Construction Brothers

Construction State of The Union

A discovery
Tyler shares about the blueprints he and Eddie’s dad found in their grandfather’s house. They were prints for a relatively simple house, but still Tyler was overwhelmed by the artistry of the prints. Eddie recalls the values and the social dynamics of work crews in that generation.

Core values
Tyler shares about an exercise that Chat GPT gave him when he asked for help clarifying the core principles of his business. It suggested that he ask himself “five whys”--five layers of examining purpose.

This process led him to an appreciation for the breadth and depth of the construction industry’s reach. Every part of our world is touched by commercial construction in numerous ways. He recalls the generational pride that was revealed on family trips as they passed projects that their dad and granddad had worked on.

Eddie discusses how storylines are developed and framed as part of the TV coverage of the Master’s. He connects that to Tyler’s marketing work helping construction companies tell their story. Tyler shares about an impressive recent project. A single module that was being moved across the tarmac for an airport project weighed more than an entire hospital he’d worked with a short time before.

Tech-talk flak and robot checkers
Tyler shares about some responses he’s gotten to recent posts in which he implied that tech might be used too extensively. He and Eddie discuss recent industry shifts in regard to tech, BIM, and new forms of coordination between parties.

They discuss the importance of basic human consideration and communication. Eddie revisits and explains his strong disdain for unnecessary meetings. Then he engages in a recap of the shifts in building design over the last couple decades.

Tyler reviews what he’s seen recently about cutting-edge automation regarding welding and other aspects of steel work. Eddie discusses some arguably redundant checks on some of the pieces ABSI designs.

Tyler lists some unnecessary verification steps that are being eliminated with automation. Eddie outlines the ways that the quality control process has changed. Eddie gives a shout-out to Tesfit software and lists other sub-sectors of the industry that are doing impressive things with automation.

Airing of grievances

Eddie shifts the conversation in the direction of a few beefs he has with the industry.

One thing he reiterates is the classic adage: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. In his later years, he has learned that internalizing this principle brings benefits no matter how small or large the project might be. He sees diminishing returns resulting from the push to go more quickly.

This leads to Eddie’s message to the industry: Rushing is not going to solve our problems. He’s concerned that this can lead to the industry collapsing on itself in some ways.

A curmudgeonly bunch and the wrap-up
Eddie shares about an arrogance that he sometimes sees among his own crew. He explains why that is. People in his role are positioned to see a good number of inefficiencies.

“Invest in the ounce rather than the pound,” Eddie says.

Tyler closes with the thought that it’s important to avoid the temptation to replace your people skills with shiny-object obsession.

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Duration:: 1h 6m
Broadcast on:: 17 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) This episode is brought to you by Bluebeam. You know what software you could pry out of my cold, dead lifeless hands? What's that, Bluebeam? (laughs) It's made this simple thing simple. It was built for people in construction, so I quit asking, why doesn't this software do this? It has made the everyday easier. I am so glad that it was my idea to install the software. You are a dang liar, sir. - It wasn't my idea. - No, it was my idea to install Bluebeam first. This is a great mystery in our company, and I guess we'll never know. - I have proof, I know for a fact it was me, but guys, it doesn't have to be a mystery for you, 'cause all you gotta do is you go to Bluebeam.com/bros and you can download a free trial today. And then you've got that marker in the sand that says, guess what? I was the one that had the idea to install Bluebeam. - Now you wanna? - Yeah. Bluebeam.com/bros. (gentle music) - The design phase of our construction industry right now, dude, we are pushing more and more incomplete design documentation to construction than ever now. We don't ever see a complete four construction set of drawings save maybe a military job. (laughing) - I'm serious. (upbeat music) - Our dad, who's been helping clean out a lot of the collection, we'll say, at Grandma and Pop's house, came across some blue prints, actually blue prints, brought them back, gave them to Eddie and me and said, hey, just open these up together and just take a look. And the prints are of our great grandfather's home, - Yes. - Up in Ohio. And it's residential, it's not a commercial building by any stretch, but I mean, that home has a ton of sentimental value. And it was especially to like dad's cousins to you in some ways, because like you were a baby running around in that basement, you know? - Yeah, I was young. - How old I think. - Yeah, I remember being in the home for sure though. - Yeah. - I was young, but not. - Yeah, I never got that opportunity because there's a 13 year age gap. - Yeah, right. - But one thing that you see when you look at that, that is exactly what you said, artistry, like it's art. And it's an architectural drawing, you know? And it also had the framing plan, you know, the wall framing plan, roof framing and all that stuff in there, which is pretty cool. - Heating plan. - Heating plan, you know, drawings at the fireplace and like, gosh, man, the detail on it. - Did you see the ash pit on there? - No, I didn't see the ash pit for the furnace. - For the furnace? - Yeah, that's pretty cool. - No, dude, and it's funny because you look at it and then you looks it up on, was it Zillow or do you look it up on like Google Maps or something? - Google, I have to see what the, you know, Google card got going down the street and so you can see the front elevation of the house, put it directly next to the plan. - Still standing, still beautiful. - Of course, yeah. - Like still just like, it's simple home. - Very small, simple home. - Small, simple home, not anything like extravagant with like the big columns in the front, like we see down here in the south. - You know, not like that, but-- - We hail from simple roots. - Yeah, simple roots, but-- - Simple carpenters, but that is one of those things where I was like, holy cow, dude, that's a rarity. That's a rarity. So anyway, we're coming down off of that, coming into this episode. (laughing) - And the guys were commercial construction, great grandpa, pop, you know, pop's brothers. They were all, we've talked about the Messer connection, all commercial guys, but those guys would get together almost for like the barn raising. And so when they were building their homes, when they were putting a roof on their house, whatever, they'd get together and they would work together and they would bring those projects together. It's a really, it's a cool thing. And they would bring their talents to bear over their personal life. - I know that there's been a measure of that that has carried on in our family too. - Yeah, yeah. - That we've had the opportunity to work on some things together. They had mom, they built a house a couple years ago. We got to help out a little with that. I'm sure dad would have wished just to be out there a little more. (laughing) - Yeah, for sure. - But it is good when you're able to get together and work on something and that's been the family biz and that's been kind of what we've done for a long time generations really. - Yeah, well, I don't know, there's a lot of nostalgia and I think in the building industry for our whole family. Yeah, there's a lot of pride in it. Dude, so I was working through our core values the other day for our business and all that. And I was one of the things that like I did this exercise. This was kind of fun. So here's a fun one. If you're a business owner or you're looking at starting a business or anything like that, five wise. Have you ever done that exercise with you? So this was actually a chat GPT propped. I'll be honest with you. I was like, hey, chat GPT, help me uncover, like help me work through this. And it like led me through the process and was like, yeah, do this exercise, try it. And so I did and it was five wise. And it was basically like, what is the thing that your company does? And first question is, why is that important? You write that down and then you go down to the next layer. Why is that important? And you do it five times. And the thing that got me, like I got to the end of it. And the last thing that I wrote is like, a better construction industry means a better world. And I started thinking through the impact of the construction industry. Like it fired me up to read it. I was like, heck yeah, that's so true. And I posted something on LinkedIn this morning. It'll probably be weeks from, you know, you'll have to dig back a couple weeks if you go to look now, but I posted something and it was basically that was the first line. And it was just kind of going through all the different things that our industry touches. Like we touch data centers and roads, hospitals where our kids are born. You know, where we get healed for whatever it might be. The sandwich shop across the street that we just came from, like the coffee had to be roasted somewhere, there was a building for that. You know, it's just like you go through all of it. You know, like the place we're sitting right now, the furniture where it was manufactured, just keep going down the list. And it's just one of those things where I was like, man, this industry is so cool. We get to do some really cool stuff. Yeah, like in, you know, like technologically super cool, but the fingerprints that we have. And I think that's something that we often lose sight of when we're in the trenches is the fingerprints that we have on just the environment around us. You know, I know we referred to this in the past, but driving down the road, especially like down in Tampa. And dad's just like, hey, look at that, I built that, I built that, I built that, you know, like Rodney Dangerfield, three of those, two of those, you know, that sort of thing. And so, - Candy Shack reference. - Candy Shack reference, yeah. But there's pride in it. We're looking at that house and it's like, our great grandpa like put that stuff together. And like, I'm looking at the drawings and like there's a sense of pride even in generations. Like there's an element of pride in that. And I don't know, I just don't lose sight of the fact that like your kids will come back and look at what you're doing right now and be like, yeah, my dad, my mom, you know, like they had a part in that. Like that's the reason that exists. And it's like your kids are gonna be pretty geeked out too. I don't know, man, it's down the rabbit hole we go, but- - It's a cool industry. It really is, you knew, you're talking about it, reminds me of something I've heard about the telecasts that are done on PGA tour events. - Yeah, okay, and like the Masters is one. I love watching the Masters. And it's been framed up, I believe by CBS for years it was. And I've just done a magnificent job of creating storylines to a certain extent drama. And I mean, you cannot undersell the experience of being out on the grounds and having that for real in front of you. But there's also something about capturing that and framing that up in a way that other people can see. So I'm kind of, I'm bending this very much voluntarily back into what you're doing at Story Builder. And we're not staying here. - That's fine, that's what we don't need. - I will say that this wasn't planned by the way, this was not an extension of the act that's already running. You are able to kind of capture and tell the story of construction. And I think that, you know, I really about, you're not in it anymore, okay. But telling the story of what we do in an amazing way is what will attract the talent, is what will make this industry have some magnetism going into the generations of the future. That's what creates the creative juices that bring about the new ideas, that change the way we put the building together, that change the way that we treat our environment, that change the way that we build. It's, I mean, it is important to be able to tell that story. Well, I know there's something that you've kind of leaned into. And so shout out to that. - Well, there's so many, oh, there's so many opportunities, man, like, there's so much out there, just in the nitty gritty. I mean, we were, I don't know if I talked, did I talk about the Heartsfield trip at all? I don't know that you were loud yet. - May, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna glaze around it. Maybe I can get into detail later, but essentially the, I did a shoot where, we were watching some really freaking huge things get moved across the runways at Heartsfield Jackson. And there was a moment, man, that's like middle of the night and I'm watching this stuff roll in. And I just like turned to the dude that like was kind of leading the QC, QA charge and everything. And I was like, you know, it's how awesome this is, right? You know, that's how cool this is. - Yep. - And he just kind of looked at everything, like, yeah, yeah, this is pretty sweet. I'm like, this is dude, this is rare. And then like, I know he's in the same way for him and his like kids and everything. And do you just being able to see some of that happen? It's, I don't know, it's kind of an honor in a way to just be a fly on the wall, just be a fly on the wall. That's it and just watch it. - I don't wanna get you in trouble here, but can we speak of it in enough of a vanilla term to say that it was a, it was a large project, obviously, Heartsfield. - Yes. - So what a-- - The busiest airport. - I'll put it this way. One of the bigger jobs that I detailed was 750 tons. It was a hospital, down Tampa. And this thing that they were rolling across the tarmac weighed more than that entire hospital. - It was a module. - It was a module. - That weighed that much, as much as the building. - Yes. - The largest one you'd ever detailed. - And the largest one that I had, one at one of them, 'cause I've done, I've done bigger ones than that, but like, that stands out as one of the biggest ones that I've done. - Sure, yeah. - And like, I mean, is it huge? No, but it's freaking massive, man. I'm like, just the technical know-how behind it. It's just the communication that had to happen and getting that thing there and making sure it all plugs into place. I just, it's mind-numbing. - So the heart of the show today, and we're gonna meander a little bit, but I wanted to come back and look at-- - Definitely will meander. - Well, I wanna come back and look with that, like the heart of that in mind. - Yeah. - Where we're at in construction. And I mean, there are some things that are disheartening to me about where we're at in construction and have been, for the five years we've done this podcast in the 20 years that I've been around the thing, 2020 plus since I was in the trades. But then I hear stories like that. And it's like, that wasn't happening 15 years ago. No. 750 ton modules and like the level of creativity that it took to think, I'll deliver this project in a completely outside of the box way. Even for the owner and hard spell jacks to say, sure? - Yeah, we'll do that. The climate has changed. - Yeah. - Construction is changing, evolving, growing. And so that is cool to watch. Like we have born witness to the evolution and change of construction. But it's been changed in a long time. - That story was definitely one that was like enhanced big time by tech, like big time. Because like the BIM aspect of this, the scanning aspects of this like before it got there, we were able to know if it, like that's the kind of stuff that you think about, yeah, 15 years ago even, we're kind of starting to crack into this a little bit. 'Cause I feel like laser scanning was starting to kind of get some interest and, 'cause I think you guys didn't even talked about that at one point talking about laser scanners and things. But they're a lot more accessible now. - Oh yes, so much more accessible. It all sorts of different forms of fashions. And dude, like I'm looking at it, I'm like, dude, if we were to do this by hand, like there's no way. Like we'd have to get our tape measures out and sketch everything in order to make sure that it fit. Like there's no way that we would have been able to accomplish something of that magnitude. That I'm gonna say easily with that amount of ease and that amount of confidence. It's one of the things that I was impressed by is that I was kind of thinking that the person who was doing a lot of the QC was gonna be like kind of nervy, that it wasn't gonna fit. 'Cause I'm like, man, I would be nervy. - Today's episode is sponsored by Dell's 5,000 series mobile workstations, powered by Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. One thing I've found in reality capture is that the process is very data heavy and it demands a lot out of a machine. I need to be able to get up and go, but I also want to be able to take the horsepower with me. The 5,000 series is meant for that. If you're a project manager on the go and you've got to have the horsepower with you, go check out Dell Precision 5,000 series mobile workstations. If you want to learn more, go to Dell.com/precisionv. - I'd be very nervy, cool as a cucumber. He's just like, nah, we've checked it, it's gonna fit. It's just confident, it'll fit, it works. It works. - Yeah, it's a monetary investment. - Oh yeah, and we want to get into that. I don't think we can, but it's crazy. - Yeah. - It's crazy. And yeah, the pressure on that thing working. But that was one of those testaments of like, and I've been getting a little bit of flack too about some of the tech conversation, 'cause I had posted another thing the other day that was basically kind of talking about construction tech companies and that sort of thing, not providing enough value and all. And I wanna come clean, like, I don't hate tech. I freaking love it. Like I spent 10 years detailing 3D models. Like, you don't come out of that and not have a mind of like, dude, no, this can change the way we work. I believe it can. And like, there are just instances of that all over the industry right now. So I think the tech space is like big, like big time shifting. I think there's a lot more demand from subs, which is really good. Like the sub-trades are coming into the equation and it's less about the general contractors is more about the sub-trades now, where it's like, oh no, we gotta fold them in too. So it feels like things are starting to come together more, whereas like, when I was first starting, especially it was just like, oh, this GC has this project management tool and like, yeah, we can never get access to it. You know, like, it's still a problem, but there's more awareness around these problems and I feel like we're gonna start seeing them fixed more and more over time. - Yeah, even that speak is kind of going by the wayside sub-contractors, giving away to the specialty contractor just because of the notion that they're not so but anything like their specialty. And the idea that we've gotta work together, like we've definitely become more collaborative. And you see varying levels of that. So, I mean, the good is that we know we need to be more collaborative. - Oh, yeah. - We know that we need to come together. And I think, I mean, I've been involved in more in meetings than ever. Like that's a requirement of larger projects. - How are those going, by the way? - Some of them good, some of them bad. You know, sometimes they are handled very well. Sometimes I'm there exactly what I need to be and I'm able to not be there when I'm not needed. Sometimes I'm just a quest or, you know, just expected to show up and that kind of sucks. But it just depends on who's managing. - That's one area that I would provide some feedback on. I know, like I've experienced that and I know you've talked about this. Hopefully they're getting better. But like, golly, man, if you're running a BIM meeting or BIM team and you're just like, it's just like, yeah, we're showing up for an hour every Monday at two to put our models together. Like I understand the reason why you're setting like a standard time for everybody to show up. But also like there's the lack of awareness too that comes into play there sometimes of like, hey, my steel guys here, he doesn't need to be here today. - Yeah. - And then you don't say anything. And they sit there for an hour, wasting all their flippin' time. It's like, there's gotta be some awareness around that. That's more like a personal side of things. I feel like that's not solved by tech. That's solved by process. - Yeah, that's a strength of the online meeting. If I drive across town and it's an hour slot meeting, I'm gonna say to the end of the hour, no matter what. - Of course. - If you schedule an hour and a half slot because you feel like you've got an hour and a half material, but you get the upfront stuff done and you know that there's four people you can release from the meeting. And I think I'm stolen this. Actually, for mine, he's Silverman, who we're supposed to be interviewing soon. - Yeah. - That he said, hey, I might just tell somebody, you're done, you're good, but stay near the phone for the next hour and a half. Like if I need anything, I'll reach out, but you know, you don't have to sit here while we handle business that it's an honor needed to. - It's awareness, man. Like it's social awareness. - Yeah, like we're either room. - Right, yeah, most of it is. And you know, you see that handle different ways. It's painful to me. You know, my disdain for meetings almost matches your disdain for email. And the reason for that is because-- - The other is the opposite of each other. - Yeah, it's so polar opposite. - And the meeting thing, when you've got 10 people sequestering a room and you're thinking through the rates that these people are making and you're multiplying by 10 and you're going, we're gonna do this week over week over week. And I've never heard for these people talk the whole time we've been in here. I get that the heart of this is collaboration that you're bringing people together and that when people come together, they're able to talk in one room. But a lot of times this, you know, there's not a whole lot of prep for the meeting. So rather than checking beforehand, whether everybody got their models installed or put on whatever site is being used. - Yeah. - Whether that's current, you know, trying to take care in an email or on a project management software, everything that could be taken care of via, you know, pictures and text. You know, hey, can you cover this? Yeah, sure, I can cover it because it's a single trade issue. - Yeah. - Disiminating between, oh, I'm gonna RFI that. Well, why don't you just go ahead and RFI it? Instead of talking about it with 10 people in the room and then RFI it. - Yeah, yeah. - So the joke is like, well, you know, the summary email that comes out at the end of the meeting could have taken the place of the whole meeting. You know, I'm gonna, while I'm gonna send an email out, summarize this and that ought to take the place of the whole thing, you know, that could have taken the place. You get some of that. But then there are times where you're sitting there and you get, man, this is a really good thing that we had all the heads in this room and everybody's able to look at it at the same time, really tackle a problem. A lot of that is based on preparation for the meeting, whether, you know, you had some purpose and some of these, we're gonna meet every week at this time. Yeah, I've seen that go both directions. - Yeah. - I'm seeing improvements in the industry. I'll pick on steel a little bit and I'll pick on it, but point it out. You know, just through the course of like 20 years, we've gone from being completely enamored by the tackle models and everything. We've talked about that. But seeing the advent of the Ocean Avenger, the single spindle drill lines that came in, started occupying a lot of shops, you pick them up for 200k at the time. And then that's already given a way to multi spindle drill lines and plasma and I mean, water jet tables were kind of a thing, but you just got more automation. - Welding robots too. Well, now that's, yeah. - I was talking to Ricky Horton, who we're supposed to have on the show here soon. I was talking to him about welding robots. And I was asking him, I was like, dude, like how much data do we need to put into our models to get the weld right? Like, do we need to model the welds dead on every time? And he was like, I mean, it does help. Yeah, but like the softwares that are even coming with some of those robots, it's pretty easy to just adjust it really quick on the fly and just like, oh, no. Okay, this needs to be a two-sided fillet, three-sixteenths, you know, like our 560, whatever it might be. It'll even do some CJP, which I had no idea. That's interesting. So complete joint penetration, guys. That's, if you're not a steel nerd, but yeah, it'll do a CJP. It will limit the number of passes because you still got to brush off the weld, but freaking fascinating. Like there's automation that's coming in and one thing I realized, and then even in that conversation that I was Ricky, which I'm excited to get him in here, man. Like that's gonna be a good one. The steel industry overall is pretty freaking advanced. For like, if we're looking at the industry at large, at large, all the different facets and specialties, I can't really think of another specialty where there's that much robotics and 3D modeling to drive the robotics. Like pre-fab would be obvious, so like bathroom pods. But even that is like a pretty repeatable sort of system. So it's like you're doing the same lawn over and over and over again, you're doing that a thousand times. - More manufacturing effort than it is the customer. - Exactly, and whereas with steel fabrication, it is a custom effort of, here is a beam, it may have a cope on one side on this beam and a cope on the other on the other. Like this one, this one has four holes, that one has three holes, this one has angles for connection points, this one has shear, like this one has CJP. Like there's so many variables in steel construction. And we're modeling it and robots, for the most part, not every shop is doing this, but a lot of them are now, more and more, they're pushing those 3D models into the robots and these robots are going in and they're drilling the holes and coping the beams and, you know, welding things more and more. - And do you stuff with miscellaneous with railing systems? - Yeah, I've seen more of that too. - QC, I mean, that's a whole conversation. - Laser scanning and marrying the laser scan with the model, like passing that over. That's an interesting kind of workflow too. - Here's an interesting conversation that we've had for years in ABSI, but, you know, we've been a part of this industry where there's been a transition from old school hand drawings to the 3D modeling and, you know, it's steel detailing. And if you're a steel detailer, you know, like you make a mistake and, all of a sudden, you're having this conversation on repeat, the checker, the checker, the checker, the checker, the checker, and it's like, well, you need to check your stuff. You need to check it, it's check the check. - Yeah. - Okay, yeah, we need to check our stuff. But how do I do that? How do I do that? And there's a lot of opinion on what should happen. And-- - It's also a lot of opinion of how drilling should look. - Well, yeah, how drilling should look. But then-- - There's a lot of opinion across that old-- - I ask you, should I-- - There are words. - We used to have these things called knockoff dimensions on the ends of our beams. So it does show a little minus. In other words, like, how much of the beam are you gonna knock off from the center line of what you're connecting it to? And that would allow the checker to come back in, do the easy math to get back to the center lines and say, oh, that was a grid that was 20 feet from side to center. - Minus, yes. - Minus, three inches on this side for the six by six column, minus three inches on that side for the six by six. - Yep. - And so I start to establish my length and I can check that. Do I really need to go back through a 3D modeling software? - Which is a calculator. - Which is a calculator and check every single mission. Like remath with probably a calculator. Why would I remath that, right? Why would I remath every single member? So they're like, what do I check? How do I check? - Yeah. - It starts to take on a more automated role. Do I check in 3D? We've worked with our delegated designers in a new way. There's a lot more pass-through for connection design. There's automation, for sure. Depending on whether you use an SES to a tech load, that can happen in different ways. Through either the primary software or a third party. Then there's all the custom stuff that comes in and your stairs and rails. And we're able to now pass IFCs back and forth. And the delegated engineers are able to look at the IFCs and cruise through and see things that maybe they couldn't see before because you were just on 2D PDFs. You'd only see what you showed them. But all of that's going through to production. So we're exposing more information and getting more out of these things. - Which is great. - QC and a modern steel fabrication shop is now being done, like there are machines now for like plates that will, you know, you can send plates down a conveyor belt. That conveyor belt is gonna send it under basically a scanner. The scanner is gonna take the plates, look at it, identify it for the part market is, pick it up and then go put it in a specific bin with other parts that match it. - Yeah, this is P19, boom. - Boom. - This is P12, boom. This is P1620 here. - And then I go put my bin, I carry it over to the assembler. I place those parts on the assembler. The assembler now re-scans to make sure that everything's conforming it down to a 30 second. - Pick the thing up without any human intervention. And then places it up to, I think it was like a 400 pound plate and on the system we got. - Chunky boys. - Yeah, well, just real chunky. - Pick it up and put it on the end. You imagine just taking a 200 pound base plate, pick it up, put it on the end of a column member. It should be fixed there by a robot and then your automated welder comes down and welds it in place or tax it in place so that it can be sent down the line. The fitter is now being automated. The welder is now being automated. - Well, let me dig into this a little bit more too. Sorry guys, we kind of go and steal nerd here, but what was the main thing that we would get calls on? It's dimensional issues. - Dimensional issues. - Yes. - This episode is brought to you by QuickPace. - Ty, you know what I'm the world's worst at? - Other than literally everything. - Spreadsheets. - Yeah. - I make them for everything. - You do. - It's your crotch, man. - They are tools and I like them a whole lot, but they're not very customizable and you don't share them very well a lot of times. That's where I'm learning about QuickPace is really cool. You can take material tracking, personal management, equipment maintenance, bidding, estimates, and what's best about it is that much like a spreadsheet, only better, you can actually customize the app. And you can do that to make it how you want to see it. - And you can share it out with people. It doesn't have to just sit on your machine somewhere in isolation where nobody can get to it. And that's my main beef with your spreadsheets there. - Yeah, and then you're not chasing the spreadsheets around, you're actually getting more work done. - And guess what? I hear that even a moron like you can build an app in QuickPace. - Thanks. - And it integrates with apps that you're already using. Things like Procore, for example, which I hear a lot of people are using now. So guys, don't be like any, go to QuickPace.com and start your 30-day free trial today. - So I want you to connect the dots here with me, if you will. If I export from a 3D model and it's properly done then the model, that's right. And I feed that to a robot. The checking immediately goes away. 'Cause if it's right in the model, then the robot will pick it up. It knows where the plate goes. So the calls of, hey, you didn't dimension this plate good. What is that on the other side of this beam? Like why can't you get your crap right? That those calls, we always got. - Those go into a place of non-existence. - Well, they give way to, why don't your files work with my robot? - Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then you have somebody fixing the files. So there's a hold of the rabbit hole. - That's a whole thing. - Yeah, so it's not perfect. - I mean, it's XML, but I can't do that. So you start working through, thinking through the process, like that, you're like, oh, wow, no, I'm actually eliminating a whole step in this process that you used to take. If we're honest, like, let's call it back in the 70s when they were still kind of hand-drawing it and stuff. This was, you imagine how much time they spent doing that? Checking, holy cow, and the math that you had to do to ensure that it was right. Dennis talks about that. - It's crazy. - Essentially the evolution that happens to you, 'cause you think about like back in the day that what we would call a bolted welded clip angle would be like maybe a preferred connection. Why? And I'm not going to get in the nuances. I actually not a steel person. That's not as important. - You probably don't care. - It's not as important. It was a, it's better to pay for a weld laden process than to have this shot bolted process than the drill lines come in. - Now it's starting to look like everybody's like, oh, no, no, no, we want bolted bolted. Okay, so now I've gone from, I used to weld that clip onto the beam. Now I just want bolts and I'm going to bolt it on the beam. Well, that seems like it would be a slam dunk better. - Yeah. - Why wouldn't we just want to bolt it up? I got an automated drill line on us. Well, now we've got automated welders. - Yeah. - So I can automate the welding of that member without having to buy bolts. Now it was cheaper and faster. And I got to check things like torque on the bolt and everything. Now all of a sudden it's come full circle. So shop preferences have like changed and come full circle and like you're constantly asking what kind of tools you have, what kind of tools you have. What kind of equipment do you have? And it matters. It matters for driving the manufacturing process and that manufacturing process is being driven out of the models and we've gone on and on and on about this. - Very interesting how things are evolving QC and your processes and I mean and what does this now do? Why would I care about this if I'm like a general contractors PM? Well, guess what? Your steel industry is now becoming more and more commoditized by this, which is something that's a very interesting thing. Like, I mean, if the welding robots are doing all of the welding, then that's kind of an equalizer. - Yeah. - The playing field is now being leveled a little bit. - Yeah. - Now my systems and processes and how I feed those robots is becoming more and more of the reason why my numbers are coming down. Not so much like whether I'm controlling my payroll. - Yeah. - I'm controlling how many hours they work per week or controlling their output, you know? - It's consistent. - The automated motor output is like, if he goes down, I might need calibration. - Yeah. - You know, the other, the guy that was welding, there might be all manner of reasons why his production went down. - Yeah. - You know, quality issues and different things. I mean, it's just a very intriguing thing to walk through. So we have made some jumps. - Yeah. - Even over the last five years, yeah, we've made it. - Absolutely. - Full of jumps. - Okay. - When we started this, like test fit with Clifton? - I was mind blowing software. - Mind blowing, but so you should see the stuff that they're doing now. - Still is. I was posting about them the other day. - Holy moly dude. - Not a sponsor. - Not a sponsor, but seriously guys. - Clifton, come on with it if you want to. We're glad to have you, but at the same time, we've been seeing your praises for a long time because what you're doing out there is cool. - Yeah. - I posted about them, just said, "Hey, you need to know these guys." 'Cause I mean, you need to know these guys. This is an amazing tool. One thing that I'm gonna pick on the, like there are so many innovations that are driving us to new processes that are more efficient and should be, I mean, they should be making things more environmentally friendly and making things easier to count QC and get out to the field and bring quality up and keep people safe and all of the things. Awesome, I'm glad. And it's not just in steel. I mean, I can think of the glass and glazing industry. Like they're making big steps in the automation of how to manufacture the aluminum extrusions. Cold form, cold form metal studs, there's so much going on with equipment. Like, I mean, Howix one, kind of a brand name, a couple of others. - Right, yeah, yeah. - I mean, those pieces of software and the ability to like put a wall together in cold form to engineer that stuff, to send it through and have less waste, to bring it straight out of the coil and have it get punched or tack welded together. I mean, this is just so much. - And then you've got guys like John Faye who are just saying screw it and coming up with their own system. - Oh, like a new stud. - Like a new stud. - I got a new stud. - I got a new stud. - I got a new stud. - Yeah, cuz that system instead it's like, it's so fascinating. - Very fascinating. - Yeah. But this I have against you construction industry. (laughing) - So are we getting into the more grippy session? - This is a grippy thing. - Okay, so we went through a lot of the positive feel good stuff, I feel like, just then? Like, that was the first half of this. - And now we're gonna get grumpy. - All right, now we're getting surly. - No, no grumpy Eddie has arrived. And yeah, grumpy Eddie is a little bit older now. - Grumpy, grumpy a little bit. - My dad told me this had happened. (laughing) After years in this industry, he was like, ah, you're gonna be just like me. - Yeah, you know, I'm not just like dad. - Dad and I are different guys, but at the same time, I get exactly what he's talking about. - I'm kind of getting there slowly myself too. - I kind of know a little bit like why some of the cynicism. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, I'm not so bright-eyed and just like lashing on everything that comes down the pipe. - So Mr. Potato Head, in other words, just putting on his angry eyes. - Angry eyes, this is what I'm hearing. - Yes. - All right, buckle up everybody, let's go. (laughing) Let me tell you something I've learned is an old man working on stuff. As a, I make a conscientious effort. Every time I undertake a project, if I'm gonna remodel a bathroom, which I've gotten the pleasure of doing in the last year, if I'm gonna work on my deck. If I'm going to, whatever the project is, if I'm going to close to fix a sink, what I have learned is slow smooth, it's smooth as fast. - Yeah. - I try to work like an old man. - Yep. - I try to, like my brain goes a thousand miles an hour. And my feet wanna chase my brain. - Yeah. - And I wanna just up and go. I wanna up and go now, right? I see the problem, and immediately I'm like, "I gotta fix it." And I freak out, and I run the lows, and I get as much stuff as I can think of right now, and I come home, and I try to start putting the patch on. Instead of sitting my butt down. - And thinking for a second. - And thinking about it, and making a list, and having a plan, and asking myself, you know, it's five p.m. - Yeah. - And I got a plumbing issue, and I'm about to start messing with our water. (laughing) - Yes. - I'm doing it tomorrow. - Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, we'll just turn this off. We're gonna make sure that we're clear, and we're gonna do this tomorrow. - I'm doing this tomorrow. That was kind of the old plumber's adage. Like, you know, don't start a project after whatever time you would say, three p.m. Whatever, because of the hardware stores with clothes, but I couldn't get a fitting, you know. Now the hardware store's open 'til nine o'clock. But you still got the water turned off. - Yeah. - And you still got an issue, and it might not be hemmed up. You just, you stop, and you think, and you plan, and then you go. And it's amazing to me, even though I'm moving slower now, like I am purposefully trying to walk slower, because when I walk slower, I'm safer. - Yeah. - I'm trying to swing boards around less, because I got kids around me now. You know, these are home projects, I'm kind of-- - Yeah, right, right. - When I go out in the field, when I'm on a large commercial construction site, I'm trying to look around. - Yeah. - I'm not running around. I'm not like jumping off a crap, jumping over ditches. Like, I'm not monkeyin' over stuff, I'm being careful. - Right. - I'm looking for what other people are doing around me. Like, I am just more conscientious of my environment. And when I'm thinking about how to actually get something delivered to a site, I'm trying to think of the 10 steps that's gonna take me to get there. - Yeah. - And yet, the design phase of our construction industry right now, dude, we are pushing more and more incomplete, more and more incomplete design documentation to construction than ever now. We don't ever see a complete for construction set of drawings, save maybe a military job. (laughing) I'm serious. We'll see some more of your stuff. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - We'll see some stuff that like, that's because they're like so process driven and it's like this is what we do. - They just tell 'em what to do. - This is how we do it. - We do it this way. - We do it this way. - Shankups are an AECOM or something. - Of course, yeah. - It's like a larger design firms. I think they've got a little more to wield. - Yeah. - You know, a little more power. 'Cause I don't think the design firms are like wanting to do this. - Yeah. - You know, like, I mean, it's like asking somebody, why don't we do some homework? And then, yeah, stop now. Let's send it out. - Yeah. - It's like, you're gonna be graded. Let's let everybody look at it. You're not gonna be completely graded. You're gonna be mostly graded and your reputation's gonna rest on this really. 'Cause everybody's gonna think you suck. But at the same time, you're not like, I'm the owner. I'm not gonna hold it against you. We gotta go. - Yeah. - We gotta go. - Yeah. - I get it, man. Like, the owner demands are there. There are demands on an owner that we know nothing of. We have had some solid owners come through the show. Melanie, Nick, and like, yeah, dude. - Yes. - Amazing owners. - And they have shed light on that side, right? Like, what is it like on their side? And sometimes, like, the things around a job push. And you just kind of have to. And that's reality. But we are seeing, I think, a diminishing return on this routine. I think that we have gotten to a place where pushing, design, and releasing it too early is producing a diminishing return. - Yeah. - And we need to go back. I mean, Kelly Doyle was the first one that said that on the show. So I'm gonna cite him. We cited him again, again. But that slowest moose, but it's faster than a military thing that you're told. It's true. - Yeah. - It's true. - Yeah. - I remember joking around when Zach was here about this. Oh, yeah, it's a military thing, right? And he had actually been in the military and actually been a big camp. And he was like, yeah, they scream at you while they're making you go faster. - So much moose moose moose, fast, come on, go, go, go. - Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. - Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. - Go, go, go, go, go. - Go, go, go, go, go. - Right, right, right. - Like, but the truth is there. - Yeah, and I think that we need to go back and maybe rethink how we're handling things and start thinking like, I'm needing to, I'm needing to work like an old man. I really need to start working like an old man on this project and just, gosh, rushing out there is not gonna solve my problem. - Yeah. - Like, I'm not going to get as far down the road by rushing this thing. - I've seen that. - That's what I need for sure. 'Cause like, when we first started working together, it was like, go, go, go, go, go, go, like very fast. Go, go, go, go. And I've definitely seen you kind of dial that to where you're like, eh, I'm gonna hold for a second. I'm gonna think and then I'm gonna move. I don't, I don't know why. Anytime we talk about this specific thing, I think of a last crusade where Indiana Jones and his dad are like running around and his dad just like sits down in a rocking chair, Sean Connery sits down in a rocking chair. And he's like, I find if I just sit down and think for a second, the problem present, or the solution presents itself, I think is what he says. And like, I keep coming back to that. I'm like, man, if we would just sit down and think for just two seconds, which is funny because like, when I was like still active and leaving managing projects and stuff in the industry, I would see that all the time with other project managers. I'm gonna call myself out for that too. I think everybody's guilty of it. But holy cow, man. Like Captain Chuck it over the fence is everywhere out there. And what I mean by that is just picking up the baseball, panicking and chucking it over the fence. Like that instead of throwing it to the base that it needed to go to. And these people are everywhere. - Yep. - But I think we've developed this level of urgency across the whole industry too. And I wonder if some of it, not all of it. I wonder if some of it is due to a lack of honesty. How often do we get, I need it now, I need it now, I need it now, I need it now. And the sandbagging happens. And somebody's rushing and makes a mistake. - Now I've been privy to a few general contractor schedules that are off by easily six to eight months. When they come and present to you and they're like, we think we're gonna need steel on site in November. And the steel actually starts getting erected in like April, May, you know? But you're jumping through your butt trying to get it there in November. - Right, right. - And like I've literally seen where you deliver and then the steel sits on the ground for like four months. I mean, and there was a panic that happened a few years ago, I'll say some months back where people were worried about getting choice to site, getting steel on time, getting stuff from supplies. I mean, we'll just come through a little bit of a tumult as an industry, just a little bit of work. And I also, like, so I think there is a thing, I mean, honestly thing, yeah, that could be a pretty easy thing to throw a last throw around. - Yeah, it's more than that, I give you that. - Okay, here's another thing that I think does drive it is that I think that construction, because of the innovation, because of our ability to push, because of our ability to pull things together, to maybe build more collaboratively, construction is like an accordion kind of closing down on itself at the front end. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Like, there are a lot of processes that are overlapping now. And I think I'm gonna make construction an animate thing construction once, construction once to-- - Are you an architect? What just happened? - No, I'm not saying that the building wants-- (laughing) The building wants to express itself here. I can feel it. - Once. - No. (laughing) Construction once to collapse these schedules. I think collectively there's a lot of overlapping construction. So I'll point out like modeling. Modeling, it pains me every time I see stair models, right? Okay, so like architect does a stair model, then the engineer does something with the stairs. I don't know what. (laughing) Well, I don't. I mean, I don't know how much, I don't know how to what extent they're gonna detail I'm in a model, right? - They're most likely gonna say, yeah, there's stairs here delegated design. - Delegated design or here's some details I care about or whatever. - Right, yeah. - So they're gonna do their part. But they're like, the effort given, like the different facets of the stair or of things of modeling and architecture, things of model and structure. Like, there's overlap. - Yeah, you know, every time there's a structural model and it never makes it down to the steel detailers start from. Why? Why? There was a model that existed. It could be converted to native and you could take off. Why? Why wasn't it done good, you know, appropriately in the front end? - Yeah. - I think there's some things that could collapse, but then there's some industry firewalls that are keeping them from collapsing on themselves. Like, well, there's a detailing process and that currently, most of the time exists under the fabricators. And then there's a design process and that currently most of the time exists under the architect and the consultants or the design builder. And it's hard to get over that firewall, over the model and, you know, whatever. - There's a collapse that could happen. There's a collapse that could happen on the design of connections. There's a collapse. All those things, these are apparent to me in steel. - Yeah. - But I think they're apparent in a lot of different parts of the industry. I think other parts of the industry are probably are getting a little better about passing things down, like Dutch work models and things like that. - Right. - Maybe there's a little more of an expectation that that's gonna go through and make it in a fabrication though that's still being developed. But I do think that construction industry is starting to collapse on itself. Like the demand on schedules is there, but I think it's because we know we can do it faster. - Yeah. - That massive project, the arts field, was there because the owner had a demand. You know, there's money at stake. - Well, yeah, and that's the thing. - There's a business being run. - Yes. - And that's the same with like, you know, UGA, you know, Melanie's trying to work for the school for their best interests and, you know, it's a quality product that's working well for the students and is delivered on time without wasting a bunch of, you know, money that they've been given from somewhere that they have to be responsible for. - I think schedules have existed since the beginning of construction. Like this is-- - They have to. - Like, yeah, they have to. This isn't a new thing. It just feels, I don't know, maybe it's because, maybe every generation kind of feels this way. - Yeah, I think it was a generation. - Maybe every generation has felt this way because it's kind of like, I saw something the other day. Like shout out the person, if I can remember who posted on LinkedIn, I'm sorry if you're out there listening, but posted this thing of like, people don't wanna work. And it was like, here's, you know, today, people are saying people don't wanna work and then it like tracked back through time and you see all of the different headlines saying, kids these days just don't wanna work. And it's like 1913, you know, 1865. And you're like, holy cow, we're just parroting the same crap that we've heard for generations. It's, I wonder if there's a side of this where we're talking a lot about the schedule where we're like, oh gosh, there's always a crunch, but it's kind of always been that way, right? And it's like, there are just new problems within the crunch that has always existed. New things have arisen. I think everybody's trying to find this perfect world of like everything just flows. And, you know, hey, we might get there eventually, but it's, yeah, I don't know, it's just an interesting thought experiment. - Something I'll say Brent Hanlon for. - Okay. - I'm an engineer, I worked with a bunch of projects in Brent, I remember one time he hit me 'cause that was always wanting to get out front. - Yeah. - Well, it's like, it's kind of like where I was talking. - We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. - I wanna do something with it. - Right. - And he pointed out, sometimes the best moment in time to do a thing is the absolute last moment you can do it. - Yeah. - Because you'll never have as much information as you will in that last moment. So like, yeah, you're letting the water stack up against the dam. - Yeah. - But like, you'll never have enough in your hands to really actually get through the whole thing efficiently. - Yeah. - Until that moment. So like sometimes it serves you very well to wait and allow things to collect, knowing, you know, I could have been pushing on that, I could have been yelling at people but I wasn't timing it. Something I've had to learn as a detailer is to understand, read the room. - Yeah. - And know, they're not here yet. - I agree and I disagree in some capacities 'cause like, I agree that, yeah, like, you're never gonna have as much information as you will if you do just kind of wait for a second, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, and then go. Kind of Braveheart style, you know, hold. One of those things, but also, I feel like you uncover a lot by starting the work early and also you avoid the panic in some ways. Like not all the time, not all the time, but if you're a little bit more diligent earlier on in the process, that you're not gonna find those, like honestly picking the baseball up and chucking it over the fence like we had mentioned earlier. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? Like I almost feel like you're more prone to do those stupid little error things if you do wait for the last minute and then you're scrambling and you're like, crap, I really wish that I had done that two weeks ago. - Yeah. - You know, I think there's a fine line between like a procrastination and a healthy wait. - Okay. - I guess is what I'm saying. 'Cause like King procrastinator here speaking, like I know that that has screwed me in the past. - If you are, if you're gonna build an office. - Yeah. - All right, and you're gonna go through and you're trying to nail that down for a number of factors where it's gonna sit, it's code compliance and then like generally it's usage. So you're trying to pin that building down. - Yeah. - You know that there are gonna be decisions to be made. - Right. - Where do I want to drive on a lot? Where can I drive on a lot? What do I want, you know, how much square footage do I want the building? Does that pencil, you know, can I even have forward that? - Yeah. - Does the financing work? Has the financing come through? How much can I spend on design right in this moment? Is it time to move that forward? Am I at risk for losing the real estate? Am I at risk for getting too far down the road, spending a bunch of money? I'll never get back. You're constantly trying to figure out like, when do I make decisions when you're in that ownership chair? - Yeah. - Right? The thing I've seen, I mean, I've mentioned this a few times, I might get some hate mail out of this. (laughing) Steel detailers are a combinationly bunch. - Yeah. - And I are one, you know, I mean, that's a lot of what I do, say I are one. I'm a fancy myself a builder first, above all. I just see kind of an arrogance about what we get, don't get, and kind of a know it all mentality. A I'd have done it all right, I'd have done it all better. And, you know, here I am ranting about the construction industry and everything I change, and how I wish you wouldn't send me the incomplete documents that you send me. But I also will say, I don't always understand everything that brought you to that point. - Right. - All I'm telling you is it's not getting you further. Like, I'm just telling you from my standpoint, my process, I don't move faster. - Yeah. - Like it, I feel like had you waited four more weeks to complete the design, that the detailing would have taken for last weeks. That's what I'm telling you. And I'd have peppered you with a lot less questions. You're working through design and building. You're the owner, you're making all these decisions. Like, there's a lot of decisions to be made in a building. There's a lot of decisions to be made in a building. Well, if some of the decisions change, if the design changes, and we say, ah, we need to work to more detail. Well, you can't work everything to the nth degree right in that moment. You know how much time you're gonna lose? - Yeah. - Detailing out something when, oh, that change, when they could be flippantly changed by an owner, 15 minutes from now, because, eh, I really like that. Or by a committee that the owner has appointed, or whatever, like there are all kinds of scenarios where design change happens. So you're constantly trying to figure out how to get far enough without getting too far. - Yeah. - In the design room, and not waste time. You're trying to figure that out from the owner's standpoint too. Like, how far do we go without getting too far? - Yeah. - And then many times we're like, we get stuck in this urgent mode. I think it's a moment of panic. Well, more somewhere in between that moment of, okay, I think we got the decisions made, and that moment of, okay, it's time for construction, that there's probably a few weeks in there that we could take. We could take a breath in there, and say, okay, pencil's down, you know, we're gonna send now. Or, hey, we're working, we're gonna collaborate, we're gonna QC it, we're gonna get everything ready. QCQA's done, all right, construction, here we go. I don't know if people aren't naive to this, but whether you're naive to it or not, you probably have been a participant in it, at least to some degree, trying to push and forge something forward before it was time. And I don't think it's gained us anything. I think that an ounce of planning used a pound of cure, and that we would do a whole lot better trying to invest in the ounce instead of in the pound. I think we would spend ourselves as a whole lot less if we did that. Well planned will be smooth, and that smooth is gonna make up ground. So I don't wanna make up your ground and your good planning. And, you know, we've got so many innovations that are making us faster now. Yeah, where you can reasonably expect to be faster at a task, so many things. And let's take advantage of that by planning better. Yeah, we're in a, I mean, I really think we're kind of in a golden age of all sorts of innovation right now, for sure. So you think about all the new things that are coming into our industry that have previously not existed for like thousands of years. So many new things have occurred. And so, I mean, it's cool to be kind of alive in this time. So it takes some, you know, just some joy out of that. So we get to kind of discover all this together. I'll say this, though, is like at the end of the day, I think what we continually come back to, and I would love to just kind of wrap on this idea is like, there's so much cool stuff happening in the industry. Don't get so wrapped up in the glitz and the glam and the pretty and the shiny objects that you try to replace people with a shiny object. Like you try to replace your people's skills with a shiny object. We still need to be people. We still need to treat each other well in this industry. And I'll be honest, like, I'm seeing some conversations about this sort of thing more and more lately. I can see more conversations around like treating people well, mental health and all these things. That's great, that's awesome. We've seen a lot of progress. We got a long fricking way to go, though. Like we got it, we got a long fricking way to go. I think the people that are kind of saying those things right now, they're kind of in that top tier, that top fold, it has yet to transfer down to a lot of other people in our organizations, I'll say. You see that pretty, pretty obviously. Just in going and reading some comments on TikTok, you can see that pretty quickly. The difference between LinkedIn, land, and TikTok land are very different. And so I think we've got a reality check that if you are just looking at LinkedIn and thinking everything's great and dandy and beautiful, check yourself. This is a reality is that construction's got a long way to go from people's side. I mean, we're getting there, we're developing new cool stuff. It's a great time to be in the construction industry for sure. But my gosh, guys, we got a lot of work to do. We've seen progress over the last five years, but man, we got a lot of work to do. This has been a wandering conversation for sure, but hopefully there's some minute for somebody. It's kind of what we see. What we've seen over the last five years of doing this podcast, you know? Talk to a lot of freaking people. - Yes, we have, and we've learned a lot. So let's keep learning, let's keep growing. - Yeah. - As we are able to build new cool things and just keep that learning cycle going. - Yeah, well, not a coffee. So I think that is enough reason. - It is time to coffee with the bros is over. - Coffee with the bros is over. So guys, thanks for listening. Go build something awesome. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - This episode is brought to you by Bluebeam. You know what software you could pry out of my cold, dead, lifeless hands? What's that? Bluebeam. (laughs) It's made this simple thing simple. It was built for people in construction. So I quit asking, why doesn't this software do this? It has made the everyday easier. I am so glad that it was my idea to install the software. - You are a dang liar, sir. - It was my idea. - No, it was my idea to install Bluebeam first. This is a great mystery in our company, and I guess we'll never know. - I have proof, I know for a fact it was me. But guys, it doesn't have to be a mystery for you, 'cause all you gotta do is you go to bluebeam.com/bros and you can download a free trial today, and then you've got that marker in the sand that says, guess what? I was the one that had the idea to install Bluebeam. - No, you weren't. - Yeah, bluebeam.com/bros. (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]