New Study Reveals Building Owners Are Driving Digital Project Delivery in Design and Construction

HAMILTON, NJ — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Since building project owners fund, own and operate the completed assets, they can have a major influence on driving key project delivery trends in the construction industry. A new Dodge Construction Network study of large organizations (with annual construction projects totaling $100M or more) reveals that these owners are rapidly embracing digital tools and processes and are increasingly requiring their project teams to use them throughout design and construction.

The Optimizing Construction Technology for Large Owners SmartMarket Brief, produced in partnership with Avicado Construction Technology Services, examines the use of technology for eight key processes that owners conduct during the lifecycle of a construction project, from early planning through project closeout.

Key Findings

• On average, over half of owners (58%) report currently using technology for most of the eight processes studied, and high levels of adoption are anticipated for the others.
• Most of them (61%) are using a purpose-built commercial software product instead of relying on internally developed solutions or modifying a generic tool to make it apply to construction.
• These commercial solutions are about evenly split between multi-function platforms (aka Project Management Information Systems, or simply PMIS) and standalone tools designed for a specific function (aka point solutions).

Over 70% of owners engaged in vertical building projects report improved budget, schedule and quality performance as well as higher satisfaction by their end users due to their use of technology. Owners of civil projects lag slightly behind them, but around half or more report the same benefits, which is particularly important as a wave of new infrastructure projects is being launched.

Common Challenges

Owners using technology face a common challenge of how to access, organize and use the data being collected for greater analytical insights and ongoing process improvements. Many report that:

• Data gets locked within systems and is not accessible
• Integration functionality is not adequate
• They experience data migration challenges between solutions
• They find it hard to exchange data with other project team members
• Their solutions do not integrate with non-capital-asset functions

Effective integration between technology solutions is critical to optimize the value of construction technology for owners.

Going Digital to Stay Competitive

“We’re excited to see large owners are capturing construction data to help them better understand project and program performance,” said Avidahn Levin, President of Avicado. “By adopting fully integrated digital workflows, they can unlock the power of this data to improve project outcomes. This survey validates our belief that owners who fully optimize their construction technology solutions see successful outcomes. Investing in internal dedicated resources or construction technology consultants, to bring best practices for technology implementation and adoption, speeds time to value for construction owners.”

To address their data issues, over 90% report they are developing data-related requirements for project team members and seeking to improve data exchange with them.

“As owners increasingly prioritize digital project delivery, designers and contractors need to expand their digital capabilities and engagement to remain competitive,” says Steve Jones, senior director of industry insights research at Dodge Construction Network. “The study makes it clear that digital project delivery is rapidly becoming expected by large owners. While this is an exciting prospect for improving industry-wide performance, it will require that every company on a project be ready, willing and able to participate effectively in integrated digital workflows, increasingly dictated by the needs of the owner.”

For more information about the use of technology for projects by owners, the benefits they achieve, the challenges they face and the ways to increase the value they experience, the Optimizing Construction Technology for Large Owners SmartMarket Brief is available for download here.