13 June 1997
Source: http://www.enr.com
Engineering News-Record, June 9, 1997, Cover Story
Collaboration is driving the latest technology wave in the construction business. Far-flung project managers, engineers, owners, administrators, regulators and vendors who seek to work closer together in real time are pushing paperless communication into hyperdrive with a new generation of data networking systems. But as specifications, cad models, spreadsheets and photos move down the hall or around the world in microseconds, building and maintaining an electronic infrastructure is a high-tech challenge.
Even so, many firms now find this a competitive necessity. Data communications links are already expediting decisionmaking, reducing miscommunication, cutting travel and other overhead costs, and providing firms something new to market. "We're turning information technology into a strategic weapon," says James G. Jacobi, vice president and chief information officer at Brown & Root Inc., Houston.
The network communication boom has generated a whole new lexicon that not everyone yet can figure out. Hubs, switches, routers, bridges, backbones, firewalls and servers have taken on new meaning. "When people talk about a network, they think it's a [wire] to another computer," says Robert S. Trickovic, manager of corporate information technology at Bechtel Group, San Francisco. "The application on the computer is the top layer; the wire is another layer. But there are five other layers. They all have to work perfectly for the system to work."
At the heart of the new technology is the Local Area Network, which managers define as any grouping of linked computers at one location, whether two or more than 100. These are becoming a more familiar tool in construction firm offices and site trailers. "Three years ago we had between 250 and 300 [computers] on our lans," says Charles L. Rau, chief information officer of hntb, Kansas City, Mo. "Today we've got 1,000."
Keeping lans up to speed with the boom in information growth is taxing network managers, but bogged-down networks interfere with design productivity. "Sometimes we lose [drawings], and that causes a lot of frustration," says J. Mark Andersen, vice president of information technology at Environmental Systems Design Inc., Chicago. He plans to increase key lan connections by a factor of 10 next year. "We will see [drawings] get to the plotter more efficiently," says Andersen.
Cutting-edge design firms collaborating on rendered 3D cad models can tax networks the most. The Jerde Partnership, Venice, Calif., recently invested $250,000 upgrading its network of 93 workstations to handle data generated for such projects as the Canal City Hakata, a $1.4-billion commercial-residential development in Fukuoka, Japan. The increase in network speed has also boosted productivity so that 10 designers can now do the work once done by 30, says Thomas Jaggers, Jerde's chief information officer and cad director.
To help unclog lans, firms are also replacing outmoded "bridges," or control devices that provide a link to outside communications lines. In their place are more sophisticated "intelligent" routers, devices "that give us much more control on where data is flowing," says Kuldip Fadsal, management information systems director at Montgomery Watson, Pasadena, Calif. The firm recently installed them at each of its offices.
How lans are linked into what is called a Wide Area Network is also changing. Many firms are moving away from transmitting data over traditional, high-cost lines leased from telecommunications vendors such as at&t and Sprint. "With leased lines, you pay for all of the capacity, regardless of what you use," says Brown & Root's Jacobi, who adds that firms typically use only 30 to 40% of a line's capacity. To save money, firms are instead reconnecting to lines using "frame relay" technology that offers variable capacity on demand and accommodates sudden large data transfers. "One of the reasons we went with frame relay is to increase [capacity] at a day's notice," says Fadsal.
But some firms still find it cost-effective to stay with the status quo. On a water purification plant under way in England, Black & Veatch is using the leased-line approach because the project's data exchange routinely fills it to capacity. "We pump all our drawings through the line," says Gerald J. White, head of the Kansas City, Mo., firm's information technology department. For this project, "frame relay is not cost-effective."
Changing technology is also allowing faster links between corporate networks and lone desktop computers at jobsites or laptop-toting road warriors. The most popular modems send data along readily accessible telephone lines, but at a crawling one-fiftieth the speed of frame relay.
To make the next major speed leap for locations not busy enough for frame relay, firms are hooking up with Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines, which run four times faster than standard modems.
In addition to speed, construction industry firms are also seeking greater portability in their communications, generating increased use of wireless cellular modems. But experts say high fees, spotty coverage areas, interference- prone signals and airwave thievery have kept many users uninterested.
Two new developments in wireless technology, however, may attract the skeptics. One is Cellular Digital Packet Data, a service that uses the idle airwaves of existing cellular telephone networks to transmit data. Its fees can run less than 50% of what traditional data networks charge. The service, which began in 1994, can now be used in more than 50 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The other is Personal Communications System, a new telephone technology that transmits voice conversations that are static-free and can be encrypted. Service is still spotty in the U.S., but a nationwide network is currently under construction. "It's really going to be slick," says Black & Veatch's White, whose firm now uses pcs and has a contract to design its national network of antennas.
For firms working overseas, creating a reliable data communications link can present a totally new challenge, particularly when dealing with remote jobsites. "Oil and gas aren't always found in garden spots," says Brown & Root's Jacobi. "And in places like Africa, the [data communications] infrastructure isn't so robust."
One way firms get around such problems is by hooking into a satellite network. "We use satellites in remote areas, such as the Colombian jungle," says Chuck H. Terhune, manager of engineering in the Houston office of Parsons Corp., Pasadena, Calif.
But obtaining a satellite connection in developing countries can be hampered as much by politics as technology, firms report. "In China, you can't get a license to run an earth station satellite dish if you don't have a land line," says Bechtel's Trickovic. He also reports waiting months for permits to build an earth station in southern India.
Software Firms are also revamping corporate-wide computer software to speed communications and increase access to network databases, using such new tools as Lotus Notes and Internet Web browser software. In addition to Web software's ease of use, some experts see it as a welcome alternative to bloated software not designed to work efficiently through low-volume modems. "A lot of existing applications send data, but also send a lot of formatting" that can increase the information overload up to 30-fold, says Harry W. Rogers, information systems manager with Winter Park Construction, Maitland, Fla.
As software vendors continue to trot out products in Web-compatible format, construction industry firms are able to make formerly inaccessible data available through corporate Intranets and Web sites. "Anything that runs good over the Internet runs great over a private network," says Rogers.
Visual Transmission of visual images through digital photography and video is also undergoing a communications revolution in construction. "One or two years ago, if we had a field problem such as a rebar conflict that was holding things up on a project, you had to define the problem on the phone or fax a sketch, if you even could define the problem," says Michael D. McCaffery, project executive with dpr Construction Inc., Redwood City, Calif. "Now you take a digital photo and in 10 minutes or an hour, the problem is solved."
Recent price declines are also attracting more interest in video conferencing. "With the price point at $7,800 for a video conferencing setup that includes a 27-in. tv and a camera, versus $50,000 a couple of years ago, we'll be doing more and more of it," says Black & Veatch's White.
Also catching on are pc video systems, such as those sold by PictureTel Systems and Intel Corp. After each user installs the necessary hardware and software, workers at each end can simultaneously communicate with voice and video, as well as view and mark up the same drawing or spreadsheet. Dallas-based Centex Construction Group is installing such systems in three regional offices and at two job sites, and will put it in more "if the project manager wants to spend the extra $2,500," says Jeffrey A. Neyland, the firm's CIO.
Networks and Sites The ultimate payoff is when firms successfully blend communications hardware and software to improve project operations. "What we're trying to do with all of this...,the linkage of the design process with material acquisition, with project controls, with construction scheduling, with status and support, is to have computer-integrated projects," says Parsons' Terhune.
Increasingly, firms are developing project-specific networks and Web sites. Montgomery Watson and the Corvallis, Ore., office of CH2M Hill Cos. created one for their joint-venture water treatment project for the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas. "Everybody communicates through that," says Montgomery Watson's Fadsal. To save on communication costs, a copy of the project database is sent back to lans in Pasadena and Corvallis, where designers there share in the workload.
Owners are also becoming more active. Many are pushing for project data repositories. "We have clients looking over our shoulder electronically as we design," adds Greg L. O'Hearn, manager of engineering design systems in the Sheboygan, Wis., office of Rust Environment & Infrastructure. "It's no longer a system where we go off and do what we want, then bring it back and say, 'How do you like it?'"
Firms report that owners are getting involved through monitoring of real-time progress and seeking access to 3D cad models and project financial systems. But faster doesn't always mean easier. "We used to have weekly progress meetings. Now it's daily or hourly," says Bechtel's Trickovic. "You want time to interpret reports and not create a panic. There is a need for engineering interpretation." Work processes Firms that persist in applying the new technologies report that making a system successful takes more than procuring the necessary system. "We cannot force technology to follow old traditional work processes," says Robert C. Yang, head of Parsons' technology group in Houston. "It's not just a matter of very fast network. It's not simply about going faster."
Opening doors to involve more employees earlier in the planning is a key step to making the data communications process work effectively, say officials with firms in the thick of the transition. "You have to communicate with a lot of people. We try to do as much up front as possible," says Black & Veatch's White. "But we're also cutting weeks out of review cycles."
Observers also recommend not to overlook the obvious. A careful scrutiny of the entire data flow process is integral for success. "We've spent an awful lot of time and resources on locating data, ownershop of data and deciding what data gets replicated," says Bechtel's Trickovic. "At all times, we try to optimize between the speed of communications necessary and the needs of the project. And without re-engineering the processes, [electronic] connectivity is almost meaningless."
By Matthew Phair