebeam

Settling on Bluebeam for its quantity takeoff capability was ultimately an easy choice. “We did the circles of the pros and cons, weighing here’s the price of this one vs. that one; here’s what this one gives us that the other would not,” Leheney said. Bluebeam checked all of the company’s boxes.

Public sector organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver projects against a backdrop of falling budgets and shrinking resources.  

Local authority finances have lost nearly £12bn because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows a challenging decade, where government grants have dropped by 37% in real terms. These have needed to be made up by other sources, including increases in council tax (more on this here).  

With this in mind, every avenue is being explored to achieve greater value in projects, both in capital terms but also in terms of social outcomes. Technology offers a great place to start. 

Is there digital transformation in your public sector? 

The first two questions that everyone on the project team should ask are: “What are you trying to achieve?” and “How does it support your organisation’s overall objectives?” 

For example, if the strategy is to deliver more sustainable buildings, where can technology help you to achieve this goal? This should be considered at every stage, from planning and design through to construction and then later handover, occupation and maintenance.  

Positively, public sector organisations cans take the lead in driving these strategic goals to get the outcomes they want, including outlining the technology solutions that they want to use. By setting the framework for how projects are delivered and the outcomes are achieved—for example the tools and workflows that will achieve the best results—they can ensure that they met their wider organisational objectives and deliver best value for the communities they serve. 

Know what you’re buying 

It all starts at the beginning of the procurement process. While setting out the requirements for the project, technology should be included. Describe your existing workflows and processes, the system stack you already use and where new tools can make a difference to the way you already work. You should specifically ask where your supply chain has solved these issues and used their own software and processes to do this, as well as reviewing your own project history to get a feel for what good looks like and where the most valuable gains can be achieved.  

To do this, you may need some understanding of your own skill sets within the organisation—how tech-savvy are you and your colleagues? Knowing this upfront will play a key role in how you plan and deliver the rollout and adoption process. 

This analysis and internal education is so important as it sets the tone and foundation for bringing new approaches into the organisation. It has led to us working with the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) to write some guidance that organisations can use to help them understand technology and go through this process. As well as serving as an overview of key terminology relating to construction technology, it outlines how software can be effectively harnessed to drive project, business and social outcomes. It does this at three key stages—preparation, implementation and management. 

Available to download here, the guidance was complemented by a webinar delivered with CIOB President Mike Foy and representatives from the project team behind Merthyr Tydfil’s £12m bus interchange. An award-winning scheme, it is a great example of a client taking the lead and bringing the supply chain together to deliver an exemplary project. 

Key outcomes included: 

• Delivering a highly sustainable building by using technology to predict and assess environmental impacts and managing design changes as and when required to achieve improvements 
• Ensuring that best taxpayer value was achieved by using technology to model “what if” design scenarios, including visualising the latest concepts and drawings  
• Finishing the project on time and on budget thanks to digital collaboration tools and clear measurement and reporting against crucial KPIs in real time 

What the case study demonstrated is that it all started with a clear ambition—to deliver the best possible building that would transform opportunities in what was a relatively under-resourced area. From here, it was a case of determining the best technology that would help deliver that outcome and setting the foundations for how the project team would work. 

With public sector spending accounting for such a large proportion of projects in the built environment, it is easy to see how those that take a leadership role can make a difference and move the construction industry along its digital transformation journey.  

Find out how you can be part of the change by downloading the guide below.

Given construction’s historic reputation as a manual and labor-intensive industry, the sector isn’t the most obvious example by which to judge the merits of remote work.

The industry has long been seen as a slow adopter of new working practices and technology. However, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered, or was at least a catalyst for, a much-needed shift in attitudes towards remote construction work. 

In the initial stages of the pandemic in early 2020, building sites were effectively shut down as part of government-imposed lockdowns. The impact was worldwide. Estimates suggest that global construction activity fell by more than 3% in 2020. In China it was said to have been more than 5%. 

But as much as the pandemic blunted economies around the world, it also prompted many industries to reconsider how they operated and the potential benefits of a flexible working policy. Construction was no exception, and as activity slowly ramped up again in 2021, the sector became receptive to change, building on pockets of progress that were already underway. 

Being more open toward flexible and remote construction work followed in the wake of the belated recognition that technology, particularly digitization, could empower companies to deliver more, better and efficiently. 

Balancing commercial considerations with flexibility at work 

One of the hurdles to flexible working practices in construction is the perception that it would risk the commercial priorities that require projects be delivered on time and within budget.  

Emma Stewart, co-founder of flexible working consultancy Timewise, believes operational demands can limit “more innovative approaches to improving working practices and well-being from being trialed, however good leaders’ intentions may be.” 

Working with construction trade group Build UK, Timewise ran a series of pilot schemes with four leading contractors – BAM Construct UK, BAM Nuttall, Skanska UK and Willmott Dixon – to understand what flexible working might entail, how it might be implemented, its potential benefits and the challenges it posed. 

The pilots revealed some interesting findings, which were published in a report, “Making Construction A Great Place To Work: Can Flexible Working Help?” The number of people who agreed with the statement: “My working hours give me enough time to look after my own health and well-being” leapt from 48% to 84%, while many workers – perhaps predictably – welcomed the opportunity to spend more time at home with their family.

The trials also showed that committing to flexible working wasn’t a barrier to delivery. Says Emma: “All of the pilot projects remained broadly on time and within budget.”

She highlighted one site supervisor who’d commented: “People are more energized and working faster. If you are being paid for a 10-hour shift you will make it last 10 hours, but if there is an incentive to still get paid a full shift but finish quicker, you are focused to get the work done.”

Which technologies enable remote construction work?

Going hand in hand with the growing popularity of flexible working is an acknowledgment around the role technology can play in making workers more productive, helping them do their jobs in greater safety, often from anywhere, and enabling projects to be delivered to higher standards of quality and cost-effectiveness.

The increasing use of digital reporting, using software systems like Bluebeam, enables employees to work remotely with ease: accessing plans in the field, marking documents and generally keeping tabs on the progress of construction activity at all times of the day – and even night, if necessary.

The deployment of robot technology, such as Boston Dynamics’ ‘Spot’ and drones to conduct surveys of hard-to-reach places on sites, is another obvious benefit, allowing workers to assess the progress of construction work without the risk of coming to harm themselves.

Other technologies are playing their part in allowing greater flexibility and remote working. Virtual reality hardware enables designers to “walk” through a building before it has left the drawing board, while digital twins can replicate a real asset in 3D, allowing users to monitor how it performs without having to leave their office.

Overcoming constraints and challenges of new ways of working

Inevitably there must be shifts in attitude if these approaches are to work effectively. When considering a flexible working policy, Stewart of Timewise says managers need to be prepared to adjust working practices, “including output-based scheduling, late starts and early finishes, and allowing staff to cover for each other and to take back unpaid overtime.”

There are obvious constraints around flexible working in “frontline” construction roles, Stewart acknowledges, “including site operating times, workers’ long travel times to reach site, client expectations and the differing pay methods and interests of the multiple layers of directly employed, self-employed and subcontracted workers,” and these will need to be accommodated.

Firms will need help in creating a model that will work for them, she says, noting that roles that are destined to become flexible will need to be designed in such a way that staff can function comfortably with the changes being made.

There is, according to a study by researchers at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, “a general appetite for remote working on a flexible basis [across construction] where a mix of ‘on-site’ and ‘off-site’ arrangement was deemed practical.”

This, the study concluded, “could potentially unlock significant time and cost savings as well as productivity gains.” The main factors affecting remote working were the availability of interconnected systems, “allowing efficient communication and digital infrastructure that enable automated processes,” it added.

Will flexible working in construction become the new normal?

So, what is the outlook for flexible work in construction? When weighing the advantages and disadvantages of flexible working, those who have dipped their corporate toes in the water have sounded positive.

According to Andrea Singh, executive and HR director for BAM Construct UK, one of the four firms to take part in Timewise’s flexible working pilot programs, the program is giving people a better work-life balance and is making construction an attractive career choice.

“Our default position now is that flexibility is possible and desirable, and to prioritize a devolved, team-based decision-making culture to empower it so that it continues to support our business objectives,” Singh said.

“We now ask, ‘How can we make flexibility work?’ not, ‘Can we make it work?’ We’ve provided a framework for our teams without lots of rules and hurdles. Managers can find flexible working approaches that work for their team, their clients and their job.”

Energy transitions in the oil and gas sector 

The UK has been producing onshore oil and gas for more than 150 years, with offshore production in its sixth decade. As the country attempts to reduce the carbon impact of its energy mix, there have been calls to make oil and gas construction more efficient. 

This journey toward a more efficient industry has its challenges, with its own requirements around compliance, asset management and decarbonisation. Fortunately, digital collaboration software can minimise the effects on business operations. 

Harnessing digital transformation and collaboration  

The oil and gas sector has ambitious commitments through the North Sea Transition Deal to reduce emissions by 10% by 2025 and overall net zero by 2050. Oil and gas project management software and other digital solutions are one of the most cost-effective ways to improve efficiency and reduce waste. 

Bluebeam recently surveyed customers in oil and gas construction and found that software could bring significant improvements, with 82% of respondents saying they had saved time on projects, 88% improved work quality and 76% saw improved efficiency.   

One of the main reasons for this was the improved communication across construction teams. Functions such as customisable profiles and markups for oil and gas projects and an ability to track project changes among team members were cited as key benefits.  

For example, using Bluebeam allows teams to have full visibility of project information, with detailed reporting that includes automatic tracking of comments, status updates and changes.  

The process of standardisation within toolsets also means that future projects will be completed quicker, with teams able to set up oil and gas pipeline construction procedures that suit their own approach.  

Managing compliance and mitigating risk 

Fossil fuel interests are expected to be a key part of COP28 in November, and in the UK oil and gas construction is dealing with an increasing number of regulations. This includes additional reporting as part of ESG (environmental, social, governance) commitments.  

With policies such as the need to quantify emissions introduced to help the industry more easily understand and minimise the carbon impact of its activities, project operators are being urged to look at digital solutions to improve processes and data collection.  

Software like Bluebeam can help track progress and bring teams together more easily, reducing the risk of mistakes so oil and gas construction projects are complete quicker, to a higher standard and with minimal need for rework.  

When paired with other digital solutions, such as Solibri, it can offer comprehensive quality assurance checking to ensure those regulatory needs are being met. 

Accelerating end-to-end construction processes 

Oil and gas construction is a 24/7 process, with projects taking place over several intensive weeks. Every day lost adds cost to the project and has a potential impact on operator profits, thanks to the relative volatility of oil pricing.  

Digital software can streamline projects, increasing the speed of tasks such as leak tests, line walks and P&ID reviews to estimations, site logistics and handovers. This reduces the risks of delays and issues that have major effects on deadlines. 

With oil and gas construction projects often located in remote spots, software also enables project teams to keep up to date from anywhere, saving time and money on travel costs and ensuring that the right people can be brought together whenever they are needed. 

The right software can help oil and gas companies work more efficiently and competitively. To find out how Bluebeam can help you on your journey, click here. 

In November 2017, the citizens of Austin, Texas, approved an ambitious, $1 billion bond program, which included building and modernizing 20 local Austin Independent School District facilities. The plan was ambitious not just due to its dollar amount or building volume. The bond program was planned to be completed on a tight, five-year timeline, which would require several alternative construction delivery methods, including design-build, design-bid-build and construction manager at-risk. 

Most of the projects (18) were led by AECOM, which orchestrated nearly every element of each project’s delivery, from design to pre-construction, construction and closeout. All told, the endeavor would entail 1.75 million gross square feet of new construction, 230,000 gross square feet of renovation and 590,000 gross square feet of demolition.

What’s more, all of the facilities would have their own unique design. “If you go from one elementary school that was delivered in the bond program to another, they do not look the same at all,” said Chelsea Burkett, a design and quality manager with AECOM who worked on the bond program.

An additional goal was for all the buildings to be as environmentally sustainable as possible—each was contractually required to have a minimum of LEED Silver and AEGB (Austin Energy Green Building) two-star rating.

Curious why 3 million AECO professionals worldwide use Bluebeam to finish projects faster?

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A program of this scale, with a myriad of stakeholders and the sky-high expectations of public fundraising, in addition to its tight timeline, put immense pressure on AECOM. The firm would have to find a way to coordinate and manage communication, cost and quality control, among other critical project management elements, in the most efficient way possible to meet the program’s ambitious goals.

Streamlined communication

Paramount to the bond program’s success would initially be its design review process. “We wanted to make sure our design review process facilitated collaboration with ease across multiple stakeholders,” Burkett said. “We wanted to create clear and consistent standards across all project teams, which each included different collaborators, technical reviewers and project management teams.”

“We wanted to ensure consistency and keep design teams accountable—that the commitments they made to the comments left in the technical review process were truly implemented in future design deliverables,” Burkett continued. “And we wanted to capture comments across the lifespan of a project.”

At first, the team tried using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to meet these strict design review requirements. “That was very onerous, not efficient and very challenging to use,” Burkett said.

Burkett had never heard of Bluebeam when a colleague mentioned that the construction technology company was holding its annual user conference in Austin in 2018—just as AECOM was beginning to embark on the design review process.

“We went to the Bluebeam conference with a bunch of questions, had watched videos before it and realized that this was the saving grace of exactly what we wanted,” Burkett said. “And from there we started to build the design review process, and its eventual success, in Bluebeam.”

Burkett said a major advantage of using Bluebeam was the software’s ability to customize the comments during design review. “Sometimes the deliverable would have thousands of comments in it,” she said. “We created customized Tool Chests that had Markup tools within it that all had customized subjects.”

“The other level of customization that we did to meet our goals was customized statuses within the markup tables,” Burkett added. “We really wanted to understand: comments are left, responses are given, now what? Are the comments going to be incorporated? Are there meetings needed to resolve this issue?”

This customization made it easier for the more than 400 project collaborators to search and respond to the more than 100,000 comments posted during the design review process. Using more than 145 Studio Sessions, Bluebeam’s real-time markup and collaboration capability, throughout the project, the AECOM team was able to efficiently manage critical communication, reducing risk of errors and minimizing potential re-work.   

Moreover, Studio Sessions’ ability to streamline and organize design review collaboration efficiently played a significant role in helping the overall bond program project meet its ambitious timeline.

“To have the ability to pull up a Bluebeam Studio Session in a meeting with the owner and search based off of these statuses and be able to quickly go to every single one that needs their input, provide responses and then formally close out those comments was truly incredible,” Burkett said.

Simplified workflows

The second major use of Bluebeam on the project came in the form of cost and contract reviews, again using Studio Sessions. In all, the project would require more than 100 cost estimate reviews and 45 contract amendment reviews, for a total cost of $586 million.

The team didn’t initially intend to use Bluebeam for cost management. “We had great feedback and instantly saw such great efficiency that we quickly began to look into how we could apply Bluebeam to this process,” said Bianca Medina-Leal, a deputy program director at AECOM. “How can we leverage Bluebeam for budget and cost management?”

Medina-Leal said that the AECOM team used a similar Studio Sessions workflow as it did for design review for cost estimate reviews. “As you can imagine, with 18-plus projects going as fast as they were, each design deliverable contractually, the general contractor owed an estimate in response to that design deliverable,” Medina-Leal said. “Every time a design development deliverable would come in, we received the estimate from the contractor and a Bluebeam Studio Session would be created to review the estimate.”

The two main project delivery methods, construction manager at-risk and design-build, each use guaranteed maximum price (GMP) amendments as a mechanism to finalize construction costs and schedule before building began, Medina-Leal said. The team used Studio Sessions to get all cost management stakeholders to agree to the GMP after a series of estimate reviews and iterations.

“As a project team and as an owner, you’re getting to the point of essentially calling the budget and that can be a really big deal,” Medina-Leal said. “You’re making an amendment to the contract; it includes clarifications and assumptions. A Bluebeam Studio Session would be created that included that GMP cost estimate as well as all the required backup documentation, like the clarifications and assumptions and schedule.”

“Bluebeam was a really incredible tool,” Medina-Leal added. “It’s a great space for everybody involved to make their comments, give their thoughts.”

Studio Sessions’ real-time, ongoing capability, which allows collaborators to participate in a continuous stream of communication over a given document, also helped AECOM conduct value analysis during the project when certain aspects were at risk of running over budget.

“All conversation is within the file,” Medina-Leal said. “It’s a great space to archive or to reference when you’re reviewing the next iteration of estimates. You can always go back and pull information or get new team members up to speed.”

Studio Sessions had been such a successful tool by this point that the AECOM team kept wanting to expand its use of Bluebeam on the project. Enter Studio Projects, Bluebeam’s file storage and sharing capability, which was used for pay applications, contract change orders and internal change orders.

“Each project would have its own Bluebeam [Studio] Project,” Medina-Leal said, “and within that Bluebeam Project you can create a folder structure. Each [Studio] Project was set up the same way with the same folder structure and was a place where you could follow the lifecycle of a potential change order until it became an approved and executed internal change order or contract change order.”

Ensuring consistency, quality control

Finally,during the construction of each of the 18 facilities, the AECOM team turned to Bluebeam again, this time to ensure consistency and building quality control. Bluebeam came in handy especially when it came to contractor scheduling review.

Each contractor owed a monthly schedule as the project progressed. One Studio Session included all the schedules, which would allow different schedule stakeholders to review and make comments for the contractor to review. “Now we have record for each submission that the following notes were expected to be updated,” Medina-Leal said.

Taken together, Bluebeam’s ability to streamline project communication and collaboration during critical construction phases allowed the AECOM team to successfully close out many of the facilities.

“Bluebeam was that key component that allowed us to do this on such a large scale across so many different projects that were all ongoing at the exact same time,” Burkett said. “It allowed us to do our scope, budget and schedule validations at the beginning and then have the cyclical validation that would happen throughout the entire project cycle.”

AECOM’s use of Bluebeam to complete the 2017 bond program with such success encouraged the school district to call for another bond program in 2022—this one at $2.4 billion—to modernize more schools in a similar timeframe. It passed with more than 70% approval, and AECOM was hired again to lead it, with Bluebeam in hand. “There are a lot of components and tools within Bluebeam that are new that our team has been studying and thinking about how to leverage,” Medina-Leal said, “thinking about how we can make this an even better experience, more collaborative, more efficient.”