Another year, another comprehensive collection of construction technology survey results from our friends at JBKnowledge. The 8th Annual Construction Technology Report is now available for download on their website and it highlights all of the trends accumulated from thousands of construction industry respondents.
As always, I’ll encourage you to view the complete 2019 ConTech Report, but I do want to highlight a few of the key takeaways from the report below:
BIM
Based on the responses on this year’s report, BIM adoption has decreased when compared to the previous year, as just over 64% said that they are using BIM in some capacity. James Benham, CEO of JBKnowledge, points to impending US BIM mandates that will catch a lot of contractors by surprise if they don’t start adopting the technology soon.
courtesy of JBKnowledge
For those that do use BIM, coordination and clash detection is the number 1 reason, followed by visualization, project planning, estimating, and visual mock-ups. The majority of BIM users said that they use Bluebeam (Revu) to view BIM files on their mobile devices, followed by Navisworks, BIM 360 Docs, BIM 360 Glue, and A360.
courtesy of JBKnowledge
The Need for Software Integration
In this year’s report, a larger microscope was placed on the integration capabilities of the software the respondents use. While 89% of respondents claim that mobile integration capabilities were either “very important” or “important” when making software purchasing decisions, over 26% said that they do not have any apps that integrate data.
courtesy of JBKnowledge
Apps that don’t integrate cause double work and increase data errors. For apps that don’t integrate, the largest number of respondents said they have to transfer the data manually, followed by the use of spreadhseets, CSV files, and custom built integrations.
courtesy of JBKnowledge
This is an interesting conundrum, because although large software companies, like Procore and Autodesk, are creating more and more integrations into their platforms every year, there is still plenty of work to do. It’s certainly possible that some are simply unaware that certain integrations exist, but there are also plenty of other project management programs that don’t play well with others.
Other Topics Covered
Including the two highlighted sections above, the 2019 Construction Technology Report also touched on the most popular mobile devices and apps, IT strategies, and innovation and adoption of new technology.
For instant access to the full report, fill out the form on JBKnowledge’s website by clicking here.
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