Revolutionizing Asset Lifecycle Management with Peter Koulos – Episode 1 | ConTech Innovation

00:33
Peter
Yes.

00:33
Nandan
Thanks Erin, and hello to both of you. I’m particularly happy about this podcast episode. Having known Peter for over a decade and having been his customer where he was an engineering director, where we built a relatively complex data centre. I’ve been across what he has done for a long time. So, Peter, welcome and yeah, over to you. Please give us in our listeners an overview of your experience and very keen to explore those topics in detail.

01:06
Peter
Thank you, Nathan. I appreciate the introduction and I’ll take that as code as that. Hopefully that means I’ve learned from my mistakes over the years in what I’ve been doing. But yeah, look, my background or my core profession is as an electrical engineer. And that’s where I started off in my career as an electrical design engineer for a large Australian consultancy. And through that journey, I had the opportunity to become exposed to some complex and major projects that really allowed me early on to understand the process, the flow, the intricacies of complex construction projects. And through that had the opportunity of working overseas in the UK, in Germany, in Dubai, and fortunately continue to do so these days also with several being involved in several major projects.

02:05
Peter
And more recently, the projects that I’ve been involved in have been around that infrastructure, tunnels, rail aviation and mission critical data centres and complex sort of buildings. And through that journey, having the opportunity to work both from the early conceptual stages through the design development and into final completion and handover has given me a real rounded approach in terms of your ability to understand the challenges that come through in each of the phases. So, yeah, I must admit I feel that I’ve probably had a rare opportunity in terms of some of the work that I’ve been involved with across the many years. Yeah. So hopefully that’s just a bit of an introduction in terms of what I do and where I am.

03:00
Erin
Incredible. So, Peter, to kind of kick us off with just getting into the topic, clearly you’ve had a really cool journey. We might need to unpack some more of that throughout this discussion. 20 years really complex construction projects all around the world, it sounds like. So would love to get your thoughts on what a good, a typical quality management process looks like, especially like in these large projects and you know, currently today, what are the challenges with ways of working that we’re seeing?

03:38
Peter
Yeah, sure, that’s an excellent question and it’s very valid to what we’re doing these days. Well, projects have been big and complex then. It’s not a recent phenomena, let’s say. Okay, so in that respect for decades if not centuries, there’s certainly been projects of high complexity and scale. What’s becoming obviously more relevant now in what’s happening these days is the speed of the delivery of the projects and also the skill set and the competency of the individuals or the teams that are being involved. And that’s not necessarily as a criticism, it’s a challenge as we know in the industry at the moment in terms of workforce and availability and being able to get them onto the projects.

04:33
Peter
And so whilst many organizations and most organizations endeavor to apply good quality practices, how it gets implemented onto projects is sometimes a bit of a challenge because of the enormity, the scale, the complexity of some of these projects can make it challenging in managing those processes and those systems. So as the saying goes, all good things come to an end and with buildings too, they get built, they do get completed, but it’s the journey about how that process is completed. And in my experience, especially the last five to ten years, with the continuing evolution of digital engineering as we refer to it somewhere, a lot of the design and the construction phasing and sequencing is developed and managed and tracked in digital platforms.

05:33
Peter
That’s driving other digital processes that need to come into play to leverage, to enable those systems of a sophisticated sort of approach to work. So when it comes to the quality in construction sort of processes, unfortunately there’s certain elements that have been left behind in that sort of, in the wake of that evolution. And certainly one of the initial sort of advantages that came about from the digital engineering space was visualization. So being able to visualize, yeah, visualize what a building would look like, what a system would look like was huge because it lifted things off the 2d plane on a piece of paper into a world where it offered access to so many more people to visualize and see what was going on.

06:30
Peter
Because let’s face it, in that more traditional scape, it was the engineers, the architects who could visualize things off the drawings a lot quicker than say an client or a user who wouldn’t have that level of proficiency or competency, and now it’s so much more accessible.

06:48
Erin
Yeah. Democratizing the vision.

06:50
Peter
Absolutely correct. So it democratized that vision, but in doing so, it solved a problem, but it didn’t solve all problems. And so the next step of the evolution there was starting to leverage that information and improving quality and construction through what we call coordination, checks, visualization, clash detection. So using these tools to perform tasks that would mitigate risks when it came to the construction. So in terms of construction, phasing, implementation and so on and so forth, and that’s been. That’s been quite successful, in my opinion, over the last few years. It’s certainly become more robust in the processes, and the companies who use that will really gain benefit out of doing that.

07:42
Peter
But it’s also changed the dynamics between the traditional designer, say a consultant, engineering consultant, and the role they have, and then the traditional approach in construction, where things are being developed or defined to more exacting detail and definition earlier on than what they would have had in a more traditional design sense.

08:09
Erin
Interesting. So just plugging in a note here, I have heard some feedback from contractors that with digitization, and this is so interesting, that designs have gotten less detailed in a way, and there’s a whole can of worms to open there about why. Many reasons why this phenomenon happens. But, yeah, I haven’t really considered it from the other perspective, that it is also true. We kind of have these extremes going on.

08:40
Peter
That’s right, yeah, that’s right. And the beauty of digitization or visualization is that it offers a more immediate response or more immediate outcome. And so everyone generally is hungry to get to the answer a lot quicker because you can see it. But also it’s acknowledging that there is still a process, there’s still steps in evolving a design, in developing certain bases of design selection criteria, procuring it, getting to the market, finding out who will be the actual company or the equipment supplier that will be, whose equipment will be used. There’s those sort of things that the process that still needs to happen, and what we’re finding with the digital processes is that it sometimes inadvertently tries to jump a few of those steps to get to an outcome and then you’re clawing back to try to erect the file to smoothen it out.

09:45
Peter
So there’s still a bit there that is happening, but in my opinion, I think it is getting a lot better and getting managed in the process. And then from the delivery side, as we’re saying, the tools are very powerful in allowing the client, the head contractor, the associated subcontractors, and even the designers to understand and challenge the construction methodology, the processes, how the project gets delivered. But where I have found there’s still a challenge or a gap. And this is really the framing of what we’re discussing in today’s podcast, is around the quality in construction, in deliverables, the outcomes to the construction project, and for any client, or for any customer who is purchasing any product, the foundation of their purchases, on relying that someone has actually tested or validated or made sure that what they’re buying will work as intended.

10:52
Peter
And we can make it as basic as buying a car. And for example, when a car is bought, we know that somebody’s run the engine through a dyno, they’ve crashed the car into a wall to make sure it’s safe. There’s all those things that are done. And if we take that analogy into construction, it’s really at that end point of the project where we have the commissioning of the project, where we install the equipment, we start up the equipment, or we liven it, depending on what it is, and we operate it to ensure that it’s performing to its intended design. And then as a collective system, we want to make sure that it’s all brought together to operate as a holistic system. And in doing that, there’s several layers of process that need to be performed to achieve that outcome.

11:47
Peter
And not wanting to oversimplify it, but with all these processes, there’s paperwork, all these steps that need to be done. And this is where things start getting sticky and where we’re still in a very fluent stage in its evolution, in my opinion, from the digitization or the automation and workflowing of that side. In my experience, and still currently delivering and having delivered several major projects, I get bombarded with word documents, PDF’s just via email or through the various project management tools, review this checklist, sign off this work plan. It’s a stamp, it’s a tick, it’s a hard copy document, basically that we’re just still evolving.

12:36
Peter
We send it back, the contractor then will complete the task, tick the boxes they typically would print a copy of it, take it to site, we might get a few coffee stains of the scan when we get it back, or hopefully that’s as bad as it gets. And or sometimes they do have like digitized versions of them, but they’re very simple. There’s no workflow, automation and the like.

13:04
Erin
This is like I’m getting a flashback of closing out one of my projects, a long time ago. So at the very end, it was these checklists and boxes of binders, and we loaded all up into my car to do the final turnover. And it was just stacks and stacks of paper everywhere, exploding for a very. For a pretty small project. So, yeah, anyway, it’s. It’s true, it’s true. The mass amounts of paperwork that kind of go in.

13:37
Peter
Well, that’s exactly it. And the, and the thing against that too, is that we’re just talking at the moment about the paperwork and the workflows and the like, but it’s about what happens to all that effort, okay? Because there’s a lot of effort that goes into commissioning, planning, commissioning and delivering a project. And it’s usually that rush at the end that occurs, you know, that the building is getting built for two, three years for some of these larger projects, and it’s the mad dash to the finish line, you know, towards the end where. Where things are having to be validated, commissioned and installed. And this is this voluminous amount of paperwork, as you alluded to, even for smaller projects. And then it’s about what happens with that information at the end.

14:25
Peter
And typically what happens is that either it’s put in folders and tucked away somewhere, never to be seen again, or if we’re lucky, it might get scanned, saved onto the system, included in the operation manuals again, buried in the documents, never to be seen again. And the challenge being that the referencing or the detailing of those commissioning plans gets lost because they’re just soft copy scanned information. There’s no metadata, there’s no reference ability of that information to claw it back. When we get into the world of operations, and I suppose where I wanted to drive to with this next sort of aligned topic is that where we look at installation in the built environment, since we’re focusing on that, it’s effectively a collection of assets that we are putting together to form systems to deliver a final operating or operable system.

15:27
Peter
So those individual assets all have data associated information about their performance, and then they have a life that lives on before, after the construction is completed, if they need to be maintained, tested, checked and so forth. So many of what we define as services systems have an operational life after construction. They need to be maintained, and they have an end of life. Okay? And my experience with several clients and a lot of facilities is that all that effort, all that information that was gleaned or validated during the construction process does not get transitioned effectively to the operation side, to the facility manager or the asset manager.

16:17
Peter
And these are the gaps that I’m seeing in terms of that handover and the investment of time and effort that’s placed in construction that is almost immediately lost when it gets transitioned to the operation side of the project. And that’s where I see there’s a problem at the moment or a gap in how we can influence that sort of outcome.

16:46
Nandan
Yeah, that’s fascinating to hear in a nutshell. So I mean, what I’m leaning out of that is, although there are solutions that push documents around, the process is driven where the outcome tends to be PDF’s in zip files and there is this potential loss of metadata when the handover or turnover happens. But that’s more the symptom because the process hasn’t been set up or success where rich metadata is handed over. So I wanted to sort of zoom out and sort of go right to the start of how to think about this in terms of setting up a project for success from the onset, being mindful that there are number of subcontractors and contributors along the way, how to govern that process along the way so that you don’t get to the end and where you have bunch of paper or PDF’s in zip files.

17:59
Nandan
So I would love to know more around how to set up the quality process with this very asset lifecycle management overlay and think about that in a multi vendor, multi subcontractor environment. So if you can let us know what are the considerations and the onset of the project that helps us deliver digital outcome and metadata along the way.

18:32
Peter
Yeah, sure. So from that perspective, I suppose the first thing that I want to highlight is just the very, the four key life cycles of a project. So certainly there’s the design aspect of it. So from the concept of detailed design that gets you to a point where you can engage with suppliers, contractors, the construction element of the project, which is really our focus of what we’re trying to achieve the outcomes from. There’s the asset management and then there’s the end of life because we have to realize, and it’s, it’s emphasized more and more these days around end of life management. How do we either remove, replace, rectify equipment that is installed in a facility?

19:21
Peter
But if I go back to the roots in the design, and this is coming back to the comment I made just earlier, is that even at a design stage, the designers, and my focus here is on the engineering and the services engineering side, we start developing or designing engineering systems that are put together to deliver an outcome. So whether it’s an air conditioning system that will comprise various parts of equipment that are connected together, an electrical network or a fire system, and so my experience, and where I’ve tried to promote a design process early on, is that assets, so the bits of equipment that form the project are defined, and they don’t have to be detailed in terms of the type of equipment or the size or its scale or what it might be, but it’s recognized as an individual asset, a unique component.

20:17
Peter
So if it’s recognized very early on that you have unique components that make up the project, then you start creating a structure around that. These assets then start having their life from day one. And that data then, or that information is where you can grow from to develop your systems and your processes to get you through into construction and into operation and the like. So in my experience as an engineer, consulting engineer, at that design stage, the tenders or the design, is typically a selection of single line schematics, plans and schedules. And those schedules typically contain a lot of the data that informs the type of equipment that will be used on the project. And then during construction, it’s evolved and developed.

21:07
Peter
So the importance of defining an asset, defining its metadata and what I mean by that, if I take an example of an electrical transformer, its capacity, its voltage rating, its fault level, very high level, they are key criteria that would never really change. It’s the very basic information that’s needed. It’s like basically specifying a car. You want a car with four doors, four wheels and some windows and an engine, of course. So they are very basic criteria that shouldn’t need to change and are the foundational aspects of informing the detail.

21:45
Peter
So if there is a process or a system that allows you to collect that information, form that information and leverage it to move on to the next steps, it removes redundancy or duplication in particular, because duplication is a major issue and the risk of error and misinterpretation of information, and then growing that information as you go into construction, you can start linking other things. And at the very start of this, we spoke about digital engineering and the evolution of 3d modelling and visualization. So in that environment, many of the models these days are what we call asset tagged, so they have that asset information. We know what type of equipment it is, but what we don’t know is, well, in some instances they do add more detail, but they keep it very simple, very high level views.

22:38
Peter
But what would be an ideal situation here is to start leveraging content that we can link into these models to make them more information rich, but also not about just showing that information, but showing the history, the outcomes, the supporting details.

22:55
Peter
And this is where the quality and commissioning aspect, with being able to have the records of the commissioning, the factory acceptance testing of the equipment, any sort of interface or integration testing that may be aligned, creates an exceptionally richer outcome that when delivered to an asset owner or facility manager, give them so much more to start with in getting out of the blocks, to know that if there was a fault, say, in a piece of equipment early in the life of the facility, they could refer back to that information, they can check and see was the commissioned correctly, were there any issues that were identified during the commissioning that may have impacted, and so on and so forth. So that’s really the end. And where I think changing the.

23:47
Peter
With a few, in my opinion, simple changes but important changes, we can start solidifying the process and getting better outcomes in terms of the data richness as we’re talking about.

24:01
Nandan
That’s excellent. And you know, my key takeaways out of that are more around the benefits, right? That the benefits compiled as you go from one project where you set all this up. Not only if I was the asset owner, this is the holy grail of what I’m looking for, that I have information at an asset or a system level or a subsystem level, where the information is available to me from the onset, from factory acceptance testing, through all phases of construction and commissioning, then that metadata is available to me in digital format with which attributes so they are not lost in PDF in a zip file.

24:51
Nandan
And if I multiply that by hundreds, if not thousands of assets of that type, if I have all that data where there is no loss in translation, when there is turnover or handover into operations, I can maintain that asset to the best of its in an optimized way through years or decades. So that really sets up, it’s a very different way of thinking where the asset has its own life cycle, but different parties are adding value along the way, from the manufacturer to the construction commissioning head contractor with subcontractors and then ultimately the asset owner. So quite a holistic end to end way of thinking about it.

25:38
Nandan
And I suppose once you nail this for one project, the benefits, given that you can bring in global view to this, you can codify all this in a way where similar projects done by that company can leverage this workflows that have been codified. And so your level of standardization across different projects also arise because you have all that codified and there are lessons learned. So, yeah, it’s worth trying for one project. And then, you know, other projects of similar ilk would be natural beneficiaries. I see a lot of benefits with what you proposed. Yeah, yeah.

26:27
Peter
So, I’m sorry, go further.

26:29
Erin
Oh, I was just gonna say, I’m taking some notes here as well. And I wrote down, assets have lives too. Make sure you show them. So that. That was my. My shorthand takeaway from that.

26:44
Nandan
Ready? True.

26:45
Erin
And I know this is the contractor side of me coming out, but all too often it happens where you get those boxes and boxes of materials to turn over and you just kind of drop it off and that’s it. Right. Which probably doesn’t really do the owner or the facility manager much good in the long run. So, really curious to get your thoughts, Peter, on better ways to do this.

27:16
Peter
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And look, going from what Nandan just mentioned, and really the next step of the discussion here is about solidifying the outcomes here, where it becomes repeatable. And so there’s an investment done here in terms of, say, digitizing, workflowing this and systemizing the process here. And if I go back again to the very core of an assets, if you really peel it back, there’s not many systems. So if you take even a highly complex project and you look at the individual elements, I would challenge that there might not be more than 40 or 50 different types of equipment, types that might be installed in a project. All right, and what I mean by that, I’ll take some examples for you. Like, for example, electrical switchboards, transformers, chillers, handling units, pumps and the like.

28:19
Peter
If you count them out, you’d probably be struggling to get through more to 30 or 40. So if you start branching from that and using those asset categories, start defining your system types and then growing. The first and fundamental thing that you do is you create a consistent base that you can always start from. And that’s a. That in itself is an investment for the fact that you’ve just done it once and you can always go back to it. And by defining those systems, you can then develop the checklist or the commissioning requirements that are associated with those at a generic level.

28:57
Peter
And again, if you talk to all your different vendors or contractors, they would have typical checklists that they have available and sadly or not really talking out of school here, but they just copy them from their last best project and they use them again. And if we’re lucky, they hopefully would have removed the previous project.

29:16
Erin
That’s the thing. Yeah, that’s a thing.

29:18
Peter
It’s a thing all right, copy and paste. We’re all victims of that and we’re all as guilty as each other in doing it. But if we had a platform where it becomes a library of information associated with an asset that we can then leverage immediately to use as our starting point, we’ve already taken out so much effort and labour and quality becomes so much more robust because as a company or as a particular individual, you know that you’re sourcing it from the source of truth, of where the company is wanting you to start feeding that information and then you can start growing things. So you haven’t even started a project yet, but you’ve got this data rich library of information that allows you to start.

30:04
Peter
So yes, there’s a bit of effort upfront the first 2nd time of establishing the platform, but once it’s done, it’s available there to the masses basically. And the companies know that they have a robust and quality checked and controlled environment where things are launching from. And as we know, if you have a solid foundation to start from, the rest of it comes is a lot better. And this is that same analogy here, we’ve got a good footing to start from with good quality asset details, good quality checklists as a basis, and it allows the other elements to flow. To flow through.

30:41
Nandan
Exactly. Yeah. The extension of that in terms of where I would like to just query you more on is this process of handover and how resource intensive it can be. You know, you mentioned some projects may take years, but it all comes to head in the last few months, few weeks where you’re compiling hundreds, thousands of different documents and, you know, categorising them, etcetera. So there’s got to be a better way where everything doesn’t end up becoming a document. So one of the benefits I see of a considered quality process would be that not only you can go well, that much better through the lifecycle, but handover should become a little bit leaner and almost single touch. I mean that would be great to aim for.

31:44
Nandan
So one, just the benefits and I, you know, the inefficiencies we have around collating all that information right at the end. Your thoughts on that? And secondly, if the data is indeed handed over with rich metadata and there’s not lost in translation because it becomes a PDF, the benefits of that in terms of defect, liability and obligations once they handle what has happened, in terms of just easily referenceable data as you go, because I’ve seen a lot of projects where it’s been handed over, but you know, a defect or a dispute with that will take days to just find that needle in the haystack in that 1 tb data to find that one checklist that can tell you what happened. So, yeah, if you can just help us with efficiency of handover and the benefits through the DLP and later, that would be appreciated.

32:45
Peter
Yeah, sure. I think you’re being optimistic with the days, but I think it’s more months or years sometimes with defect closeouts on projects. But yeah, look, the good old saying of failing to plan is a plan to fail. It comes into play here with the way that a project then adopts this commissioning process. And as we know, for most projects, and certainly on the more complex projects, a lot of effort is put into setting up commissioning plans and assigning the tasks and managing the overall flow of how commissioning happens. But also, as we acknowledge, there are several people involved in the commissioning of the various systems. So that’s where it becomes hard to manage that and collating, releasing that information, collecting that information, ensuring that the people out on the field are using the latest versions of the documents that are available.

33:48
Peter
And this is where centralizing and having a plan in a digitizer or workflow process that links in the asset information, but also the checklist and all the various items that will allow you to work on a digital platform optimizes the outcome. So that’s the first key sort of step there. And ideally, having a platform where it’s non vendor specific or non product specific that the various teams can use to work out on site, deliver, close out, and then set up the workflows for actioning and reviewing the commissioning information is really important. And then as we approach that completion on the commissioning side, the two key factors, as Dan, you were alluding to, is a how is that presented?

34:41
Peter
So being able to have it in a format that consolidates and provides that information in a structured, presented format is fantastic, and it allowed you to break it even out of the platform, to give it to a client in a PDF or a structured sort of format. But then in terms of using that information to revert to post completion defects, and being able to just click on an asset and being able to search by asset and find all the history on that particular piece of equipment is extremely important.

35:20
Peter
And not only that, within the workflows, understanding that there are date stamps and timestamps on the information of when a commissioning element was performed, when it was completed, who approved it just helps in terms of potentially resolving any sort of disputes that may occur later on, and where I’m leading to with that is another role that I’ve had. The good fortune, which some may argue otherwise of being involved in, is in the litigation space where post completion there’s defect disputes, operational disputes. And so it requires me as an expert in a particular area, to have to find information, research, discover, obviously with the help of the legal team or the information that’s provided.

36:10
Peter
But that needle in the haystack reference that was made before almost gets exploded a thousand times post construction, because typically you’re not, you don’t have access to, say, the project management, communication systems or correspondence tools. It’s literally just, you’re given thousands and thousands of documents and it’s like, good luck, go find it. Off you go. So by having a more robust output that consolidates and provides all this information in a searchable, structured manner, only assists in terms of that, that discovery of the information. And obviously, I don’t want to be alluding to that, you know, we only want it for legal purposes. That’s absolutely the last thing we wanted for, but it adds to that. But really then that rounds back to the operations or the facility managers, which is, again, they’re thrown this same information.

37:09
Peter
Because typically, post completion of a project, all that history, all that communication that was involved in the project generally does not get handed over because it’s in a communication platform that is usually dedicated to the project. It doesn’t have a life after the construction is completed. So what is important is to ensure that any investment of all this commissioning information can have a life post completion.

37:36
Nandan
Yeah, yeah. From my perspective, this is a topic very close to my heart, because having understood this quality and end to end lifecycle challenge a number of years back, and having seen that in a tier one vendor context, where we saw dozens if not hundreds of projects, trouble with number of those things. There are systems that push the document along, but they weren’t systems that gave you that holistic control and visibility and governance with that single touch handover possibility at the end. So needless to say, that’s what we invested in at SureWorx, and you’ll be a contributor to that journey too, into what that product module is today in quality and commissioning and as a lifecycle management.

38:30
Nandan
But what was fascinating for me, beyond coming up with this module and workflow, where you thought about the entire asset lifecycle, the asset owner at the end, what does the head contractor need to do their job and bring the subcontractors along and create those global templates which are reusable? Was this concept of design first versus field first. It is not one or the other. The benefits of design first, obviously, are you’ve thought about it from the onset and you’re setting it up in templates that people can use and iterate on their project. But then there are certain requirements of field which they need that flexibility to edit those templates. So if you can just give us some more insights into this, you know, setting up workflows and all that seems very logical.

39:31
Nandan
But what are the nuance in there in terms of how to make sure that the design intent and the engineers in back office set it up in a way where the practitioners and people on site can easily use it and actually enrich it more?

39:47
Peter
Yeah, that’s fantastic, because you’re right, projects do evolve from the design stage into the construction. It would be lovely to think that everything that was put down on the design stage documents is absolutely reflected and installed as it was. Wouldn’t that make our lives all easier? But that is not the case and we know that. And so what has what. And I suppose now I’m moving into the discussions here that NaN is alluding to with the SureWorx platform and the features that it’s able to offer. One of the key functions that was evolved and developed with feedback from some of the customers who are using that was that it is fantastic and beneficial to establish the plans, the checklist at a design level, and to have it all prepared already for the commissioning stage.

40:43
Peter
But it also was acknowledged that there are times when things need to be responded to or reacted to at a site level. And so, as standard mentions there, the idea was to apply what we call a design first approach or a field first approach, but still allowing either party to leverage the base information or that quality information necessary to perform their task. Because what we didn’t want to do is create a situation where a field engineer or a construction engineer on site would be constrained in using the tool to perform their work. So they. And the most frustrating thing for them would be that they’re down in a tunnel or in a pit or somewhere and they’re having to complete a final checklist for the QA of this stuff. And what do they have to do?

41:38
Peter
Call head office to ask them if they can fill out or add a form into the system for them. And that would just completely disconnect anyone using the platform. So the notion here was that we wanted to set it up, or it’s being set up in a framework that allows a significant portion of the project to be established and to be defined, but still allows this field first approach of allowing local teams to add, to complement information necessary to keep the project moving forward.

42:11
Erin
And with that field first approach, Peter, that would include, like, all the subs or any other builders that need to put information or, you know, put information about the assets that they’re installing into the system, right?

42:26
Peter
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s quite interesting because there were some views, like, from some of the teams that were talking to, that. That maybe if went design first approach, were feeding them too much information, that it was making them perhaps a little lazy in terms of, oh, yeah, all the information is there as long as it’s there. Check, check. Rather than validating the information on site. And that’s really a discussion with the various customers or how they want to manage the process. Right. And it can be managed that way. But, yes, the opportunity here is that you could almost customize to what level of detail you want to have in the system and then what you want the site engineers or technicians to validate or to include. But where there is a chance that the information is completely missing.

43:21
Peter
So say it’s an asset that had to be added during the construction stage that is not in the list. This is where we want to make sure we’ve got an opportunity to capture that information in the correct process, rather than just adding a note on the back of a page on the commissioning checklist. Go, oh, by the way, box one, two, three is included here. And here’s a tick. It works.

43:44
Erin
Yeah.

43:45
Peter
We want to actually create its life and its asset reference. So when the poor facility manager in five years goes and sees his box on the wall and wonders, what’s that for? Yeah, they’ll know what it is.

43:58
Erin
The building industry is so complex, too, and I just wrote down another thought. Customization supports the complexity. So, you know, there’s so many different things going on and when you have a solution that can basically do whatever you need it to do and you can kind of fit it into whatever your project framework is going to be.

44:19
Peter
So, yeah, and look, I think the context against customization, in my opinion, can be a double edged sword, okay? Because as engineers, let’s face it, right, we love to tinker, we love to find ways to make our lives difficult sometimes. Bye. Overthinking it. But you’re right. And that’s part of the importance in, I suppose, the evolution of the platform with SureWorx. What’s being done there is that we had to recognize that it cannot become a strict system of process and steps that doesn’t acknowledge fluctuations or changes in the process for the way things are done. So that’s been a big challenge in terms of respecting the integrity of the quality process while still giving that opportunity for customizing as you say, the steps within there so that we don’t exclude or frustrate the users.

45:19
Peter
Because especially for someone like myself and I know many people where they hear the word quality, their eyes roll over a bit. It’s like another piece of paper, a tick box. Oh we got to do this, you know, basically, you know, monkey see, monkey do, you know, sort of approach. So we wanted to make sure that we stepped a little bit away from that to make sure that we’re still respecting the importance of the quality process but allowing or recognizing that things change, things move and it has to allow that flexibility.

45:52
Nandan
Yeah, yeah that’s wonderful. From my perspective this has been a great discussion. You know, the emphasis of setting up process, bringing people along, having a design first approach but allowing flexibility on the field, you know maintaining governance and visibility along the way. And the benefits of that are you know, sort of single touch handovers, the dream and then passing all this, you know, rich data to the asset owner. But also just building that asset register with percentage complete on all the inspection checklists along the way without any manual effort. That’s, that’s like the byproduct of it in terms of visibility and governance. So yeah look you know it’s a foundational process, quality and as a life cycle management has its benefits in terms of risk mitigation and productivity benefits and all that.

46:55
Nandan
So very critical topic and yeah it’s been great knowing your thoughts from my perspective. Peter. Yeah, over to you.

47:04
Erin
Yeah, 100%, I think I have just been in a mini masterclass for quality and asset lifecycle management so I will definitely be going back to my notes here. But some of the key takeaways or I guess things that I remember is digitization and democratizes the vision. Assets have lives too. So we can use our digital tools to showcase their broad and beautiful life and get use out of it. Less copy paste and more libraries was another one that I took away and the last point, the customization can support the complexity so we need tools that are as sophisticated as our projects are. Yeah I’ll probably have to go back and take another listen and come back with some more bullet points but thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.

47:58
Peter
Appreciate that. Eric, thank you very much.

48:01
Erin
Thank you. Peter and Nandan. For joining me on this episode of The SureWorx Podcast for our listeners. We’re excited to bring you to the leading edge of innovation and construction. Over the course of this show, we’ll be hosting leaders from the industry as they share their experience and insights. Finally, if you’re interested in being a guest on the Sureworks podcast, don’t 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 Kahn, and this is The SureWorx Podcast.