Author: Constructech Editors
Smart cities, smart houses, smart facilities, smart everything depend on the strength of the available communications networks. The IoT (Internet of Things) requires direct and indirect communications, device to device, device to central hub, device to monitoring equipment. The increasing deployment of cellular IoT modules in smart city infrastructure and building automation verticals is expected to propel market growth according to VMR (Verified Market Research). Their recent report, Cellular IoT Market, puts the market value at $4.30 billion in 2021 with a prediction of it reaching $29.8 billion of 2030, a CAGR or 24.8% from 2022 to 2030. A companion…
A recent Washington Post article questioned why more people weren’t opting for heat pumps in new and retrofitted installations. Headlined, “Heat pumps are efficient and eco-friendly. So why do Americans barely use them?” the article reported that energy officials, lawmakers, and scientists tout the devices as inexpensive, energy-efficient systems that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over traditional heating and cooling devices. All true. But the system lacks popularity in parts of the United States because of low public awareness, high installation costs, and what experts consider a misleading name. Ah, the name. Heat pumps are heating and cooling pumps. Throughout…
In the early days of desktop computers, “networking” meant Ethernet cables running, of lucky, in conduit—often through false ceilings—all throughout the office. The hub-and-spoke, client-server relationship between nodes on the network allowed minimum transfer of data between workstations. There was still need, in many offices, for “sneaker net” (carrying floppy disks between computers). Times change. While engineering and construction organizations still struggle to unlock data across applications to effectively diagnose problems, predict risks, and inform future actions, companies are working to mitigate these problems. To address this challenge, Oracle introduced Oracle Construction Intelligence Cloud Analytics. The new solution combines data from Oracle Smart…
Who hasn’t been confronted with higher prices at the fuel pump, the grocery, the local restaurant? Pump prices are especially aggravating in construction because workers must travel to jobsites, often long distances, every day to earn the money to pay for the travel. A viscous cycle. Contractors can relate, as well, since fuel is a major cost of running the equipment used to build the buildings to make the money to pay for the fuel. Inflation, while part of the equation, is the most talked about aspect of rising prices. In the case of fuel, shortages caused by the Ukraine…
The old adage that you can’t improve what you can’t measure has been used to explain why human behavior is often the hardest thing to change. Mechanical operations can be measured and ways to improve them found but how do you measure people’s activities? Perhaps there are ways. By converting actions into data streams and using the cloud as a collection point, a new safety awareness program is aiming at the measurement of behavior so it can be reported and improved over time. Leica Geosystems enhances its existing Safety Awareness Solutions with the addition of the Safety Awareness Module in Leica…
Decades ago, as the dawn of computing took hold, a short but critical phrase echoed through offices around the world, “garbage in, garbage out… or GIGO.” The idea was such that, even with a powerful new digital workflow, a company and its employees were only as good as the data they captured, shared, and acted upon. That sentiment is no less true today, even with significant enhancements in systems and software. We are all still held back by or propelled forward with the information that supports our daily tasks, from the jobsite to the boardroom. We believe there are three…
Prioritizing a few hard truths to bring women back into the STEM workforce. Before the pandemic, there was already a blaring deficit of females in STEM roles. According to a 2020 Uptime Institute report, 75% of participating firms reported that in their design/build operations, women were represented in just 20% of existing roles. Another 25% of firms reported that they had absolutely no women in their organizations. Then COVID-19 hit, and 2.4 million women dropped out of the workforce in the first quarter of 2020, representing $8 billion in lost income. And according to a late 2021 survey, another 38%…
Nantucket Mass. has a long history of rebuilding. From 1750-1850, whaling was the heart of Nantucket’s economy. In fact, during that period the town was the undisputed whaling capital of the world, with more than 70 ships that ventured on two-year to three-year whaling trips to the Pacific. In 1846, a fire began in a hat store on Nantucket’s Main Street, racing through town, consuming everything in its path. Barrels of whale oil, stored on the wharves, burst into flames. The burning oil flowed into the water, creating what one man described as “a sea of fire.” Seven hours later…
Artificial Intelligence or AI Hal in 2001. Google in 2022? The future or the past technology? AI has many supporters, extoling the benefits and many critics call out cautions. It also still has gaps keeping it from a practical present according to some developers. Deep learning-powered advancements in AI have led to innovations that have the potential to revolutionize services, products, and consumer applications across industries such as medicine, manufacturing, transportation, communication, and retail. However, the AI efficiency gap — a situation in which hardware is unable to meet the increasing computing demands of models that are growing in size…
Collaboration has many synonyms—association, combination, teamwork, alliance, joint effort, among others—but strangely, communications isn’t one of them. Strange because the main element of collaboration is indeed communication among individuals both near and far. Especially far, even in these dwindling days of COVID-19’s remote work and distancing, as remote work is giving way to hybrid work relationships. Hybrid work is collaborating as a community, connecting not only colleagues but also those outside the organization. Collaboration tools must have the adaptability to bring productive, secure, and equitable experiences to a blended team or audience. The ratio of types of events (in-person to…