OpenSpace Adoption: Integrating new tech into a company

  • 23 September 2021
  • 14 replies
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Dante DeFazio
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Does anyone have any good early adoption stories of integrating OpenSpace into their current companies standard operating procedures?  Some folks may be positioned well as a VDC manager or the Tech Specialist in a company, but I experienced a grass roots effort as a PM.  Between convincing my bosses that using OpenSpace is worth it financially and my coworkers that it was worth their time (especially with learning how to use a 360 camera), it was very much an uphill battle.  I felt like I hit a lot of hurdles along the way, but somehow was able to convince the team to use it.  It was looked at as a superfluous product because “we already have cameras” or “we hire someone else to take pre-inspection photos”, and it’s hard to see the value up front because the data captured is what becomes valuable.  Any stories out there to help the person bringing this to their boss or company for the first time?

 

Dante

14 replies

Ethan Meyers
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Dante - I work for a smaller and “traditional” GC, 120 years traditional to be exact, and I too was in a similar position a year ago trying to get is to expand our abilities. We had (1) 360 camera that only a handful of projects utilized. It was easy since they were smaller. Since then we have grown and expanded into much larger projects. A big talking point with the bosses was understanding the time we saved in labor by using OpenSpace vs the traditional 360 photo method and upload to Procore. Once we compared apples to apples they were willing to buy in. Since then it has only strengthened their surety of the resource.

It also has saved us countless times being able to roll back through captures rather than trying to find one photo. I would highly recommend trying the demo on a project however size of project would play a role in it as well.  Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss further!

E.M.
Bryce Thomassin
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Great discussion Dante. I work for a GC and we include openspace in our budget provided to our clients. If the client doesn’t want us to use it we don’t! We do however tell them about all the benefits of openspace and try to get them onboard with adopting it on their project. We discuss the advantages of the technology including allowing them to go online at any time to review the work being done on site. We tell them that it also helps if we have to have a meeting and not everyone involved can be onsite, so we can use openspace paired with MS Teams. With people working online all around the world right now, openspace is a great way for clients to see their project if they are not located in the same city. Some clients are starting to even ask for weekly or even bi-weekly drone video of their projects!

Bryce Thomassin, P. Eng.
Dante DeFazio
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Great discussion Dante. I work for a GC and we include openspace in our budget provided to our clients. If the client doesn’t want us to use it we don’t! We do however tell them about all the benefits of openspace and try to get them onboard with adopting it on their project. We discuss the advantages of the technology including allowing them to go online at any time to review the work being done on site. We tell them that it also helps if we have to have a meeting and not everyone involved can be onsite, so we can use openspace paired with MS Teams. With people working online all around the world right now, openspace is a great way for clients to see their project if they are not located in the same city. Some clients are starting to even ask for weekly or even bi-weekly drone video of their projects!

That sounds like a great plan, it helps the client feel like they are more in the driver seat and your company is there to provide the support necessary.  Once they see it and use it, I’m sure the advantages become apparent.  My question was more geared towards your company and it’s integration.  Your company has incorporated this technology enough to feel comfortable to offer it as a part of their service, understanding how that came about, to me, is the interesting part.  How did they go from never using it to now providing it as an option?

Dante
Bryce Thomassin
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I would recommend starting small with one project, one camera and with one person performing the walks and managing the administrative aspects of openspace. By starting small you can see what works best for you and adapt throughout the project. Once you are confortable with your process you can start to use it on more and more projects. We use it on multiple projects with the more junior staff performing the walks, but with everyone on the project team having access to the project online. I would recommend leaving one or two people to manage the adminstrative aspects of openspace in order to have conformity across all your projects. The key is to use openspace effectively on that first project or two so that your team (and maybe the client) buys in on the technology. Once successful on one or two projects your team will be asking to use in on future projects instead of resisting it. This means you need to maximize its use in the eary projects to show its value. These are just my oponions but I hope it helps.

Bryce Thomassin, P. Eng.
Sahil Motwani
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@Anodizedfate I work for a GC and started small at the project team level with the benefits of openspace. I walked several times each week diligently, and started including the captures in different meetings such as BIM coordination, QA/QC, OAC. The subs were held accountable in the presence of the owner at such meetings and so helped proving benefits from different stakeholders. It had a domino effect at the organizational level since it proved its value and being full-time onsite really helped a lot. 

sMOT
Sahil Motwani
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@Brycethomassin well said! I cannot agree more that the key is to start small and taking on/assigning the walks to a dedicated person.  

sMOT
Dante DeFazio
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@SMO That’s cool how you just took opportunities to showcase and it started building momentum.  Thanks for sharing that.

Dante
Dante DeFazio
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@Brycethomassin Definitely great insight, thanks for detailing that out!

Dante
Cameron Wahl
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From my experience the best way to gain traction is to show the higher ups that it pays for itself. If you can show that using Openspace saved the project time, money, and a CO by going back and looking at something rather than having to do some demo that will impress your bosses. Or if you can show the project engineers that using Openspace for inspection documentation saves them valuable time they will be more inclined to use it. The more teams use it the more they see the value in it.

CW
Dante DeFazio
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@Cwahl Good point.  I agree most decisions are made from preservation of resources (time or money typically), but there is the chicken and the egg scenario, if I don’t have it… I can’t show how it helps.  For those people, I think that your case study would be a huge help so they have some data (feel free to link again, I couldn’t find it...or I’m too lazy to keep searching) to present to the decision makers.  The new free video version will probably also help with someone starting from scratch.

Dante
Sahil Motwani
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@SMO That’s cool how you just took opportunities to showcase and it started building momentum.  Thanks for sharing that.

@Anodizedfate I would suggest the same and reach out if you need any help. 

sMOT
George Tinsley
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With being one of the subs on a project, my last project started before the roll out of OpenSpace through the company. With all of the coordination issues we had on that project I really wish that we would have had it there with how much easier it has made things for me with this project. Instead of all of the pictures last time it would have just been a simple walk. 

Sahil Motwani
Userlevel 4
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With being one of the subs on a project, my last project started before the roll out of OpenSpace through the company. With all of the coordination issues we had on that project I really wish that we would have had it there with how much easier it has made things for me with this project. Instead of all of the pictures last time it would have just been a simple walk. 

@Gtinsley Thanks for sharing and being open to adapting new technology. 

sMOT
Nikiya Crisostomo
Userlevel 7

@Cwahl Good point.  I agree most decisions are made from preservation of resources (time or money typically), but there is the chicken and the egg scenario, if I don’t have it… I can’t show how it helps.  For those people, I think that your case study would be a huge help so they have some data (feel free to link again, I couldn’t find it...or I’m too lazy to keep searching) to present to the decision makers.  The new free video version will probably also help with someone starting from scratch.

 

Here’s the link to @Cwahl’s case study that @Anodizedfate was referring to: 

For those of you who think a case study could help with integrating OpenSpace into your company’s tech stack, feel free to reach out to me/anyone in our OpenSpace team to see what can be coordinated! Additionally, feel free to let us know if OpenSpace can offer any resources (besides a case study) that would help you with those internal discussions.

Nikiya Crisostomo, P.E., Head of Community at OpenSpace

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