Tarkett

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Haskell delivers AEC and Consulting solutions to help assure certainty of outcome for complex capital projects worldwide. Their market sectors include healthcare, energy and transportation.

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Michael Matthews is vice president of strategy and consulting at Enstoa, a global professional services firm that specializes in capital projects improvement. Healthcare and education are among the industries in which they focus their efforts.

Construction projects are designed and built by bringing together multiple companies to perform a myriad of activities. Value comes from funding the right projects and completing them safely and efficiently. Projects that are delivered faster and at a lower cost deliver higher returns on capital employed and create greater value.

Generally speaking, project supply chains are not very well integrated or streamlined. Contracts and corporate systems act like the wall and moat around a castle where everything must pass through a drawbridge and a gate to get in or out. Projects are also inherently risky. Historically, companies have tried to mitigate that risk through the contracts executed between the project stakeholders and the proprietary systems sitting behind company firewalls. Thankfully there is an emerging technology that directly tackles these issues – a combination of blockchains and smart contracts enabled by distributed ledger technology.

What are blockchains and smart contracts?

A blockchain is an immutable system of record (think ledger) for recording transactions and activities that is replicated amongst all parties that are granted access (rather than being stored in one company’s centralized system). Transactions and activities are reviewed and approved by pre-defined rules and then captured into what is referred to as a “block” that is assigned a unique “hash” or code. Each block is placed into the blockchain by “attaching” to the previous block using its unique hashes to cement a unique connection. Once placed into the chain, any change to any block is prevented. One of the most popular examples of blockchain being Bitcoin, which people trade through websites similar to bitcoin.com.au, decentralized from any government or bank using the previously stated method. With the development and growth of Bitcoin, bitcoin mining and trading have become popular, opening the doors for the expansion of other types of cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin, Ripple, and Ethereum. Those who are interested in trading bitcoin can do so using some of the best crypto exchanges available to trade and improve their investments in their chosen digital currencies. If you want to discover more about bitcoins traders you may want to visit somewhere like https://cryptoevent.io/review/bitcoin-profit/ for more information. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now available for use all over the world. Some countries have their own bitcoin exchange services, similar to monedero for those who trade and invest in cryptocurrencies within their countries.

Think of smart contracts as the workflow layer that sits on top of the blockchain. Information regarding the transaction or activity being recorded passes through a pre-defined set of rules before being added to the blockchain. These smart contracts enable each block to be automatically checked against the pre-defined rules before being processed and readily accessible to all the parties of the blockchain.

Embracing emerging technology

Today, there is an enormous amount of data generated on every project. Much of it remains hidden, however, due to either the reluctance or inability to efficiently share the right data with the right people at the right time. A lack of visibility into reliable real-time data results in broken handoffs, errors and omissions, extended lead times, and unexpected bottlenecks.

Blockchains can capture where a resource is at any point in time, identify who has care, custody and control, and record the state that it is in without the barriers imposed by disparate systems and traditional contracts. The information is captured in a peer-to-peer network where transactions are approved through consensus and the relevant information is available to all the stakeholders in the project through the democratization of all the project data.

The value for the project ranges from automated status updates, improved forecast accuracy, scenario planning, streamlined materials management, reduced overhead and indirect costs, rapid issue resolution, accelerated schedules, and improved quality control. With blockchains and smart contracts, benefits accrue up and down the supply chain, from just-in-time planning and inventory management to dispute resolution, reduced wastage and quality controls.

The full lifecycle of typical design and construction projects generate tens of thousands of documents (much still in paper form) from dozens of different companies and the information contained in those documents is often needed by multiple stakeholders. Disciplined coding and tagging can help identify what data and information is contained in the documents, but the data is not readily visible to all project stakeholders.

So what’s the next step? Organizations looking to maximize the value of their capital projects using emerging technologies such as blockchains and smart contracts must address the following questions:

• How can you get all the project stakeholders to embrace blockchains and smart contracts?
• How will you manage access to project data?
• What is the inherent value of the data held by the project stakeholders and how can sharing it benefit each stakeholder?
• What processes and functions exist only to certify trust or facilitate workflow?

The value of blockchains and smart contracts comes from the trust they create and the data they capture and share. Utilizing a combination of both can transform a construction project from a document-centered approach that impairs visibility and speed to a data-centered approach that is visible to all stakeholders in real-time.

About the Author

Vice President of Strategy & Consulting at Enstoa, Michael Matthews has over 25 years of experience managing large capital projects and portfolios in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. He specializes in strategic business consulting and smart technology solutions that enable leading organizations, worldwide, to spend more strategically on improving operations. For more information, visit http://www.enstoa.com.

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LiRo was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Syosset, N.Y.; the company operates regional offices throughout New York State.

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Lee has a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Pennsylvania State University.  He lives in Lititz, Pa., with his wife Jennifer and their two children, Sydney and Tucker.

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Raken provides innovative mobile technology to streamline field workflows for construction workers. Raken’s “digital toolbox” connects the field to the office with daily reports, time cards, task management, project insights, photo management and more. Clark Construction, AECOM, Skanska, Whiting-Turner, Hensel Phelps and thousands of the world’s top construction companies use Raken to solve their field reporting needs.

Raken Field Management Technology

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WATT-MAN

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Contractors who work on renovation and remodeling projects in hospitals and healthcare facilities face special challenges when it comes to dust control, and the stakes are high. It could even be a matter of life or death. This is not something that many people would realise, and issues like this might become more apparent if people read a Contractors Blog for a day in the life of the profession. It is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a fungal infection responsible for severe illness and mortality, particularly in immunocompromised patients. According to a 2009 report published in Medical Mycology, most hospital outbreaks of aspergillosis have been linked to failure to control the spread of contaminated dust or debris on hospital internal construction and renovation projects.

Because of the well-documented risks of dust in healthcare settings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requires hospitals to perform an Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) before any construction, renovation or repair project takes place – and to include a dust control plan as a part of this assessment. A growing number of contractors are using the ZipWall Dust Barrier System as a key component of their dust control plan.

An Essential Tool in the Commercial Contractor’s Toolbox

Jacob Bowler, project supervisor for Suffolk Construction, a large commercial construction company that works in the healthcare space in Greater Boston, says ZipWall dust barriers are a go-to solution for dust control. “The ZipWall system is fast and easy to set up and take down. It doesn’t disturb the existing structure and it does a great job of dust containment,” he says. “It’s also easy to set up negative air with a ZipWall barrier.”

The ZipWall Dust Barrier System is a comprehensive dust protection solution for construction, remodeling, and renovation. Contractors use it to isolate the work area and prevent airborne dust from dispersing. The patented ZipWall spring-loaded poles can be set up in just a few minutes without ladders or tape, and without damaging surfaces. Specialized accessories complete the system, adding important features such as tight sealing and entries in the barrier.

Flexible and Adjustable For Many Hospital Dust Control Situations

In hospitals and healthcare facilities, the multiple ways contractors use the ZipWall system depend on the ICRA requirements for the particular project.

“Hospitals have four levels of controls, depending on patient needs,” says Patrick Brower of Wise Construction in Boston, who has worked on many projects in major hospitals in Greater Boston. “These controls dictate what we have to do to protect the area.”

Brower says he appreciates the ZipWall system’s ability to quickly adapt to control dust at any jobsite, from narrow hallways to large spaces with high ceilings.

“We use the ZipWall system because it provides a flexibility that traditional building materials do not,” says Brower. “It’s flexible and the tools are manageable enough that we can quickly create a barrier of any size for any location.”

The ability to set up temporary dust protection walls quickly makes the ZipWall system uniquely suited for emergency projects and those that need to be completed fast, particularly on nights and weekends when time is limited.

Keeping Dust Under Control When Building Semi-Permanent Barriers

For longer-term projects, CDC regulations require the construction of semi-permanent barriers using paneling, bracing, and drywall. Lynchburg drywall contractors can come and build the structures but the process of building these temporary walls creates dust that also must be kept under control.
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“Whenever we build temporary enclosures out of drywall or other materials, we use ZipWall barriers for dust control to create a vestibule around it,” Brower says. “It’s clean going up, it goes up and comes down fast, and it works.”

Suffolk Construction recently geared up to start a longer term project – a new garage addition and pedestrian walkway at a large hospital in Boston.

The project required construction of a semi-permanent containment wall, but before the wall could be built, a temporary dust protection barrier was needed. Suffolk has been using ZipWall products for this purpose and many others for several years.

Contractors also say they often use ZipWall dust barriers to build temporary vestibules at the entrances to large projects to abide by CDC regulations.

“We create sort of an ante-room to provide construction workers with a place to prepare for entry and exit to and from the jobsite,” says Bowler of Suffolk Construction.

Time Saved, and the Bottom Line

The contractors who use the ZipWall Dust Barrier System say it saves them a significant amount of time and money. On some off-hours hospital and healthcare facility projects, barriers must be put up and taken down frequently, sometimes on a daily basis. The ZipWall system takes minutes, rather than hours, to install and remove, and it only takes one worker to do it, not several. The time saved on these projects can even mean the difference between a profit and a loss on some jobs.

“Cost is definitely a factor,” says Brower of Wise Construction. “The biggest expense in our industry is labor. Anything you can do to save minutes saves dollars.”

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ACPG is a manufacturer of products for the commercial construction industry based in Bloomington, Minn.

Activar Construction Products Group

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