Trimble exec: BIM, constructible data will transform industry

Dive Brief:

Software maker Trimble and Dutch construction company VolkerWessels are teaming up to hone BIM capabilities and better leverage construction data throughout a project's life, Trimble announced.
The partnership aims to expand BIM's role in projects to improve processes and spur innovation both for Trimble's and VolkerWessels' customers, and for the AEC industries, according to Jon Fingland, general manager of collaboration solutions at Trimble.
For Fingland, the industry's future and the innovation that contributes to it will be driven by constructible data models and data's connectivity between office and jobsite.

Dive Insight:

Data sharing and ease of access have become central to Trimble's products and partnerships. Last year, the company announced a partnership with heavy equipment manufacturing giant Komatsu to allow for the transfer of 3-D construction project data.

But Trimble and Komatsu aren't the only collaborators working to streamline operations and data transfer on the jobsite. John Deere is expanding its role in telematics by working with Indiana-based LHP Telematics to develop a solution that would collect mixed-fleet data under one platform. The partnership aims to increase fleet efficiency limiting the need to enter data manually, thus reducing time constraints and the potential for error.

And for drone data platform 3D Robotics (3DR), digitizing and making living construction documents is one of today's and the near-future's biggest trends. "Our big bet is on BIM," 3DR CEO Chris Anderson told Construction Dive in November. "We think that BIM is the way the industry's going, not just because it's the right way to go, but because it's increasingly mandated. We're betting that this is going to become ubiquitous and standard."

As solutions on the jobsite get smarter, other data collection and sharing platforms are also taking off. Drones are becoming increasingly integral to some companies' operations as one solution for collecting data more quickly and accurately. Drone manufacturer Skycatch even joined with Komatsu to automate project data transfers.

More partnerships geared toward better connecting the jobsite and the project data encircling it will likely continue as Silicon Valley creators and investors turn their attention to the construction industry. As of October 2017, the construction technology sector had $433 million in disclosed funding across 56 deals — two of which were equal to or exceeded $50 million.