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Addressing Workforce Constraints in Data Center Construction
The Data Center Investment Conference and Expo (DICE): National brings together owners, operators, and builders at a time when data center demand continues to rise while the available workforce remains constrained.
Industry research shows that construction productivity has improved only modestly over the past two decades, even as project complexity has increased and labor availability has tightened. For teams delivering large-scale data center projects, this creates pressure on schedules, coordination, and overall execution.
Doxel is excited to attend DICE National, joining industry leaders as they share how teams are approaching these challenges in real project environments.
May 12–14, 2026
Day 1 Session | 2:10 PM – 2:50 PM
The panel includes perspectives from owners and operators who are directly responsible for delivering complex infrastructure programs.
The discussion will focus on how organizations are adapting to workforce constraints while maintaining delivery timelines and quality standards. Key topics include:
These challenges are not isolated to hiring. They affect how projects are planned, tracked, and executed from day one.
Doxel approaches workforce constraints as an execution and visibility challenge. When labor availability is limited, improving how work is tracked and managed becomes critical.
Doxel provides:
On data center projects with partners such as DPR Construction, this approach has supported a shift toward more consistent, data-driven benchmarking and improved confidence in project decision-making.
Data center projects require precise coordination, tight schedules, and rigorous quality control. Workforce limitations increase the risk of delays, rework, and misalignment between teams.
Improving visibility into project progress allows teams to:
This level of visibility helps teams maintain performance even when labor conditions are challenging.
This session will provide practical insights from industry leaders managing workforce constraints on active projects.
For owners, developers, and contractors involved in data center construction, it offers a clear view into how execution strategies are evolving.
Where Speed Meets Precision in Data Center Construction
The pace of data center construction has changed.
Schedules are tighter. Labor is harder to find. And the tolerance for error is almost zero. Owners and builders are being asked to deliver faster than ever, often on projects where even a small delay can cascade into millions in lost revenue.
That’s exactly why Doxel is heading to the DICE Pacific Northwest Data Center Investment Conference & Expo.
This event brings together the investors, developers, contractors, and technology leaders shaping the next generation of digital infrastructure. And this year, one topic is rising above the rest: How do you build faster without losing control?
The demand for data centers continues to surge, but the industry’s ability to deliver them has not kept pace.
Global construction productivity has barely moved over the last two decades, increasing just 0.4% annually, even as project complexity has grown dramatically
At the same time:
The result is a widening gap between what needs to be built and what can be delivered.
To close that gap, leading teams are rethinking how projects are executed. They are combining modular construction strategies with real-time, objective visibility into progress.
Speaker: John Rewolinski, PSP, Head of Scheduling Analytics, Doxel
Session Title: Speed Meets Precision: How Modular Delivery and Construction Tech Are Redefining Data Center Execution
This session focuses on a simple but critical challenge: Speed alone is not enough. Precision is what keeps speed from turning into rework.
Attendees will learn:
Most construction teams still rely on a familiar process:
The issue is not effort. It’s timing. By the time a deviation shows up in a report, it’s often weeks old. On a data center project, that delay can mean:
Doxel changes that dynamic by delivering objective, automated progress tracking that compares actual site conditions directly to the BIM model and schedule.
Instead of asking what’s happening, teams can see it.
Doxel was built for complex, fast-paced projects where precision matters.
With Doxel, teams can:
This approach eliminates manual reporting gaps and gives teams a consistent, accurate view of the jobsite
The impact is clear:
Construction is not getting simpler. But it is becoming more measurable.
With the right combination of modular delivery, AI-driven insights, and objective progress tracking, teams can finally deliver projects at the speed the market demands without sacrificing quality or control.
Doxel is helping lead that shift. See Doxel today.
When the scan says "not installed," and the trade says "we did it," the answer might be a quality problem, not a data error
▶ WATCH THE FULL PRESENTATION
Computer Vision Is the Andon Cord Construction Has Always Needed
LCI Conference 2025 · Reid Senescu, Doxel & Mike Miller, DPR Construction
Doxel's system was designed to track progress, but on a hyperscale data center project with DPR Construction, it caught something that no daily report, RFI, or schedule update had flagged, and the lesson that came out of it changed how the team interpreted data discrepancies entirely.
The story starts with a flag. Doxel's AI detected uninstalled security components near certain doors. The electrical trade partner pushed back hard, claiming they had roughed in all the security to those doors. In their estimation, the work was done.
After further investigation, the team found the truth: the security boxes had been installed. Three feet to the right of where they were supposed to be.
The components had been physically installed, but they were mislocated relative to the BIM. When comparing the 360° site photos against the model, Doxel’s AI correctly identified them as not installed in the designated location.
"If something's showing as not installed and the trade partner says it's installed, we probably have a quality control problem. Not the intended use case — but awesome to see."
— Mike Miller, Superintendent, DPR Construction
The team had stumbled onto a new interpretive principle. When Doxel flags something as missing and the trade says it's done, don't default to assuming the data is wrong. Investigate. The discrepancy might not be a tracking error; it might be a quality flag.
Mike was direct about what happened next and what it cost. Rework followed. But by investigating when they did, the team headed off even higher costs than if the issue had been found later.
REWORK WARNING: Dismissing data because it contradicts expectation is how quality issues get buried. The cost of investigation is almost always lower than the cost of rework — especially once walls are closed.
This is not an abstract lean principle. It played out on a real job, on real infrastructure, with real rework costs. The lesson is practical: when scan data and field reports disagree, treat the disagreement as information, not noise.
Construction quality management has traditionally relied on scheduled inspections, trade self-reporting, and periodic walkthroughs. These methods work reasonably well for obvious defects. They are poor at catching components that are physically present, but are installed in the wrong place relative to the design.
Computer vision can fill this gap by comparing what is physically present against the BIM at the component level across all visible trades every week. Mislocations look identical to missing components from the system's perspective, because in both cases, the component is not where it should be.
The practical recommendation from Mike's experience is to establish a protocol for investigating discrepancies rather than defaulting to dismissal. When a trade reports complete and the system reports incomplete, send someone to review the discrepancy. It only takes minutes, but it can prevent weeks of rework.
There is a secondary benefit this story highlights: objective, time-stamped documentation of installation location for every component. On a complex facility like a data center, where systems are dense, and modifications may be needed years later, having a record of where things were actually installed, not just where they were designed to go, has ongoing operational value.
This use case wasn't in the sales deck. It emerged from a real disagreement on a real job. That's often how the most durable capabilities get discovered.
Ezra Klein rings the alarm that the $1.6 trillion U.S. construction industry has not shared the productivity gains of other industries. After two decades into a career focused on bringing productivity gains to construction, Reid Senescu, Vice President of Product at Doxel.ai has an idea that can alter this trend.
In his February 5, 2023 opinion piece in the New York Times, Ezra Klein rings the alarm that the $1.6 trillion U.S. construction industry has not shared the productivity gains of other industries. He cites Goolsbee and Syverson’s paper “The Strange and Awful Path of Productivity in the US Construction Sector,” which explains that construction productivity has decreased since 1950 while manufacturing productivity, for example, has increased ninefold. I appreciate Mr. Klein’s alarm as well as his humility in admitting he has no idea how we get construction productivity rising again. Two decades into a career focused on bringing productivity gains to construction, I do have an idea.
But before I get to my idea, let’s consider Mr. Klein’s prime culprit – regulatory “paperwork, and paperwork, and more paperwork.” No doubt regulation impacts construction productivity; regulation impacts most industries. While Syverson’s paper does not provide data connecting productivity declines to increased regulation, it does note that the construction industry invested 46 percent less in R&D and software purchases compared to the broader economy in 2020. And, a separate paper by Syverson, “The Slowdown in Manufacturing Productivity Growth,” (my fellow construction colleagues will take solace in knowing we are not alone in facing Syverson’s economic scrutiny) explains that information technologies (IT) were the main driver for productivity gains in manufacturing from 1994 to 2005.
Why did IT so dramatically impact manufacturing, but not construction? In both construction and manufacturing, IT can improve productivity once information about the real world is transformed into data. Consider an assembly line producing widgets. The assembly line has sensors that send data to machines to respond in real time and to plant managers who learn of bottlenecks and continuously improve the assembly line. This investment in sensors produces the data that powers IT and drives productivity increases.
Applying IT to construction is not so easy. While a factory produces millions of widgets, a construction project is the assembly of millions of different components to produce only a single facility. A single sensor cannot automatically monitor the installation of thousands of square feet of walls or linear feet of ductwork. And that limitation means that IT is starved of data that would help construction workers and managers gain insights to continuously improve their processes. Thus, until recently, investment in IT has been limited to the design phase and certain aspects of construction administration. Yet, labor is the greatest cost on any project in the U.S. And, IT has had virtually no impact on the productivity of that skilled craftworker laying a brick or welding a beam to a column.
But, that reality is changing. With artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision, leading builders are transforming 360 video into near real-time measurements of construction processes. This near real-time reality capture of the construction site acts like sensors in a factory, feeding IT with data that empowers project teams to increase productivity. For example, a construction superintendent constructing a retirement community recently used this automated progress tracking technology to identify that a certain duct installation activity was not yet complete on the 3rd floor. Ceilings were set to be installed the next day. Without this insight from technology, the unfinished ductwork would have been covered up by the ceiling trade partner. And, when they later discovered the oversight, they would have had to rip open the ceiling. That rework would have put a big dent in their productivity. Instead, the AI-powered IT indicated the ductwork was not 100% complete. Augmented with this information, the superintendent applied his expertise in coordinating trades to get the ducts installed right away to avoid the rework. And, the general contractor and retirement community owner no longer had to explain to residents why they were going to be moving in two weeks late.
This technology is new; we only began building it in 2015. But we’re seeing results. At Doxel, we’ve created automated progress tracking for construction that reduces time spent manually tracking progress by 95%. This automation creates data that is now fueling productivity gains from IT just like in manufacturing. And, it gets data to decision makers 5x – 10x faster, which gives 5x – 10x the opportunities to unlock the full potential of construction teams to accelerate schedules and deliver projects under budget. We’re not alone in augmenting construction team expertise with AI; companies such as Procore, Autodesk, Oracle, Dusty, Rhumbix and dozens of others have built technology that makes construction easier for millions of workers every day. And, forward looking facility owners are hungry to adopt solutions that reduce their risk and make the job easier for superintendents and trade partners, because they know the investment will translate to projects that are on time and on budget.
Of course, an industry’s health depends on more than a single metric. Construction provides nearly 11 million jobs in the U.S., including many high paying roles that do not require a college degree. They are rewarding jobs that contribute to society. But, the work is not easy. It frequently requires complex problem solving or complex physical skills. These are great jobs, partially because they can’t be easily automated to increase productivity. Still, productivity is an important metric not just for economists, but because it tends to correlate with the industry’s per capita income. According to Syverson, construction pay could be 10% higher if the industry’s productivity gains tracked the economy as a whole. Society needs construction to be easier, too. As we face challenges supplying healthcare, delivering energy, and investing in infrastructure, construction will either be a bottleneck to change or it will be a catalyst to change. AI augments the experience and skills of construction teams, so they have better data and tools and owners have the confidence to invest in projects that solve society’s 21st Century challenges.
Written by Reid Senescu, California Licensed Professional Engineer and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. He is the Vice President of Product at Doxel.ai in Menlo Park, California. His research focused on how technology can improve construction team collaboration. At Doxel.ai, his products use computer vision to help teams collaborate and deliver projects on time and on budget.
Doxel’s AI technology enables Oracle’s customers to have real-time, objective visibility into their schedule performance
Doxel, an AI-based construction technology solution that enables proactive risk mitigation of projects and portfolios, announced its integration with Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM), the solution for globally prioritizing, planning, managing, and executing projects, programs, and portfolios.
The Doxel and Oracle integration will enable customers to track construction progress continuously and automatically against their Oracle Primavera P6 schedules. Unlike manual methods of progress reporting that can be subjective or delayed, Doxel’s AI technology enables Oracle’s customers always to have real-time, objective visibility into their schedule performance.
Proactive mitigation of delays and identification of opportunities to accelerate construction—enabling customers to deliver their projects faster while collecting valuable benchmark data for future planning in Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM.
“This integration with Primavera P6 is by popular demand from our mutual customers, and we couldn’t be more excited,” says Saurabh Ladha, chief executive officer of Doxel. “Nearly 100% of our customers use Primavera P6 for scheduling, and this unification of workflows will supercharge our customers’ abilities to manage their projects and portfolios proactively.”
Doxel, based in Menlo Park, California, has built a widely adopted platform that applies AI and computer vision technology to 360-degree video of construction sites and measures progress in a granular, real-time, and automated fashion, and then contextualizes actual progress against Primavera P6 EPPM plans.
Through Doxel’s cloud-based dashboard, customers can instantly see where they’re ahead and behind, informing their decisions with data that can always be trusted and delivered in time for proactive actions that ultimately land projects on schedule and budget.
“We see project teams use Doxel AI and Primavera P6 side by side in construction trailers. P6 is an amazingly powerful scheduling and planning tool and requires information from the field that can accurately, objectively, and with higher frequency measure and constantly update progress. Because if you don’t have high-quality data feeding into it, its value diminishes exponentially,” says Garrick Ballantine, Doxel’s chief revenue officer.
He adds, “General contractors and owners use the combination of P6 and Doxel to objectively partner with their trade partners on a week-to-week basis, bringing the field and office on the same page with our cloud-based visual dashboard and to make payment decisions on billions of dollars’ worth of construction nationally. This integration has happened because the industry demanded it.”
Frank Malangone, Oracle’s executive director of innovation and industry strategy, said, “Our customers continue to look for ways to objectively and accurately measure progress to update the schedule for reliable insights. This connection between Primavera P6 and Doxel speeds up this process without constantly having to be at the job site and improves communication and coordination between the office and the field.”
This article original appeared on Oracle’s blog.
By providing accurate and automated cost budget analysis, companies are able to better understand their project and where it stands against the budget.
With inflation and rising cost of materials, it’s critical for healthcare companies to keep construction projects on schedule and within budget. Here are 4 ways to help verify your construction billing and keep your project on budget.
Automated construction progress tracking provides an objective view into exactly where the project stands, which can help mitigate contractors overbilling for a higher percentage of completion. Companies that use a single source of truth for progress tracking (like Doxel) can reduce monthly bills by up to 10%.
With money still left on the table, contractors will be more motivated to finish the job so they can get paid.
Change orders are inevitable—but transparency around them should be, too. Before a major healthcare provider started working with Doxel, they estimated 4% of their total spend was caused by inaccurate progress tracking. These additional COs are passed onto the healthcare company, and are avoidable with the right solution in place.
Leveraging AI-powered progress tracking takes the mystery out of CO estimates. While using Doxel, one healthcare company found their typical change order estimates were inflated by at least 10%. That money is going out the door, and eventually it will add up. With more accurate project tracking, companies can more accurately pinpoint where change orders should be and reduce unnecessary spend.
Due to the unpredictability of material requirements, HealthTrust Contracts run the risk of being underutilized, and healthcare companies miss out on potential rebates and discounts offered. Doxel helps drive 100% contract utilization with more accurate, objective, and standardized measurement of materials installed across projects—which in turn allows more materials purchased through HealthTrust and greater financial savings.
For one Doxel healthcare customer, that meant the ability to purchase 10% more through HealthTrust, and the savings added up to a whopping $18.56M annually through discounts and rebates on materials.
Time is money. When a project’s progress is manually tracked, the process itself to collect and report on the data takes valuable time away from contractors and field teams. What used to take 60+ hours of manpower a week to manually assess progress now takes a mere 3 hours per week using an automated solution like Doxel. All that time can now be focused on safety, quality control, and coordination of trade partners.
See why healthcare companies (and contractors) choose Doxel
Doxel’s image recognition gives healthcare facilities objective progress data and real-time insight into materials installed. With automated project tracking, everyone wins—contractors spend less time counting and reporting, and healthcare companies have better control over project costs and governance.
Healthcare facilities using Doxel are delivered earlier with increased safety, less expense, and higher quality. To learn more about how they do it, schedule a demo today.
Finding remaining work can feel like finding a needle in a haystack, but Doxel makes it straightforward.
Identifying what’s still pending can feel like finding a needle in a haystack, especially when less than 10% of a particular trade’s work remains. Doxel has updated the Work In Place visualization to make it easier to find remaining work.
Managing a large construction project involves ensuring that millions of components are installed correctly, in the correct sequence, across many trade partners. Put simply, it’s easy to see what is there, it’s hard to find something missing. As more trades begin their installations, the not installed scope gets occluded, making it hard to visually see what’s left. This leads to a common problem in construction: unfinished in-wall MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) being covered up by drywall teams, leading to costly and demoralizing rework.
Choosing “Not Complete” in Doxel’s Work in Place visualization is a straightforward approach to solving the challenge of finding remaining work. By isolating the components that are yet to be completed, Doxel enables teams to have focused conversations with trade partners and other responsible parties. This feature empowers site teams to:
The Work In Place visualization helps site teams easily manage and track work installed by providing an automated, color coded 3D model of the structure, broken down by trade, zones, and stages of construction. Now you can select a trade, sort by “Not Complete” and see what is yet to be installed for that trade. This powerful tool answers the critical questions: “What is installed?’, “What is pending?” and “What is not done?” so that construction teams can appropriately manage labor, sequence trades, and hit project milestones.
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Traditional construction progress tracking methods rely heavily on manual inspections and subjective reporting, often leading to errors and oversights. With the size and complexity of construction, it is simply too time-consuming and error-prone to accurately count each hanger, pipe, or panel.
Visualizing work in place allows teams to quickly identify remaining work and understand the reasons behind any delays. By sorting by “Not Complete,” superintendents and trades can better coordinate with each other, quickly identifying where they should be working next or identifying missing work. This improved clarity helps teams verify that all tasks are completed, understand their next steps, and ensure that all work is done in the correct sequence.
Additionally, knowing what is left to do is crucial for commissioning and inspection sign-offs. Failing to identify unfinished work can delay these critical milestones, impacting the overall project timeline. By using Doxel’s Work In Place visualization, teams can ensure that all necessary work is completed and ready for inspection, preventing delays and ensuring a smooth progression towards project completion.
Construction is complex and details matter. Doxel’s Work In Place visualization helps teams find the right information quickly. By providing a clear and accurate view of unfinished work, Doxel empowers teams to prevent costly oversights, improve efficiency, and enhance collaboration.
Plans may shift, but your turnover date doesn’t have to. Watch Doxel, Oracle, and Layton Construction share how AI-powered progress tracking is enabling teams to deliver projects 11% faster.
Doxel, Oracle, and Layton Construction hosted an insightful webinar on how AI was transforming construction project delivery. While plans may change, your turnover date doesn’t have to. Attendees discovered how Doxel AI’s automated progress tracking and Oracle Primavera provided real-time visibility with greater project predictability and efficiency and ensured teams stayed on track.
Duration: 01:01
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Doxel is excited to be a sponsor at DCAC Live Sept 24-25, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Doxel is excited to be a sponsor at DCAC Live 2024 in Austin, Texas, making your registration process a breeze and adding some fun perks along the way! This premier event brings together top professionals from the data center industry, and Doxel is thrilled to be part of it.
As you gear up for the event, Doxel’s team will be at the registration booth, ready to greet attendees and hand out exclusive goodies. Be one of the first 50 people to register, and you’ll receive a sleek Doxel tumbler — the perfect companion for staying hydrated during the event.
Keep an eye out for the badges, which have an updated design and look better than ever!
Once you’ve picked up your lanyard and tumbler, head to Table 15, where the Doxel team will be stationed throughout the event. There, you can learn how Doxel leverages AI and computer vision to deliver frequent, precise, and actionable insights. Doxel accelerates construction by automating progress reporting, identifying hidden issues early, preventing rework, and improving collaboration through the use of visual data.
DCAC Live in Austin, Texas, is the go-to event for the latest insights and innovations in the data center industry. For those involved in data center construction, Doxel is revolutionizing project delivery by combining AI and computer vision to drive real-time project visibility, ensure schedule certainty, and eliminate costly rework. With Doxel, data center projects are completed faster, with better quality control and up to a significant boost in productivity.
Attending DCAC Live lets you learn how Doxel’s cutting-edge technology can streamline your data center construction projects, helping you stay on time and within budget.
Be sure to stop by the registration booth early to snag your Doxel tumbler, and join us at Table 15 for insights on how we’re making an impact. We can’t wait to see you at DCAC Live!
Doxel is excited to partner with DCAC, the people’s conference designed to inspire and evolve the data center industry.
Doxel is excited to announce its participation in the groundbreaking Data Centre Automation Conference (DCAC) Live Europe 2024 conference, which will be held in Dublin, Ireland, from October 15 to 16, 2024.
Doxel is excited to partner with DCAC, the people’s conference designed to inspire and evolve the data center industry. Aligned with DCAC’s mission to disrupt, challenge, and foster collaboration, Doxel looks forward to contributing to the meaningful conversations and connections that propel visionaries, builders, and manufacturers forward in this fast-growing sector.
DCAC Live Europe 2024 will gather top industry professionals from the world of data center automation and focus on how cutting-edge technology can enhance critical infrastructure efficiency, scalability, and automation.
Doxel accelerates construction by automating progress reporting, identifying hidden issues early, preventing rework, and improving collaboration through visual data. Attendees will be able to see advanced Doxel features, including:
Doxel’s platform automatically leverages AI to track project progress, providing real-time insights into productivity, cost, and quality. This allows teams to make data-driven decisions, reducing delays and keeping projects on budget.
Doxel uses predictive analytics to spot potential risks before they turn into problems. This proactive approach helps teams avoid costly overruns and delays in projects, keeping them running smoothly and on time.
With Doxel, data is collected automatically throughout the project lifecycle. This allows for continuous progress monitoring and ensures stakeholders have visibility into every aspect of the construction process.
Doxel’s simple dashboards make complex data easy to understand and help teams make quick, informed decisions for better project results.
Visit Doxel’s table for live demonstrations of its AI-driven platform. See how automated progress tracking helps monitor, manage, and control every stage of your data center project. Meet with the Doxel team to discuss challenges and explore custom solutions tailored to your needs.
As the demand for data centers grows, effective and automated construction progress tracking is more critical than ever. DCAC Live Europe 2024 is a great opportunity for data center professionals to learn about the latest in automation and technology. With expert-led discussions, technical workshops, and solution showcases, attendees will stay ahead in the evolving data center landscape.
DCAC Live Europe:
Website: DCAC Live Europe 2024
Insights from DCAC 2024 with Doxel CEO Saurabh Ladha and Joseph Pinzon, CRO of Overwatch.
In the latest episode of the Data Center Revolution Podcast from DCAC 2024, Saurabh Ladha, CEO of Doxel and Joseph Pinzon, CRO of Overwatch deliver an insightful conversation on the cutting-edge advancements in data center construction. Here are some of the topics covered during the podcast:
Catch the full conversation below and explore how technology is reshaping data center construction:
– Joseph Pinzon, CFO, Overwatch.
A McKinsey report shows stagnant construction productivity for decades. By adopting modern practices, owners can drive a new era of construction productivity.
Better tools for the field and reducing risk on every project!
Long considered the backbone of economic growth, the construction industry continues to face a productivity challenge that cannot be ignored any longer. According to a McKinsey report, construction productivity has remained stagnant for decades, with the sector’s growth rate falling far behind that of the global economy.
For an industry that influences everything from infrastructure to housing, this productivity gap is not just a business problem—it’s a societal one. However, a growing consensus is that construction owners who commission and pay for projects hold the keys to transforming the industry. By leveraging their influence and adopting modern practices, owners can be the driving force behind a new era of construction productivity.
Before exploring solutions, it’s essential to understand the scope of the problem. McKinsey’s analysis highlights that construction productivity has only increased by 1% annually over the past 20 years, compared to 2.8% for the global economy. This productivity gap has resulted in significant cost overruns and delays, with projects exceeding budgets by 80% and timelines by 20 months on average. The industry must adopt new innovative technologies and practices faster to mitigate this trend.
The factors contributing to this stagnation are numerous, including:
Given these challenges, it’s clear that a radical shift is needed. And that shift can start with the owners.
Owners play a pivotal role in the construction ecosystem. They are the ones who set the expectations, define the scope, and ultimately bear the financial risk of projects. Owners can drive change across the industry by taking a more active role in risk mitigation and pushing for productivity improvements. Here’s how:
1. Adopting Performance-Based Contracts
One of the most effective ways for owners to drive productivity is by adopting performance-based contracts. These contracts tie compensation to achieving specific milestones and performance metrics, such as staying within budget or completing a project on time. This approach aligns contractors’ incentives with the project goals, encouraging them to innovate and find more efficient work methods.
2. Embracing Digital Transformation
Digital tools can revolutionize construction, from design to execution to delivery. Owners who prioritize digital transformation can see significant productivity improvements. For example, Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows for more accurate planning and coordination, reducing the likelihood of costly errors and rework. Doxel empowers construction teams with AI-driven project benchmarking and analytics, enabling faster, data-backed decisions that reduce costs and improve on-time delivery.
According to McKinsey, using digital tools could improve overall productivity by 14-15% and reduce project costs by 4-6%. Project management software can also streamline communication and collaboration, ensuring all stakeholders are on the same page.
3. Leveraging Technology for Project Benchmarking
One of the most potent tools that owners can use to enhance productivity and benchmark their projects is Doxel. Doxel is a powerful tool for project owners looking to enhance productivity and benchmark their projects. Its Production Rate tracking simplifies comparing completed work against the schedule, enabling owners to measure progress and manage timelines effectively.
The data collected from the site is analyzed to deliver precise insights into project progress, quality, and potential risks. With Doxel, owners can establish clear benchmarks, compare them against industry standards and past performances, and identify inefficiencies early. This empowers them to make informed decisions that keep projects on track, within budget, and up to the highest quality standards.
By integrating Doxel into their project management practices, owners gain a significant competitive advantage, ensuring precision and efficiency in every project.
4. Fostering Collaboration and Integration
The fragmentation of the construction industry is a significant barrier to productivity. Owners can address this by fostering a more collaborative and integrated approach to project delivery.
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is one such approach, where all parties—owners, contractors, architects, and engineers—work together from the outset, sharing risks and rewards. This collaborative environment encourages innovation and problem-solving, improving outcomes for all involved.
5. Prioritizing Sustainability and Resilience
Sustainability and resilience are increasingly important in construction, not only for environmental reasons but also for long-term cost savings and productivity gains. Owners who prioritize sustainable practices, such as energy-efficient designs or renewable materials, can reduce their projects’ lifecycle costs. Furthermore, resilient designs that withstand extreme weather events or other disruptions can minimize downtime and maintenance costs, ensuring the project remains productive over its lifespan.
A skilled workforce is crucial for enhancing construction productivity, but the industry is currently grappling with a significant labor shortage. With many skilled workers nearing retirement and fewer young people entering the field, construction projects face increasing risks. However, Owners can address these challenges by investing in the right technology, such as Doxel, which offers three key solutions to keep projects on track:
(1) Accelerating the onboarding process due to its ease of use,
(2) Boosting jobsite worker productivity, and
(3) Enabling project leaders to identify when additional skilled trades are urgently needed to meet schedules.
Feedback from our clients highlight that Doxel helps onboard new engineers quickly, bringing them up to the level of experienced superintendents. Moreover, Doxel reduces the time spent manually tracking progress by 95%, freeing up the most skilled team members to focus on higher-value tasks.
While attracting more people to the industry is vital, a long-term perspective is essential. However, Doxel provides an immediate impact by optimizing the available labor on-site. For skilled trades, Doxel’s production rates are particularly valuable. They empower superintendents with hard data, allowing them to demand additional labor from trade partners when it’s clear that the current workforce won’t meet project deadlines. This data-driven approach helps ensure that projects stay on schedule and that trade partners fulfill their commitments, avoiding potential liabilities for delays.
Featured Case Study:
Layton Construction’s experience with Doxel has been transformative, particularly regarding time savings and efficiency. On a recent 82,000 SqFt healthcare facility project, six superintendents and project engineers were initially spending a combined 60 hours per week manually tracking progress. With Doxel’s technology, this time was slashed by 95%, reducing the task to just 3 hours total. This significant reduction in manual labor translates to 57 hours saved weekly, allowing the team to redirect efforts toward safety, quality, and effective coordination with trade partners—resulting in an additional $2.17 per square foot per year being reinvested into these critical areas.
The benefits continued beyond time savings. Doxel enabled a 10% reduction in overbilling by providing precise progress tracking, simplifying billing processes, and eliminating disputes over the percent complete. Additionally, Doxel’s production rate tracking made it easier to secure commitments from trade partners to meet deadlines, ensuring the project stayed on time. As Brandon Bergener, Superintendent at Layton Construction, noted, Doxel has also made it easier to access additional manpower when needed, further enhancing project efficiency and productivity.
When owners lead in driving productivity improvements, the benefits extend beyond individual projects. Here are some of the broader impacts:
While the potential benefits are clear, driving productivity improvements in construction is challenging. Owners may encounter resistance from contractors accustomed to traditional working methods or stakeholders who are wary of the costs associated with new technologies. To overcome these barriers, owners should:
The construction industry is at a crossroads. It must overcome its productivity challenges to remain cost-effective and meet future demands. With their unique influence and authority, owners are in the best position to lead this transformation. Owners can drive the industry forward by adopting performance-based contracts, embracing digital tools, fostering collaboration, prioritizing sustainability, and investing in workforce development. The time for change is now, and the future of construction lies in the hands of those who are willing to push it forward.
Delivering on construction productivity is no longer optional—it’s essential. By taking a proactive role, owners can unlock the full potential of their partners and projects and set a new standard for the industry as a whole.
Citations:
McKinsey & Company. “Delivering on construction productivity is no longer optional.” Retrieved from McKinsey & Company.
For general contractors and owners, AI-powered progress tracking ensures accuracy by providing a single source of truth on percentage completed.
At their core, construction projects rely on cash flow. But it isn’t always simple—considering the complexity of projects and the fact that a company is likely managing multiple of them at once. Some projects take months or years to complete, and payments happen throughout the entire duration.
With so many payments coming and going over the course of a project, it’s crucial for project teams to stay on top of daily progress and constantly evaluate where it stands financially. Otherwise, a project is at risk for being under or overbilled. Billing accuracy is vital for any large scale construction project success.
They may seem self-explanatory, but let’s get a few terms out of the way:
Overbilling occurs when a contractor is ahead of their progress and bills for contracted labor and materials before the work is completed. While this may help offset slow payments, it puts the contractor at risk of spending the extra money on something else if they don’t realize they’ve overbilled.
Underbilling happens when a contractor completes a certain amount of work on a project, but doesn’t bill for the full amount. This is typically the outcome of slow billing practices.
Both under and overbilling can lead to a state of negative cash flow, which can be detrimental to a construction company’s profitability and expected outcome on a project.
So, how does it happen?
Even before the project starts, money matters. If contractors are unable to correctly estimate project costs—or worse, underestimate their costs—it could set them up to be underbilled and out of cash before the project is completed. This deeply impacts their ability to make money (or at the very least break even) on the project, and it may go unnoticed until the very end when it’s too late.
If a contractor isn’t precise about what has been completed thus far, they will likely bill incorrectly. Trying to guess the percentage of completion could quickly cause them to over or underbill, and as a result the project’s entire budget will be at risk.
Construction is like a delicate dance, and poor project management could throw the entire routine off balance. Especially on bigger projects with multiple subcontractors, a disruption in one contractor’s ability to complete work could have a ripple effect on the entire project’s timeline and budget.
Effective project management allows a company to catch and correct any potential problems while holding everyone accountable for their part. If everything is settled at the end of the project, it’s already too late and nearly impossible to course correct.
Subcontractors that accurately measure daily progress have the ability to bill more precisely and maximize profits. For general contractors and owners, AI-powered progress tracking ensures accuracy by providing a single source of truth on percentage completed.
Being able to track and even predict progress is a powerful advantage—the more data you have from one unified source, the less likely over and under billing occur, improving billing accuracy.
The best part? The technology already exists to enable companies to collect better, more accurate data with less manual effort. Leveraging features such as automated estimate at completion (EAC) and earned value analysis can help guarantee a company’s project financials and reporting are spot on.
To learn more about the ways your construction company can maximize profitability and improve billing accuracy, schedule a demo today.
Introduction Establishing a consistent and realistic schedule is a significant challenge in the highly regionalized and variable construction industry. Construction executives overseeing projects across different regions, such as U.S., Europe, and Asia data centers, need a reliable method to benchmark project timelines. Benchmarking in construction is the process of comparing…
Establishing a consistent and realistic schedule is a significant challenge in the highly regionalized and variable construction industry. Construction executives overseeing projects across different regions, such as U.S., Europe, and Asia data centers, need a reliable method to benchmark project timelines.
Benchmarking in construction is the process of comparing a project’s performance, processes, or standards against industry best practices, standards, or the performance of similar projects. It allows you to understand where you stand compared to your expectations and highlights areas for improvement. This process helps set realistic goals, improve resource allocation, and reduce costs. However, traditional approaches based on estimates and past experiences often need to be revised, leading to inaccuracies, delays, and cost overruns.
Data center construction presents unique challenges due to the need for specialized systems like redundant power, rooftop control units, automatic transfer switches, and fire suppression systems. These features are essential for ensuring high operational standards and reliability.
To maintain project success and adhere to stringent timelines, referencing benchmarks in data center construction is critical. Benchmarks provide a reliable framework to keep projects on schedule by aligning construction activities with established standards. For instance, systems like redundant power and climate control must be installed according to precise timelines to avoid disruptions.
Owners can prevent construction delays by utilizing tools like Doxel to track each phase of construction, comparing progress against benchmark data from previous projects. Understanding the time required for each phase is vital, especially since timelines can vary due to regional and environmental factors. Traditional estimates often lead to inaccuracies, resulting in delays and cost overruns. However, leveraging benchmarks based on actual production data reduces these risks, enabling the creation of more realistic and reliable construction schedules.
Large complex construction projects with accelerated schedules often lack production data due to a combination of factors related to the complexity, variability, and traditional practices within the industry. Here are some key reasons:
1. Project Complexity and Variability
2. Fragmented Industry Practices
3. Traditional Work Methods
4. Inconsistent Data Collection Practices
5. Cost and Time Constraints
6. Technological Adoption Barriers
7. Short-Term Focus
The lack of production data in large construction projects is a multifaceted issue rooted in the complexity of projects, traditional industry practices, fragmented data management, and the challenges of technological adoption. Addressing these barriers requires a shift towards more standardized, data-driven approaches and greater investment in tools and processes that facilitate the collection, analysis, and use of production data across the construction industry.
In major construction projects, the ability to plan, execute, and deliver on time and within budget is critical. However, one of the significant challenges many projects face is the lack of access to reliable production rates and the difficulty in creating accurate benchmarks. These data points are essential for informed decision-making, resource allocation, and performance tracking. Without them, project managers and teams often operate in the dark, leading to inefficiencies, cost overruns, and increased risk. The key challenges that arise when production rates are not readily available and benchmarks are insufficient, highlight the importance of overcoming these issues for project success. They include:
1. Inaccurate Project Estimations
2. Inefficient Resource Allocation
3. Poor Performance Tracking
4. Challenges in Continuous Improvement
5. Increased Risk and Uncertainty
Not having access to production rates and benchmarks in major construction projects can lead to a range of challenges, from inaccurate estimations to poor performance tracking and increased risk. Addressing these issues requires a concerted effort to gather, analyze, and utilize data effectively to create reliable benchmarks and optimize project outcomes.
Doxel is an automated progress tracking solution that provides real-time, objective data on construction performance. Unlike traditional methods that rely on manual tracking and subjective reporting, Doxel uses AI and computer vision to deliver frequent, precise, actionable insights. Doxel speeds up construction by automating progress reporting which surfaces hidden issues early, prevents rework, and enhancing collaboration with visual data.
Doxel’s automated progress tracking leverages images from 360 degree cameras for reality capture by converting images into construction elements. This technology provides precise data on production rates, such as linear feet of conduit installed per week across multiple projects. By comparing this data across different trades, sites, and contractors, Doxel enables teams to create more realistic schedules based on actual performance metrics.
Owner’s reps, sometimes considered the Director of Construction, are responsible for fostering collaboration between stakeholders to bring data centers and large projects in on schedule and under budget. Consider a scenario where an owner has built multiple data centers using Doxel and has significant benchmark data on productivity rates for each stage in construction. This collaboration can provide enormous benefits when analyzing bids from the GC. Where project schedules are overly aggressive, project owners can challenge GCs on their ability to commit to accelerated schedules, fostering a sense of alignment. With Doxel’s historical production rate data, the GC can confidently assess the feasibility of the proposed schedule. The added transparency between the owner and GC, facilitated by Doxel, helps deliver projects on schedule using historical benchmark data.
Benchmarking: Use Historical Data to Set Realistic Schedules
Risk Reduction: Avoid Overcommitting and Mitigate the Risk of Delays
Informed Decision-Making: Make Data-Driven Decisions That Clients Trust
Enhanced Reputation: Deliver Projects on Time and Within Budget
In the construction industry, informed scheduling decisions are crucial for project success. Doxel’s production rate data provides insights to optimize schedules, reduce risks, and ensure successful project delivery. By leveraging this data, construction teams can confidently commit to achievable timelines and deliver exceptional results.
Ready to optimize your project schedules with Doxel’s production rate data? Contact us today for a demo and discover how Doxel can help your team achieve faster schedules with confidence and reduced risk.
By incorporating these insights and leveraging cutting-edge tools like Doxel, construction teams can navigate the complexities of project scheduling with greater certainty and efficiency.
With automated tracking, construction teams can ensure that 'almost done' quickly becomes 'completely done.
Let’s face it: Getting stuff done is hard. And getting stuff done in the face of today’s shortages, supply chain issues, and inflation is a daunting task for any construction company. Automated construction progress tracking can help you finish projects faster.
Before we get into that, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on.
Less people from younger generations are choosing a trade or apprenticeship. As a result, the industry is facing a shortage of skilled workers to help complete project milestones. Without knowing how many people can get the work done (and get it done correctly), companies struggle to stay on track.
Those who do choose to go into construction today are still green in their careers and don’t have the experience that seasoned employees do. This creates a learning curve and requires additional time needed to get them up to speed.
Unpredictable factors create unpredictable change—and change requires an added degree of flexibility for the project to adapt to the circumstances. As a result, companies are seeing more design changes come through, and the need to stay on top of assessing and documenting them.
Speaking of unpredictable, the industry ha seen an influx in supply chain issues, causing delays in shipments and—in some cases—a limited supply of the necessary materials available.
Across every industry, prices are going up. Companies must now reconcile their bids and project scopes to maintain profitability.
When the going gets tough, construction stays tougher. The industry is no stranger to uncertainty. Now more than ever, companies need to pinpoint areas of improvement and streamline their processes to maximize efficiency.
With all these factors weighing on a project’s productivity, the margin for error is very low—which means operational excellence is critical for success. Many projects get to a certain stage or near completion, but struggle to accurate assess what’s happening (or not) to get the rest of the way there.
Almost done isn’t done.
If the last 10% of a milestone takes more than 20% of the time—that’s a big, potentially costly, problem.
That’s where automated construction progress tracking comes in. With the right technology in place, companies can save 25% of superintendents’ and field teams time that would otherwise be spent on tracking progress and bringing everyone on the same page. That’s less time in meetings and back-and-forth conversations, more time building.
Real-time automated construction progress tracking gives everyone on a project visibility into the current state, without the need for individual communication. This ensures the project moves as quickly as it can and prevents trade stacking.
Stay on top of milestones with the ability to forecast and predict any slowdowns before they happen—instead of catching them after it’s too late. By automatically capturing more than 75 stages of construction, automated construction progress tracking technology can spot potential issues more efficiently in real time.
By providing accurate and automated cost budget analysis, companies are able to better understand their project and where it stands with the budget. When unforeseen factors or delays hit, you want all the knowledge and numbers you can get to properly adapt and minimize the impact.
In construction, communication can be slow and sparse. Automated construction progress tracking gets everyone on the same page without having to meet to discuss. Having a digital surveyor gives everyone the information and insights they need to collaborate faster—without relying on project resources to collect and report on it.
No matter what gets thrown at the construction industry, a company needs to be resilient and smart to see success on the other side. Companies who invest in the right tools that save time and automate processes have the advantage of receiving data and insights in real time. The faster something is flagged, the faster it can be fixed.
Want to learn how Scripps Health and McCarthy Building Companies are automating construction progress tracking to increase project visibility? Register for our upcoming webinar Almost Done, Isn’t Done.
Streamlining the process for creating detailed reports can free up the project team's focus while enhancing the level of reporting and insights for a company.
In a 2021 Workforce Survey Analysis, AGC found that 88% of companies surveyed were experiencing project delays—that’s nearly nine out of ten. Now more than ever, construction companies are faced with the challenge to do more with less and keep projects on track in the face of unforeseen circumstances.
While certain conditions and factors in the industry can’t be controlled, there are 3 construction workflows that can reduce the margin of error to ensure a project stays resilient. This requires operational excellence in the areas that can be predicted and made more efficient.
What are the three construction workflows a company should prioritize?
Communication among field teams, supervisors, and the office is crucial—and can be cumbersome. With so many moving pieces of a project happening at once, getting the necessary message out to everyone in a timely, effective manner is no easy feat.
Companies need to find a way to remove the barriers to communication. By doing so, they’ll save everyone on the project team valuable time that would otherwise be spent tracking progress, in meetings to get everyone up to speed, or playing telephone.
Quality of construction can make or break a project’s ability to stay on track. Quality issues or mistakes found too late in the process can be the kiss of death for moving onto the next phase—and as a result, teams remain stuck in the final 10 or 20% of completion for too long. This won’t just cost time and manpower, it’ll directly affect a project’s budget and profitability, too.
The only option to streamline and prevent these costly quality issues is to catch them early and address them quickly. Technology that helps companies see progress in real time opens the door for making smarter decisions and adapting faster.
When a project does make it through the final 10%, the work isn’t over yet. Teams must provide an objective, detailed overview of the completion—which again takes time and resources. There’s more information to gather, and no efficient way to compile it using manual efforts alone.
Teams should be focused on projects, not paperwork or reporting. Streamlining the process for creating detailed reports can free up their focus while enhancing the level of reporting and insights for a company.
By implementing a technology that can continuously monitor performance and provide predictive insights, construction companies are able to achieve operational excellence.
Platforms like Doxel act as a digital surveyor to automatically track progress across more than 75 different construction stages in real time, freeing up the project team’s time and resources.
Instead of manually walking the jobsite every day or week to capture exact progress, Doxel works with a 360° video to act as a digital surveyor in minutes. Combining the power of computer vision with BIM means companies have an objective truth of the status of a site—and can understand progress, schedule, and budget better than ever before.
If it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t.
Tune in to our webinar Almost Done, Isn’t Done to hear from two successful construction companies on how they’re leveraging real-time progress tracking to automate and achieve more.
By continuously tracking and analyzing construction site progress in real time, Production Rate Data serves as a single, reliable source of truth for measuring construction progress.
Traditionally, project managers have relied on site visits and progress reporting from their field teams to stay abreast of construction progress. On large capital projects like data centers, semiconductor wafer fabrication plants, or healthcare infrastructure this can become problematic where even small schedule delays lead to large cost overruns. Doxel’s Production Rate Data provides a solution that empowers project teams with additional data in order to monitor construction progress.
Production Rate Data is the information gathered through reality capture inputs (e.g., 360-degree imaging or drone footage), to continuously track and analyze construction site progress in real time. By comparing actual work completed against the planned schedule, this data serves as a single, reliable source of truth for measuring construction progress. It provides project owners with objective, accurate insights that are crucial for managing schedules and ensuring on-time project completion. This innovative approach equips teams with the data needed to identify delays, optimize workflows, and ensure efficient project delivery.
By leveraging this advanced technology, owner’s representatives can monitor projects with a data set they control, guaranteeing transparency and accuracy. Here’s how Doxel tracks completed construction:
Example: Mechanical Pipes and Walls
Doxel’s Production Rate tracking capability simplifies the comparison of completed construction against the schedule, offering a powerful tool for project owners to measure progress and manage schedules effectively.
Understanding how construction software tracks progress can be complex. Doxel simplifies this with a robust methodology:
Productivity is calculated using specific units of measure for each stage based on your work breakdown structure (WBS) in Primavera P6. For example, if the plumbing installation requires 100,000 linear feet of pipe, the unit of measure would be linear feet. The planned number would be 100,000, against which completed construction is measured.
As construction progresses, Doxel updates the number of completed activities. For instance, if only 20,000 linear feet of pipe have been installed for the drainage system, the 360-degree imaging would capture the work, and Doxel would update the percentage of completion for both the stage (drainage system) and the trade (plumbing) to 20%.
To help manage schedules effectively, Doxel introduced the Production Forecasting Calculator. This tool allows users to simulate different scenarios by adjusting crew sizes and production rates to forecast completion. General contractors can manage subcontractors to ensure they stay on schedule. At the same time, owner’s reps can monitor production rates remotely, gaining confidence that construction progress is on track based on actual data.
Production Rate Data compares completed construction against your schedule, providing a single source of truth for measuring construction progress. Doxel’s system allows you to manage productivity for each stage of the construction project by trade, zone, and floor. This capability empowers project owners with a controlled data set that facilitates better communication with general contractors and helps address potential schedule delays proactively.
By giving project owners control of the data, Doxel ensures a higher level of transparency and efficiency in construction management. This innovative approach enhances collaboration and significantly reduces the risk of delays, optimizing time and resources. With Doxel’s Production Rate Data, project owners can confidently steer their projects to successful completion.
