{"id":256191,"date":"2024-09-01T18:20:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T23:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grahambuilds.com\/?post_type=articles&p=256191"},"modified":"2024-11-10T20:38:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T02:38:58","slug":"a-single-source-of-the-truth-turning-raw-data-into-actionable-information","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/grahambuilds.com\/articles\/a-single-source-of-the-truth-turning-raw-data-into-actionable-information\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA Single Source of the Truth\u201d: Turning Raw Data into Actionable Information"},"content":{"rendered":"

Construction is a complex industry requiring interactions among diverse participants to plan and execute a project. As the industry\u2019s information handling transitioned away from paper, the amount of raw data in digital form exploded. A mixer-load of concrete or a shipment of structural steel still was just one material item. But where in the past it would simply generate a line-item in a project management file, now every step in the material\u2019s journey through the construction cycle \u2013 as well as its cost and how much a company might be using and paying at its various operating locations \u2013 left a digital trail. Construction providers had difficulty figuring out how to transform the growing data torrent from a problem to be managed into an opportunity to improve their business. The concurrent proliferation of task-oriented software worsened data fragmentation and incompatibility.<\/p>\n

\"Data

Graham Construction is currently in year two of an initiative to create a new data platform aimed at transforming data into an enterprise-level asset that will improve the company\u2019s efficiency and deliver better outcomes for project owners. \u201cData is a by-product of the business process,\u201d explains Annette Cooper, Director of Data and Analytics in Graham\u2019s IT and Enterprise Applications Department. \u201cBecause data is everywhere and growing so quickly, you have to figure out what\u2019s important and then figure out what to do with what\u2019s important. To really understand what\u2019s driving productivity, what\u2019s driving safety, you need data from multiple sources, make sure it\u2019s all correct, and make sense of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such insights helped Graham realize it needed a new data platform powerful enough to draw in and combine data from disparate systems. \u201cRight now, a construction provider can\u2019t get a view across their whole company, or mix data from different sources easily,\u201d notes Cooper. For example, a leader might need particular information or a type of report, but the required raw data might not have seemed relevant when designing systems for field use, so it wasn\u2019t captured for use, Graham\u2019s data and analytics strategy requires the organization to learn new concepts, notes Cooper, things like \u201cdata governance\u201d \u2013 how people and systems look after data. The overall goal is to help Graham become better at what Graham does. Last year was devoted to strategy, conceptual development and road-mapping. This year is seeing the first phases of implementation.<\/p>\n

The data initiative builds upon a long history of innovation and leadership. This includes Graham\u2019s internal restructuring to a shared corporate services model approximately 15 years ago, and its in-house development of \u201cToolbox\u201d, a universal project management system that sought to draw data from all relevant sources and make it available to all users in common form. In its day, Toolbox was a daring industry-leading solution for a construction world not yet drowning in data. But as everything became more digital, explains Cooper, \u201cWe got more and more systems that do pieces of the totality, all creating data in their own way, and as we acquired or merged with new companies, we bought entire new sets of systems that don\u2019t talk to each other.\u201d Toolbox is currently being decommissioned and replaced with Toolbox Next Generation (TNG). But even TNG can\u2019t provide a \u201cwall-to-wall system\u201d, says Cooper; the burgeoning amount of data defies doing so.<\/p>\n

“There is a spirit of innovation here at Graham that is bold.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thankfully, says Cooper, who joined the company in January 2022, \u201cThere is a spirit of innovation here at Graham that is bold.\u201d The previous year, the company had recognized the need to bring in leadership to move beyond using data in the typical task-oriented, isolated (and often incompatible) way. That led to the decision to directly confront the \u201cbig problem\u201d \u2013 the enterprise level. Senior leadership authorized creation of the new Data and Analytics Office. The new team set forth with an ambitious goal: to create a plan ready to commence building within one year.<\/p>\n

Starting at the enterprise level enabled both a clarity of vision and the needed breadth of scope. The team conceived a system that could pull all important data from all of the company\u2019s disparate systems and sources into a data platform \u201chub\u201d. Every system that creates or uses data would be connectible to the platform, creating digital connections throughout the business that would bring data from across the business together. When a user wanted a set of information or to generate a report, the data platform would make it available.<\/p>\n

“Among the key objectives \u201cis to get everyone in Graham or working with Graham to work off the same data\u201d, says Cooper. \u201cPeople and project sites will still enter data in the same systems as they do now, but they will be empowered with tools and training to be able to access what they need, when they need it.\u201d The result: a \u201csingle source of the truth\u201d enabling a single Graham view of things.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Central in the overall project is the company\u2019s commitment to become future-ready by creating a sustainable data infrastructure that improves with time. \u201cThere are easier ways to get some short-term wins than the path we\u2019re taking,\u201d acknowledges Cooper. Doing something narrower in scope could work immediately and show value. The critical drawback is that this cannot be scaled to an enterprise level. By contrast, says Cooper, \u201cWe are setting things up to be head-of-class in about five years and, more important, to be able to make use of technologies that we think will mature in five to ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Graham\u2019s system matures it will be expected to support machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and the handling of \u201cunstructured data\u201d, information that can\u2019t be stored numerically, such as field video feeds from drones or helmet cams. These are capabilities, Cooper notes, that everyone wants right now but which actually depend on a data platform that can access and govern data effectively: \u201cIt\u2019s only \u2018game-changing\u2019 if you can make it work for your whole enterprise, not if you just use little bits of it in a few isolated places.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Project

Project owners \u2013 Graham clients \u2013 stand to benefit from this initiative. A later stage, new client portal will open a window to Graham\u2019s \u201csingle source of the truth\u201d, delivering much greater project visibility. This will include on-demand access to images of the work as it\u2019s coming along and to a variety of reports concerning quality assessments, health and safety metrics, where the project\u2019s various elements sit on their timelines, and costs incurred. The real-time visibility should, in turn, create opportunities for changes to design, materials or functionality before construction is locked in. Currently hard-to-access information, such as what lies within walls or beneath concrete, will be visible for the owner\u2019s future use.<\/p>\n

More broadly, Graham\u2019s overall objective is to become more efficient, more consistent and more cost competitive as a result of its transformation of data into an enterprise asset. Cooper\u2019s team is charged with having initial data products working this year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":253837,"template":"","tags":[453,12,454,334],"article-categories":[604,610],"class_list":["post-256191","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-construction-news","tag-data-platform","tag-graham-construction","article-categories-articles","article-categories-innovation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cA Single Source of the Truth\u201d: Turning Raw Data into Actionable Information - Graham Construction & Engineering Inc<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/grahambuilds.com\/articles\/a-single-source-of-the-truth-turning-raw-data-into-actionable-information\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cA Single Source of the Truth\u201d: Turning Raw Data into Actionable Information - Graham Construction & Engineering Inc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Construction is a complex industry requiring interactions among diverse participants to plan and execute a project. 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