From Fieldwork to Future Tech: Thai Nguyen’s Road to ConTech Leadership

01:09
Erin Khan
Thai, would love to learn about the beginning of your story. So tell us a little bit more about how you got into the AEC industry in the first place and what really sparked your. Your passion. 

01:23
Thai Nguyen
Thanks, Erin, and again, thanks for having me. You might regret asking me that question. In terms of what my roadmap was to getting to Hensel Phelps. I didn’t have a very traditional path to Hensel Phelps nor construction. I think in my youth wanted to be an architect. And so that’s what I went to school for. And I think upon graduation worked for a little bit and then had my quarter life crisis in my early 20s and decided that, you know, I took one trip out to Colorado and that really was what I wanted to do, was go and bike, climb and ski. And so for a decade of my life I worked for the North Face out of Colorado. And yeah, I never. So that’s all I did. Yeah, it’s all I did. 

02:02
Thai Nguyen
And I think approaching my 30s, I realised I needed to kind of have a little bit more of a stable path, I think, to, you know, I think as you age a little bit, so you realise that, you know, you can’t climb for the rest of your life. And so I’m like, oh, well, I need to do something. So I got into automotive for a little bit, also worked in telecom, worked for Quest Telecom, building fibre optic lines from Tukwila down to San Diego. And then 19 years ago, I had an opportunity to start construction company called Hensel Phelps in Colorado. 

02:31
Thai Nguyen
And so I started in the field as a fuel engineer on a very small job and around 2008 found myself in a really good situation where you know, VDC and BIM started to emerge in our industry and I was lucky enough to kind of been given that task to go figure it out for Ansel Phelps and so that kind of set me on a course leaving the traditional job site and I think going to corporate and really going across all nine regions for Hansel Phelps. So nine regions were employee owned company and started in 1937. We now were based out of Greeley, Colorado and depending on the regions that really you go to really diversified portfolio of work. 

03:10
Thai Nguyen
We are the largest aviation contractor, do a lot of depending on the regions, do a lot of healthcare data centres, do a lot of federal state work as well. And so again with that diverse portfolio I was really lucky to get out to the nine regions and really touched so many owners and so many projects within that learned a tonne. Right. And so led BDC for over 12 years within Hensel Phelps. And three years ago I was asked to given another opportunity to start Diverge, which is a business unit within Hensel Phelps where officially a corporate venture arm. Kind of focusing on, you know, positioning ourselves the best way we can to kind of support our enterprise but really to partner industry. 

03:51
Thai Nguyen
I also lead Hansel Phelps on the innovation arm as well and really behind that is really focusing on people and process and again partnering as something you’re going to hear from me a lot today is I truly believe that. I think with anything we do today it’s really as an industry we need a partner and it’s the only way we’re going to get better. 

04:09
Erin Khan
Amazing. So from the North Face all the way to I guess investing and overseeing a bunch of regions and doing tech and innovation for construction. So yeah, that’s a really interesting start. So thanks for sharing that. 

04:30
Thai Nguyen
You bet. 

04:31
Erin Khan
So with some of the initiatives that you’re working on today, is there anything that’s particularly exciting or something that you’d want to share with us? 

04:41
Thai Nguyen
No, absolutely. I think since being in this role for the last two and a half years, I think a lot of work has been in kind of placing the foundation for us to allow us to truly innovate. I think like many groups you innovate but it’s very short cycle. It’s fighting something for that job is three years and then you’re on to the next thing. I think for us and being strategic now, it’s really understanding with everything that we’re looking at is there’s gotta be something to why we’re piloting solutions or looking at new solutions or, you know, solving problems for our job sites, because that’s really, for us, the North Star. If everything I do needs to make sure that job site is again on schedule, the safest job site that could possibly be. 

05:21
Thai Nguyen
And so I think to your question, we have 38 strategies in place today and I think a lot of it is centred on industry needs. Like, we know there’s a, a labour shortage, right. And within that, I don’t know if it’s going to get better anytime soon. So for us, that is something that we’re centering on and trying to do better in that regard. And so within that, you know, we’re looking at robotics. For instance, we hired our first robotics engineer two years ago and really we’re not going to be creating robotics, but we need to get smarter because you’re going to see more robotics on the job site, right? 

05:52
Erin Khan
Yeah. Can we just pause there for a second? I mean, hiring first robotics engineer for a construction company. So usually when we think about robotics, we think of different industries, right? Probably manufacturing or automotive or typically not construction. So tell me about that shift over, you know, the past few years or so where we maybe have been kind of playing with the concept of robotics, but now we’re at the point where we can actually have a dedicated role on a team, like actually doing this as their job for construction. Like, tell us more about that. 

06:33
Thai Nguyen
Yeah, I think for us it was, it took a little time to kind of not only plant the seed, but kind of get our arms around to see what that would look like. Right. So again, I think just to reiterate, we’re not planning to kind of build robotics or, you know, be that group. And not to say that’s anything wrong with that, but we’re builders that we realise that. Erin. Right. And so with us, it’s just trying to get smarter because we’re trying, we’re starting to see. And the reality is, to your point, I think industry has been looking at robotics for a bit. When does it truly become less of copilot and more autonomous? And so for us, we had to again, get in front of it. We didn’t want to react. Right. 

07:14
Thai Nguyen
Because when you start to see robotics on a job site, really how does that affect, really the crew, the project, what are the safety risks with robotics on the job site? And so we wanted to kind of understand all that. You know, it’s going to change the way we do work, it’s going to change productivity, it’s going to do great things like take the human out of harm’s way. So, so we thought that was just amazing. Just to get in front of this partnering industry, we’ve had some great partnerships where we’ve been able to kind of onboard robotics, get a better understanding of really how they’re going to operate the job site. You know, work with these providers to understand the safety applications. Like for instance, if you got a robotic that’s going to drill overhead, what happens if it hits rebar? Right. 

07:55
Thai Nguyen
You know, I think all these things we want to make sure we get in front of, understand again, everything that has to do with mitigating our risk when they are on the job sites. And then the reality, like I think we touched earlier, was really, can this offset the human today? Can it do tasks that will alleviate some of the safety risks that we put our people in? And so I think all of that, as we start to kind of ponder it started to make sense to bring someone in house that was truly focused on robotics, had a background for robotics and could lead that initiative for us. Yes. 

08:29
Erin Khan
And everything somehow all comes back to safety as well. So I love that you bring that up because it is somehow is always, always at the core of any small process that happens on the job site. So top of mind for sure. So I want to ask as well. So just before we started, you mentioned a big travel year, getting some global optics. So two questions on that. So what was your favourite location to visit out of some of those travels and then any trends you’re seeing from learning about different tech and innovations that are happening in various places around the globe. 

09:12
Thai Nguyen
No, absolutely. I spending in the last few years really kind of getting in touch with really within the U.S. Right. I think with as many events as I’ve seen you in, Erin, and just having these conversations, right, with really our peers out there, you know, the conversations were very consistent, right. In terms of kind of what we’re seeing from the optics of the us But I think for me this last year was going overseas, seeing how different regions are handling things that for instance, really with decarbonation. Right. How are they tackling some of that? We self perform concrete. So we started to see a lot of groups out there starting to kind of prototype green cement. Right. And so what does that mean for us? Right. And so going to Europe was really fantastic for that. 

09:56
Thai Nguyen
They’ve got a really obviously little in front of us in terms of exploring and piloting these types of solutions and it was good to kind of see some of that. So going to Copenhagen was pretty amazing. Seeing a lot of, you know, mass timber builds like it was everywhere, like here in the States. It was very rare. Right. Where again, Copenhagen was everywhere where we’re. 

10:17
Erin Khan
Not so good at the sustainability, which is the same. But yeah, there’s a lot to learn from our peers. 

10:24
Thai Nguyen
For sure it was. And the way they handled the, you know, like trash, like in Copenhagen, they created this facility that did so well with really, I think burning trash and I think the only offset was steam. They did it so well they’re importing trash in from Sweden. Right. So looking at things like that is. Yes, Erin, you’re right. We can get better. You know, spending time in Asia, seeing how they’re really taking on robotics and Japan specifically, you know, and really how they’re embracing it and creating automation at their job sites, doing things that I think were trying to do, but they’ve definitely got a good start on it. Right. And so again, just, I think as I travelled and start to see different things in different regions, in different countries, it was just giving me better perspective. Right. 

11:12
Thai Nguyen
I think we tackle things so often and it’s really only to what we know, but I think starting to put yourself in the shoes of, you know, different people that’s really kind of out in front with innovation and testing different things in different regions. It was really neat to see, 100%. 

11:30
Erin Khan
I want to ask London, maybe you’re chiming in. What, what trends do you see in your part of the world down under there in Australia? 

11:41
Nandan Thakar
So slightly different geography, slightly different work scope here. The general contracting work world is very similar. However, the distance and the remoteness of lot of projects could be a different level of challenge here. A lot of linear projects rather than on site projects, slightly ahead of the curve. As opposed to us, I would say, in terms of building renewable assets. That said, you know, US is catching up in a hurry, so it’s more a proof of concept country for a lot of construction techniques. But then we also have the disadvantage of not having, probably not having the critical mass of population. So, you know, the projects can be a little bit thinned out. 

12:36
Nandan Thakar
So sometimes to bed down the advantage of robotics or AI or any other new process or tool you bring in, you certainly need to try in different conditions over a number of projects and sites. And we may not have that to that degree that North American market may afford. But that said, really good place to trial a couple of things and then look at Europe and North America to scale. Thai, I wanted to explore the process that you and the team would use to look at targets for innovation. Right. There’s so much that could be done from, I mean, even in last few minutes you’ve covered robotics and sustainability. So there’s literally construction being an industry of industries. It’s not one thing, it’s almost an aggregation of lots of industries. 

13:37
Nandan Thakar
How do you, what processes and structure you have in place to identify targets and how do you prioritise them for innovation? 

13:47
Thai Nguyen
Sure, it’s, and it’s, I think what I’m going to convey to you, it’s, I wouldn’t say it’s ideal. You know, I think with every environment it’s a little different. I think just being with hexa clubs for 19 years, I knew that within our culture there’s a lot of innovation in terms of our people wanting to improve on their day to day. Right. In every aspect of what we do. And so for us really was really, the last couple of years has been really defining what innovation is. You know, I think a lot of people’s mind, it’s technology, it’s software, but it’s beyond that. Right. And so just getting everyone squared away and you know what innovation is, it could be a four day work week with a fifth day at home, right. 

14:25
Thai Nguyen
It could be taking your accounting department to a job site because they can start to understand why they process thousands of invoices. You know, and so I think for us was, you know, making sure that we align on what innovation was to begin with. And then from that we, what we did last year was we created this initiative. And it’s not a new concept, it’s for us. You know, we called it Think Tank. And the idea was to get all of our regions, our people engaged. And in that way we created leaders in every region within the regions. They built their own teams. Right. And so immediately I had a team of over 120 people that were volunteering to want to drive change and innovation. 

15:03
Thai Nguyen
I think for my past life and my career, I realised that change is difficult for a lot of people and it can be scary. Right. And, and so within that we had to be very mindful of our really how we approach this. And really, I think once you start to go out to industry or your enterprise and ask for innovative ideas, you’ve got to be ready to honestly react because if you don’t react, it can ruin everything. Right. So know, we put out this initiative last year. We had 173 ideas that came back and were like, wow, what do we do with these ideas? Right? And so this team, this amazing team for months worked to get those 773 ideas down to 50, down to 40, down to 30. 

15:44
Thai Nguyen
And by the end of last year, we wanted to pick five ideas and take it from concept to enterprise. But what we realised that a lot of these ideas, and someone very similar, you see all these ideas coming from nine regions. Some of them were just an educational piece where they didn’t even know that we had some of these things in place. Right. Some of the easy ones that we checked out. But then we started to realise it’s really a workflow that we’re targeting, not just any single one idea. And so we picked five focus areas and then ideas built up that workflow for those five focus areas. And the target this year in 2024 was to take five of those focus areas and go from concept to enterprise. Enterprise is really, I think, taking it so every region has access to it. Right. 

16:26
Thai Nguyen
And really engage and use it. So I would say today, in November, Wow. We’ve hit four. Four out of five. The fifth one, which I’m leading is. Yeah, thank you. Is a think tank AI team where I think with AI, there’s no finish line. I mean, it’s literally, I think what I’ve done this year is just educate, right. And really get people comfortable with it. We’ve got milestones, but I think with AI, this focus group, it’s going to take a couple, three years to kind of really start to understand how it affects us as an industry, how we can best utilise it. Yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at. How do we prioritise is. That’s one of the initiatives that we put in place and that comes from really, I think, our people. Right. And so. 

17:11
Thai Nguyen
And obviously there’s corporate initiatives that are kind of the core, you know, functions of our company that, you know, it’s cybersecurity, it’s all these other things. But it was really good, I think, just this last year and experiencing what we did. So that’s. That’s incredible. 

17:26
Erin Khan
Kind of curious, could you expand a little bit more about specifically like the AI think tank, or I think you called it think tank AI. 

17:36
Thai Nguyen
Yeah. 

17:36
Erin Khan
Is that where you guys started first with, like figuring out AI on the market or what was the strategy there with tackling kind of, you know, this new umbrella of capability? 

17:51
Thai Nguyen
Yeah, so it’s like a multi prong approach, Erin. Right. So we’ve got corporate and our CIO is doing a great job leading that effort and really creating the strategy behind really the corporates, or not corporate, but I think just, you know, as Hensel Phelps and enterprise, how we approach it, whether it’s data governance, it is really being strategic about really the partners with our ERPs and how they’re iterating and. But then you had this whole other group that is really, you know, the enterprise. It’s the thousands of employees that Hansel Phelps has, I think, what’s chat GPT? All that hype. Everyone’s like, wow, you know, and so there’s two camps too, right? Erin, you’ve got really, the Jetsons, right, where you think everything’s going to be amazing, right? And then you’ve got Terminator, right? Everyone’s like, so definitely afraid of it. 

18:37
Thai Nguyen
And so what camp are you on, really? First and foremost, but a lot of it, I think, like I said earlier, it’s just calming people’s fears. Like, you know, AI has been around. I think you start to show them examples of really, I think your phone, I think, how long ago was it that I could divide, you know, 30 photos of someone that it would start to isolate that image and they would know who that individual was, right? So that’s been happening behind the scenes for some time. But then really, I think the things that are. We’re excited about are things that are creating automation within our workflow. So one of those focus areas that I spoke to was our pay application process, right? How can we leverage AI to create more autonomous. Right. Abilities within that process? 

19:16
Thai Nguyen
You know, I think as an office engineer, can you save an hour from their day per day? I mean, that moves the needle, right? You know, and so that’s how we prioritise. That’s how we started to understand how we can best leverage AI. Like I said, it’s been used for cybersecurity. We started testing it, like creating storyboards, meaning that for every storyboard we create with marketing, it could take two to three weeks to convey the idea to marketing and then they run with it. But we use chat tbt. We scripted with it, we put it into an AI that creates the media. And literally you had a video within 15 minutes that was a minute long that did just a fantastic job of conveying the intents of what we wanted. 

19:58
Thai Nguyen
And so marketing took that and now they’re able to put in our own assets in there. They tweak it to how they need to. So if we could use AI to get us 70% there, my God, that moves the needle so much and it’s across everything, not just all of the samples that you just said. Yeah, really good to hear. That’s incredible. 

20:20
Nandan Thakar
In terms of the robotics element that you talked about earlier, are you seeing any convergence between robotics being used on site and collaboration with human workers? So do you have complete segregation of task between what robots are doing, or is there a level of collaboration there? What I wanted to really understand, if you could just highlight an example of where you were using robotics, just to make it a little bit real or even delve into you having achieved 4 out of 5 objectives, feel free to go into one of those objectives, just so that the example is real for the listeners here. 

21:04
Thai Nguyen
Absolutely. And I think with robotics, it is approaching it in a way that changes the way we typically contract. You know, I think that’s. And so an example I would use on that one is layout robotics. Right. Typically, the way we do our work is really, every trade has that really kind of ownership of, know, making sure the layout’s proper and checking it and, you know, it’s a lot of manual and back and forth. But when we introduced the layout robotic, it really kind of changed the game. Right, Meaning that now we have this robotic that was very diligent, it was very accurate, but it also shed risk different ways. Right. Meaning that now you’ve got this robotic doing it, who owns that risk, you know, and so you gotta find the right team. 

21:51
Thai Nguyen
And so what we did this year was we actually purchased a couple of units and then we started to get them off to the regions and started to do demos, getting people comfortable with it. Right. Then finding that right job. Right. Because not robotics, they’re not going to be perfect for every job. You have to find one where there’s tremendous throughput. Meaning that robotics going to be busy. Right. You don’t want it to sit there for three months because, again, you know, my superintendents are smart, they’re doing the number crunching. They were going, well, we’re paying this much for this robotic, and sat there for three months. Right. And so you had to find the right situation with the right project teams and they want to be engaged and share the risks and really take on ownership of. 

22:30
Thai Nguyen
Now this robotic is laying off a CAD file, but I still need to cheque that trust but verify. Right? Yeah. So really, I think it’s just changing not only the contractual approach, but changing the mindset of the participants that are engaged in this programme. But once it’s kind of in the job and it’s doing what it’s doing with good throughput and it makes sense. I don’t think it’s going away. I mean, we literally bought those units and they’re now owned by those job sites that we deployed them on. And so we’re having to get more units. And so it is starting to take off tremendously in that regard. So just, I think for us, the lesson is learned in the last year is, again, it’s not like you can put robotics under a job. 

23:09
Thai Nguyen
It’s finding that the right one with all those ingredients that’s going to set it up for success and then really making sure that you take your time with staff. Because if you don’t and you’re just putting this robotic out there, you gotta have buy in. And for us that’s important. 

23:25
Nandan Thakar
Yeah, yeah, that’s. 

23:28
Erin Khan
I think in one of our previous conversations we had discussed that the level of implementation goes as far as the least trustful end user. 

23:40
Thai Nguyen
Yes. 

23:40
Erin Khan
So, yeah, that comes full circle, for sure. 

23:44
Thai Nguyen
Absolutely. 

23:45
Erin Khan
That we see with this innovation. Fantastic. So I have on my notes here, make sure that I ask about Diverge Connect, because you mentioned it earlier, and I’m really curious to learn a little bit more. So would you be able to share a little bit more about Diverge Connect? 

24:06
Thai Nguyen
Absolutely. And I think to give credit where credit’s due, it’s actually from one of our newest employees who’s the robotic engineer. His day was me here. And so I love, I think, when newer, I think, employees come into the company because again, they’re challenging the status quo. You know, they’re asking me, why are we doing this way? And, you know, often I have to, you know, I respond in a way that’s how we do it. Then I realise, why are we doing it that way? You know, and so, yeah, as we start to look at this, it kind of fit the overall strategy. Erin. Meaning that today, I think with every. I think a lot of people can kind of, you know, a lot of people have the same story. 

24:44
Thai Nguyen
Meaning that our tech stacks were bloated, I think for so many of our jobs, for every job, we have so many different solutions that it starts to become kind of unmanageable. It’s not sustainable. Right. And a lot of it is because I think not knowing across the enterprises of what we have, enterprise versus who’s piloting what, you know, and so again, that transparency and collaboration, we wanted to create a tool that every employee has developed access to. So, as a fuel engineer, and I’ve only been with Hensel Phelps, for three months or three weeks. And I’ve been tasked with, hey, go find a solution that takes progress photos for this job in the past, really, they would just go on Google and just log in and just ask, right, what’s out there for progress photos? 

25:24
Thai Nguyen
And then 55 solutions come up and then they pick one and they run with it. Today, really how we’re circumventing that is that now you log into diverse, connect and literally you can quickly see, you can type in categories like again, reality capture, and it’ll bring up all the solutions. As my team, Diverge, has done discoveries with, we put it through a process of looking at cybersecurity, legal. If it is AI, we do an AI review. So we set these solutions up so they’re ready to go when we find that right project. Right? And there it is. You’re aware that takes a long time sometimes to go through that process, right? And so we try to do everything up front. So when there is a solution and it has an opportunity for one of our job sites, all those boxes have been checked. 

26:07
Thai Nguyen
The employee just submits for pilot and then we engage just to make sure expectations are aligned. And then again, we make sure that, you know, we’ve got the success criteria identified, we can follow that pilot throughout the life of that job. And then within that, everyone else in the enterprise knows that, hey, that Project A is using Product C and it’s for this, right? And then they can, they have SMEs that they can go talk to, there’s discovery videos. And so it really helps not only Hensel Phelps, and again, giving our, really our people the best information possible, but it’s also helping startups and solution providers because they don’t have to go to online regions and give a demo to 150 project managers and 220 jobs. Right? And so it creates a lot of efficiency for both sides. 

26:56
Thai Nguyen
So again, you can see on this portal, really what’s enterprise, what we’re piloting, what Diverge has invested in, what we’re, you know, who our partners are. So it’s been really good. It’s almost a marketplace for our innovation, if that makes sense. 

27:10
Nandan Thakar
It’s incredible. I mean, if I were to just draw two observations I have here, Ty the first part of the discussion, the feeling I have being a CIO in a construction company and then having my own startup scale up now, everything that you are saying, there are the challenges that most general contractors and tier one, tier two companies do have. Right. Plethora of solutions out there, needing to prove it in proof of concept, the change management, making sure one geography is aware of the solution on the other side, I think one I would really give kudos to you and the team would be just in that culture of setting the right innovation mindset. So I think one thing that I can even feel with this relatively shorter discussion we have had is that it’s innovation targets are an emergent thing. 

28:13
Nandan Thakar
So because everyone’s involved and the ideas are systematically filtered through which are actual problems, it gives you guys a much better scope to shortlist them and find the right targets. Which is incredible because no one feels as if something’s just been parachuted into their site. It’s a collaborative thing. So that’s the cultural part and the second part is the consistency that you bring with this marketplace, so that people don’t have to reinvent the wheel and brings sanity to people on site, to even the startups and the companies pitching. And it gives you a lot of scope for repeating the solution. I’ve been in a lot of scenarios where a company may have trialled two different companies for the same solution and the west and the east of the region never talk to each other. 

29:16
Nandan Thakar
But yeah, that’s one the culture part and innovation being an emergent thing and it’s everyone’s responsibility. And then the second thing is when you do find something that seems like a good fit, then how do you make it repeatable, viral and easy for others to adopt so that everyone doesn’t have to go to the same security and compliance and even pricing, contract negotiations? So yeah, really impressed with the process, I would say. 

29:47
Thai Nguyen
Yeah, you’re exactly right. I think for us, I think it lessens the frustration from our enterprise. Right. I think there’s many that go from region to region and they’re like, why are we using a different tool? Right. And so this again, just standardising in that way and letting them kind of groundswell, these solutions, meaning that, you know, I as diverge, don’t tell them what to use, I give them the best information I can and then really, I think as we start to see now, this product is being used on two jobs and now five jobs and three regions and six regions, we start to see that groundswell, that’s when we start to focus on that solution provider and then to your point, drive towards more of a standard enterprise solution that creates pricing that’s consistent across all nine regions. Right? 

30:32
Nandan Thakar
Yeah. And the only other point I would mention is that the advantage of having that cultural element where the ideas are supported and emergent is that the same trust and the structure also works in the feedback loop once the solution is deployed. 

30:50
Thai Nguyen
That’s right. 

30:51
Nandan Thakar
Because the worst thing and not having a solution is a solution you’re stuck with and you sort of don’t have a voice to make a change. So very good. I must ask, with all this sort of sometimes best of bridge solutions coming in, how do you guys think about integration and the data layer? Because, you know, I think threading that with the base conditions for success for AI, selling AI and the potential as agencies is one thing, but then getting productivity out of that also relies on the quality and the structure of your data. So how do you guys think about. You got your reality capture, you got your erp, you got your asset software, health and safety. 

31:43
Nandan Thakar
How do you sort of join all those sort of 8, 10, 12 different dots databases to get that data ready so that AI can be pretty powerful? 

31:55
Thai Nguyen
Oh, we have that figured out. I’m just kidding. Now it’s. You’re absolutely right. 

32:00
Erin Khan
I was going to save weight. Tell me like a lot more. We’re going to need more time. 

32:05
Thai Nguyen
No, you’re exactly right. I think realising in construction we create so much data and that way I feel we’ve gotten a little better at managing it. And really, I think with AI today it’s like, how quickly can we surface this in a way that we’re not reacting, we’re not doing really financials 30 days later, we’re not, you know, like ways once it tells you’re in a, you know, a traffic jam, there’s not much you can do, right. And so a lot of what we see in the field, if it’s installed not correctly, it’s not. You can’t really have an option to remove it and redo it because, you know, with schedule. And so we want to get in front of everything, right. 

32:45
Thai Nguyen
And to do that, to your point, leveraging AI in the best way and getting more insights, you got to have structured data. And so two years ago we created a data strategy team that. That’s their focus solely on connecting the dots, right? Understanding how to standardise our data, but you can’t do it all overnight. And so we really started to. One of our first things that we wanted to prioritise was production engineering understanding really I think that we self perform concrete. We have so much data supported. So let’s start to standardise like the way we schedule, right, and the way we call out activities, find some again, common denominators that we can all align to that’s the hardest thing across all nine regions, because everyone has the autonomy to run the business the way they need to. Right. And that’s a fantastic thing. 

33:27
Thai Nguyen
But when it comes to data, you know, I think understanding that there’s going to be some lift involved is there’s no easy button. And so it’s been a journey, I think, for us in the last two years, it’s really tackling certain aspects of our business, standardising everything when it comes to, you know, way our accounting systems are to the way production, engineering, the way we track labour at the job sites, resources across the board. Right. That’s something that, you know, we’re very good at tracking on spreadsheets and then everyone’s got their own spreadsheet. And so within that, you know, just making sure that it’s key that I think, as we’re leveraging on AI, that people can trust that data. And so to trust that data, you’ve got to standardise that data and you’ve got to go through a painful process. 

34:08
Thai Nguyen
To your point of ensuring that there’s fidelity in what you’re putting into that AI. 

34:13
Erin Khan
It doesn’t help that there are no two projects ever that will ever be the same. So it’s a fresh start almost every single time that you go to build something. So, yes, construction’s a fun puzzle to solve in that way. 

34:29
Thai Nguyen
It is. And aren’t. I think part of this too is everyone is so protective of their data. 

34:35
Erin Khan
Yeah. 

34:36
Thai Nguyen
You know, rightfully so, but. Yeah. Yeah. And not all data’s the same. So we’ve kind of gone through that exercise where I say, am I willing to share a BIM if it’s not kind of, you know, traceable back to a Hensel Phelps or an owner? Absolutely. I mean, it’s. It’s the BIM that’s showing me it’s a chiller. I mean, do I really care? But if it makes the AI smarter that it knows it’s a chiller. Fantastic. Right. And so I think that’s part of it too, is, you’re right, data governance is very important. We’re very protective of our owners data. 

35:04
Thai Nguyen
And so being mindful of that, but also understanding that there’s a lot of data out there that we could actually share, you know, and so I think that’s part of it is understanding really, I think, in the categories and really, I think understanding to that level of detail. Because I think, again, not all data is the same and, you know, there’s things that we can share versus things that we cannot. And Just having that conversation. 

35:24
Erin Khan
Yeah. I come back again to safety. Right. So especially when it comes to figuring out safety trends, that’s. That’s one thing where you definitely want to wrangle, you know, the data or get your hands around what’s, or get a real picture of what’s happening on your site. So, yes, you can shift from reactionary to preventative and we have a lot of technologies that are great out there doing it, but especially with the AI conversation coming into play lately, it’s just taking that to a new level. And again, it all ties back to can you manage your data. 

36:00
Thai Nguyen
So, yes, you’re absolutely right. I think that’s probably the, one of the most exciting things that I see. And to your point, it’s not any one thing, but I think as safety, it’s, you know, it starts with access control in our job sites where you’re understanding the human that’s coming in, they’re operating a piece of equipment, understanding that they have the right certifications and trainings before that equipment even starts knowing where other tools are and how they’re being used. Right. Like if they’re using grinders for everything, that’s a problem. To your point, Erin, we got to curb that, really. I think that, you know, that misuse of the tool. So all these things that data will tell us again if you set it up right, and if you’re able to create those insights. You’re absolutely right. 

36:38
Erin Khan
So we’re getting a little bit into our time here. I do want to ask, could you let us know a little bit about the innovation centre that is launching soon? 

36:50
Thai Nguyen
Yeah. So I think it’s the culmination of everything we’ve talked to in this kind of conversation. It’s really, I think, going back and centering on our people and process, we wanted a facility that we can truly partner. Right. And obviously our focus is our regions and projects as a priority, but I feel even to make that better, we’ve got to bring owners into this conversation. Right. I want to do kind of cross pollination with different innovation centres. So, you know, talking to a few innovation centres overseas that if they’re trying things, we can kind of reciprocate and push things their way. And so really this innovation centre is kind of our centre of excellence. We want to make sure that, you know, we’re supporting our region projects. We have a safe harbour to kind of test robotics. 

37:31
Thai Nguyen
We’re going to create an outro lab where we’re going to bury underground utilities and water and fibre and test every GPR solution today because there’s still ground strikes that’s happening on a daily basis. So anything that really affects what we do at our job sites, we want to make sure that we can incubate it and these ideas are coming from our people. Right. And so we want to foster that and. But we need partners to do that. Right. And so we’ve got a long list of partners that want to come in and help us within this. I’ve got competitors that want to partner with us on initiatives as well. And so we’re really looking forward to it. Again, it’s just really a facility that’s going to allow us to kind of push some envelopes with, again, tremendous partners, both internally and externally. 

38:11
Erin Khan
Really excited to see what that looks like and what comes out of it. So future is bright. 

38:19
Thai Nguyen
Yeah, we’re excited, yeah. 

38:23
Erin Khan
So let’s see at this point, Nandan and Thai, any other last things that you want to share for today’s episode? 

38:33
Nandan Thakar
Look, I think I would say this. The way you are running the whole process is almost a masterclass in the way it should be done. If I was to be honest, the three pillars of being successful, identifying the right opportunities and making it as everyone’s responsibility. Then a rigorous process of POC and making sure everyone’s aware of the solutions and where the compliance and data saves. And then the third part, the feedback loop. And now completing that trifecta with Innovation Centre. If anyone’s listening, even though they are your competitors, that is the guidebook. That’s how you do it. And the only other question I would ask just to wrap all that from my end is just the organisational change management side. 

39:31
Nandan Thakar
So once you do all that, how do you ensure that everyone on the job site is trained to the degree aware of what solutions you’re pushing out there and perhaps how do you objectively measure productivity? So, yeah, change management and productivity, because sometimes you have a feel that this robotics element’s adding value. But how do you guys measure it? If there was a metric that you use? 

40:02
Thai Nguyen
No, great question. I think for us being mindful of change, Right. I think at one time we looked at all the changes happening across the enterprise and there was literally one change a week. The rate of absorption for our people wasn’t. There’s just too much. And so, like many groups, we created a PMO that manages change within that very heavily tied to our marketing and communications teams. Right. Because anything that touches enterprise today we have to submit. And within this, the group then takes a look at that change See how it affects the enterprise. And then we schedule things out as well. Because timing is everything, right? Within that, our marketing communication teams creates these amazing, just, you know, we’re doing podcasts, we’re doing, you know, short videos, we’re doing lunch and learns. And so I don’t think it’s any one thing. 

40:53
Thai Nguyen
And then you got to repeat, rinse and repeat, right? Because you think you’re going to do one podcast and it’s going to solve the world, but it’s not. You got to continue this conversation and find those opportunities, whether it’s internal events or external events. So that change management is so important, I think so critical in everything that we do. And we’re very mindful of that. To your point, roi, like all these things that we’re doing, you know, what is that roi? And I think today in the phase that we’re at, and I’ll be honest with you, I think it’s really measuring our, the feedback from our people. Right. We do these surveys every couple of years. That’s a true barometer. Like, you know, I could do think tanks all day, but is that really doing anything for our people? Right. 

41:31
Thai Nguyen
And getting that survey back really tells us that we’re heading in the right direction. Our enterprise change, or I’m sorry, our enterprise. We set these goals every year. We call it our APGs. And it’s amazing. The foundation that it’s built on is it’s people, right? It’s owners. Our people are owners. Innovation and then data. And within all that, I think our leaders talk a tremendous amount and make sure that with every adjustment, with any of these teams that make it, everyone has that understanding that’s leading these initiatives and that we can all partner and build this, kind of move it in the right direction because it touches all that, right? In every way. 

42:12
Nandan Thakar
Absolutely. 

42:12
Thai Nguyen
Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. 

42:14
Erin Khan
Fantastic. So I want to share as a closing thought, just a couple of quotes that I actually pulled out from the conversation that I thought were just good takeaways. So I have Jetsons versus Terminator. Know which group you’re working with? I really liked that comparison there. Another one was be ready to react to innovative ideas. Because I think a lot of us just get paralysed with seeing like, oh, wow, all these things are so great, I have no idea which one to start with. But if you can actually, you know, pick off some value driving things that maybe don’t take too much effort, some of that low hanging fruit, you get the ball rolling, get some exciting stuff down the pipeline and then one of my favourites was take the human out of harm’s way. So that one really stuck with me. 

43:06
Erin Khan
So really appreciate having you on the podcast, Thai, sharing your experience and some of the really truly amazing work that you guys are doing at Hensel Phelps to not just bring technology to construction, but to get, I would say, the industry ready for, you know, next gen, future modes of working. 

43:30
Thai Nguyen
Thank you. Yeah, and I just wanted to say one last thing. I think I want to thank industry, honestly. I think as I started my path three years ago, so many people were willing to kind of, you know, spend some time with me and kind of give them their lessons learned and best practises. And this is, I think everyone, including yourself, Erin, I think we’ve had many conversations in the past and your journey. Right. And so just being mindful, I think, of everyone’s lessons learned, best practises really, I think at everything that we’ve done today, it’s built from really feedback and really the graciousness, I think of our industry wanting to make things better and really share these things with me. 

44:05
Thai Nguyen
And so I wanted to again, just thank industry in general and I think anyone listening to this podcast, I think you know who you are and truly appreciate kind of where we’re at and thanks for this opportunity today. 

44:16
Erin Khan
Thai, you shared some incredible insights with us on this episode. Here are some of my highlights. First, innovation isn’t just tech. It’s about cultural shifts like flexible work weeks and connecting teams on site to drive change. Second, data governance is key. Managing data well ensures AI can both be effective and secure. Third, safe spaces for testing matter. Innovation centres allow teams to experiment and refine tools like robotics before real world use and finally manage the pace of change. Rolling out tech gradually helps teams adapt without burnout. These takeaways offer practical ways to shape the future of construction. 

45:05
Nandan Thakar
I hope a lot of contractors hear this podcast because the process that you guys are, having been in the industry for six years now, Thai and being through and through IT personnel, mechanical engineer before then, you guys have a really robust process to bring the right ideas and even, you know, safety to fail even. Because not every innovative idea, every POC is going to work through, right? Especially, you know, having brought in the communication team, the PMO, the marketing people need to understand half a dozen significant departments need to be in this in a way for you to drive this. Right? 

45:52
Thai Nguyen
Right. 

45:53
Nandan Thakar
The CIO and the IT just in cyber and data, just incredible. Very good, very good to talk to you. And yeah, I hope people take a lot of learnings out of this, but good luck with. 

46:05
Thai Nguyen
No, I appreciate that. Again, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. 

46:08
Nandan Thakar
Erin, I would love to visit your. 

46:10
Thai Nguyen
Innovation centre up there. Same. Yeah, it’s on my bucket list to go visit Australia, so please reach out. Yeah, I definitely want you. 

46:21
Nandan Thakar
Okay, great. 

46:22
Thai Nguyen
Okay. Thank you again. Nice meeting you. 

46:32
Erin Khan
For our listeners, we’re excited to bring you to the leading edge of innovation in construction. Over the course of this show, we will be hosting leaders from the industry as they share their experience and insight. Be shy, please send us an email at podcast@sureworx.io that’s podcast@sureworx.io to connect with us. Thanks again and be sure to tune in for our next episode. I’m Erin Khan, and this is the SureWorx Podcast.