Construction Field Management Blog

Welcome to our construction field mobility blog where we'll share our perspectives on construction field software trends, ideas and best practices. We’re a team with extensive experience in software and construction and we’re passionate about fundamentally improving how construction is executed in the field and managed in the back office.

There is constant innovation in field software for construction. The technologies we use (Tablet-PC hardware, internet technologies, BIM) are constantly evolving. Additionally, the field and management processes that these technologies enable are also changing (e.g., who thought you could tie BIM to the field two years ago?). With this blog, we’re excited to share our multiple perspectives on this quickly evolving area and engage you in a dialog about these topics. So please don’t hesitate to comment on the posts as you see fit.

All the same, it is football season, so what better way to kick off the new Vela Systems blog then with an inaugural post that focuses

photo of Dallas Stadium in Arlington I took during my recent visit

on some cool stadium construction projects – the new Dallas Stadium in Arlington and the New Meadowlands Stadium, home of the Jets and Giants.

In October, I had the opportunity to revisit the New Meadowlands Stadium project. I hadn’t been back on that jobsite since Engineering News-Record did its cover story on the project which showcased how our customer Skanska USA Building combined BIM with mobile field software and RFID technology to coordinate the scheduling and quality of building materials across a hugely distributed environment  (PS if you don’t have an ENR subscription to see the full story, this is a great article too: Susan Smith of AECCafe wrote a great article).

It was really interesting to see the progress in the last year and a half. The project continues to be ahead of schedule – now even more so.   Our friends at Skanska mentioned that tying together the Tekla structural model and our materials tracking software allowed them to save roughly 10 days off of the delivery of the project for an estimated total savings of $1MM.   What’s more, in a Q&A session with the New Jersey Society of Professional Engineers, the Quality Assurance manager for the project said the job was now even further ahead of schedule.   The QA manager pretty much boiled it all down to one key concept:  quality and status information gets from the field out to everyone who needs to see it and act on it in a fast and automated fashion, saving weeks of time normally spent waiting for information on things like material status.

using Vela Systems field software on Tablet PC at Dallas Stadium construction site

Likewise, I’m just back from a visit to the new Dallas Stadium project and I can attest to the fact that, yes, everything is bigger in Texas.  Manhattan Construction Group has been using Vela Systems on that job for over a year to help with work-to-complete (worklists) and also with punchlists. I’m seeing an   interesting parallel to the Meadowlands job– project executives and field users both noted how important it is to speed up how information flows from the jobsite to those who can act on it.

Two stadium projects, one common theme that isn’t just unique to stadiums, but to all of construction:  All projects, regardless of size, revolve around lists that must be created in the field, which is where the work happens.  The key question becomes – how long can you afford to wait for information on work-to-complete items or materials to be transmitted to others who have to work on them?

Our goal for this blog is as a resource to help readers better understand and overcome the challenges that stand in the way of successfully automating the execution and oversight of field activities on construction and capital projects —from the field and throughout the enterprise. We look forward to sharing more of what we learn from our customers and partners with you.