Your Field Problems Start in Design: What the Suffolk and MIT AI Report Means for Contractors

0:00Some of the problems your superintendent deals with today were created during design months before his crew arrived. AI may help your team catch those problems earlier and understand what they mean for purchasing and the schedule. That connection caught my attention in a white paper from Suffolk and MIT called Construction in the Age of AI. Now, Suffolk has resources. Most contractors don't. So I read this paper thinking about you running a$25 to$500 million company interested in AI and wanting to know what's actually useful at the moment. There are a few things in here I'd like you to take a look at.

0:50Eric Anderton: This is Eric Anderton, and you're listening to Construction Genius, a leadership masterclass. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration. If you're a construction leader, you know all about the perspiration, and this show is all about the 1 % inspiration that you can add to your hard work to help you to improve your leadership.

1:19I've got three kids in college right now, and they're getting three different messages about AI. One son is interning as a project engineer with a GC. On his own initiative, he built an AI tool to help him draft RFIs and submittals. Nobody asked him to do it, but he saw something he could make easier, and he figured out how. My other son is working as a laborer while getting his construction management degree. His professors are encouraging him to use AI in his coursework that's directly related to construction. My daughter is also in college, but she's on a different course, and she's had to sign a pledge in some of her classes not to use AI.

2:06So that's the range of attitudes in my own family's experiences. Meanwhile, my son has already built something he can use at work. And when I read this paper, I really want to understand how much further these applications can go. The numbers that jump out are 17 % to 20 % in potential cost savings and 22 % to 25 % on schedule. Now, before you start expecting that on your next job, here's how they got there. Suffolk took a completed residential project in San Francisco and modeled what might have happened with AI and improvements in coordination and project delivery. We're going to have to see how those projections hold up across more jobs.

2:53And the paper acknowledges that further research is needed. And that's really one of the main things about the paper. It's kind of like a call to the industry to use these tools and investigate practical ways that they can impact projects right now. But the applications behind those numbers deserve a look, particularly the connection between design and schedule. And the design discussion is where I'd like to spend some time. The paper describes AI helping teams generate and compare design options, including structural concepts, and evaluate them against cost, code requirements, and schedule considerations.

3:35It also discusses reviewing drawings and models for omissions, clashes, and constructability problems. You already know the value of finding those issues early. What AI could add is the ability to examine more options and review more information while the team still has time to change the design. And I kept coming back to what that means for the field. By the time your foreman gets the drawings, some of the decisions that will make his job difficult have already been made, and he's left trying to work around them. And so before you criticize the field for poor production, you've got to look at what the field received in the first place.

4:21Eric Anderton: All right, quick break to talk about my book, Construction Genius. This is what I want you to do. Go to Amazon, search for the book, read all of the five-star reviews, because there's a ton of them. Over 50, to be precise. and the reason I want you to read them is because real people wrote those reviews who've actually read the book and it'll give you an idea of why you should go and buy a copy right now on Amazon and here's the deal if you purchase 10 or more copies for your company and then send me an email eric at constructiongenius.com I'll come in via zoom and do a one-hour Q &A and a bonus training session with your team at no charge I normally charge$4 ,500 for an hour of my time and again for you I'll do it at no charge if you buy 10 or more copies of my book and the reason you should buy it is all in the title it's effective hands-on practical simple no bs leadership strategy sales and marketing advice for construction companies so if you're in the construction industry this book is for you so you can get it on amazon you can also get it on audible in the audio version as well narrated by yours truly and I know you'll really enjoy it so go out and get the book.

5:34Eric Anderton: And now back to the interview. The paper takes this further by describing how structured building information models could feed scheduling tools. And the aim there is to reduce the manual work of connecting what's being designed with how it will be built. A design change affects quantities, purchasing, and installation. If those consequences can reach the schedule sooner, your team has more opportunity to deal with them. Of course, you need the trades involved while their input can still change design, and the paper highlights that as well. Software can help examine the information, but the people who know how to install the work need to be part of the discussion.

6:19The scheduling section in the paper has a couple of applications I think you'll recognize immediately. One is testing different construction sequences and combinations of crews and equipment. Another is using historical schedules to identify where delays are more likely. And it feels like AI would be pretty strong in these areas. In the paper's expert rankings, scheduling came out first once votes for people's own specialties were excluded. And one example caught my attention. A contractor is taking hundreds of schedule activities and using a model to put together a three-week look-ahead, including a list of risks in a format the superintendent can use.

7:03Now, your superintendent still has to review that with the trades and decide if it's they know things about the job that may never have made it into the schedule. But if AI saves them some of the time spent pulling the look-ahead together, I can see why you might want to check that out. The paper also describes using site imagery and computer vision to track installed work against the plan. That could help the team update its understanding of progress sooner. Then there's procurement. You already have people tracking long lead items. What the paper describes is connecting the procurement log and current material lead times to the schedule, so a delivery change flags the activities it puts at risk.

7:46That's where I see a useful application. Your team still has to decide how to respond, but it could spend less time tracing the consequences.

7:59Eric Anderton: Think about the last time you promoted someone into a leadership role and it failed. Why did it fail? I can tell you one reason. People know how to build projects, but they don't know how to build and lead teams of people. Construction comes with its challenges that only insiders truly understand. Generic leadership training doesn't cut it. You need a program to train your leaders built specifically for construction professionals led by an industry expert. And my online course, The Shift, is exactly that course. It has five modules. It'll teach your people how to control their calendars and reduce stress and embrace chaos and accomplish their critical tasks.

8:43Eric Anderton: It will teach them the three essential messages they have to communicate every day in order to motivate and lead their team effectively. It'll show them how to build and lead a high-performing team, give them a framework for running effective meetings so they'll be able to solve problems in less than an hour, and also give them a higher perspective on their leadership that will enable them to work on the business and on their teams and not get stuck in the weeds micromanaging. So go out to my website, theshift.constructiongenius.com, read all about the course, and then enroll yourself and your leaders in the course, and I guarantee that it will transform your leadership.

9:23Eric Anderton: If it does not, you take the whole course and you didn't get benefit from it, you just send me an email, eric at constructiongenius.com, and I will cheerfully refund you 100 % of your money. I'm really confident this course will transform your leadership. So again, go out to the website, theshift.constructiongenius.com, learn more about the course and start taking it today. The paper also discusses comparing purchasing information across projects and checking prices against historical records. It makes a qualification, though. If the trades are buying the materials, you need access to their actual commitments and delivery information.

10:03The tool can't make those connections reliably if nobody has supplied the information. And this runs across the whole paper. These AI applications depend on information that's current and usable and accurate, and getting it into that condition takes work. There's more in here on permitting, prefabrication, and trade coordination. Depending on your business, you may want to spend more time in those sections. I'd also read the discussion of risks. The paper addresses inaccurate answers, confidential information, and accountability. And those are all tremendously practical concerns when it comes to AI.

10:44Someone needs to check the work. Your employees need to know what information they can share. And somebody still needs to own the decision, including the preparation and checking time when you judge how much an AI tool actually helps. My son still reads every RFI before it leaves his desk. He's learning what the technology can do while he's developing his construction judgment. You may have someone in your company who understands the technology and someone else who can immediately spot a bad assumption about the work. I'd have them read a section of this paper together. So read Construction in the Age of AI from Suffolk and MIT.

11:27I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes. And read it with one of your jobs in mind. Where could better information or an earlier warning have changed the decisions that you made? Appreciate you listening to Construction Genius today. If this brought another contractor or someone on your team to mind, feel free to forward them the episode. And please give the podcast a rating and leave a review. And let me know what you found most useful about this episode and what you'd like me to cover next.

11:59Eric Anderton: Thank you for listening to this episode of Construction Genius. Hope you found that 1 % of inspiration to help you in the next few days. If you like the show, please give us a five-star review on iTunes. Share it with other construction leaders who you think would benefit. And always remember that the show is brought to you by Kick-Ass Meetings. I've been working with construction leaders since 2004, teaching them how to run extremely effective problem-solving meetings that gets their people collaborating, taps into their creativity. And to get yourself a free copy of the Kick-Ass Meeting report, go to www.ericanderton.com slash kickassmeetings.

12:41Eric Anderton: Grab yourself that free report, read it, use it in your business. You'll find it extremely useful. And thanks again for listening.

12:55Thank you.