The benefits of cloud connectivity in building construction

Author: Zühal Duran Goeminne

Zühal Duran Goeminne, our Product Engineer, joined us for an insightful chat on Leica iCON cloud services and the great benefits these services bring to any type of building construction project. We hope you also find it interesting! 

We have seen a rise in the demand and adoption of Cloud-based collaboration and construction management usage. Can you explain why these services are important to the Building Construction Industry?

Construction cloud services have brought a significant advancement to the building industry by providing high efficiency and workability from early design to construction. These services are fed by the data that is stored during the building project’s life cycle.

Creating meaningful and reliable data is essential for a building project but can be tedious at the same time. Just think for a minute about the time it takes to create the data that is produced in all your projects and keeping it all up to date. And of course, not to mention informing your field and office teams about the current status of this data. This is not a negligible issue; billions and billions of euros are wasted every year because countless projects, from the simplest construction yard to the most world-famous constructions, end up costing a multitude of the budget originally estimated (source). At this point, cloud-based data management tools alleviate control over project data, easing the management burden.

However, cloud services also play an important role in having reliable and up-to-date data, while being a constructive and coordinated system that reduces rework, an important cause for delays in construction projects. These services also help identify clashes early enough, which has an impact on lessening the number of reworks onsite, ultimately reducing project cost and time. The right construction management approach really is the key here. Efficient construction project management allows to keep track and streamline project tasks and deliveries. Certainly, cloud services are inseparable parts of construction management. The good thing about these services is that they are ever-growing and future-oriented and take into account the needs of the construction market.

So these services have a great benefit to the Building Construction Industry overall, but let us focus on construction execution where Leica iCON is used for layout, as-built and verification tasks. How does using these services benefit both the users and feedback into the overall project?

Generating accurate digital data is the main and most relevant component for the building project life cycle. There are multiple solutions available in the market to generate digital data that goes to the construction data pool. Leica iCON is tailored towards the building construction industry and offers advanced solutions in layout, as-built, and verification tasks. These tasks are completed and reported in a short time with millimetre accuracy, which project team members rely on. It is also crucial that both the field crews and the office teams can easily access and retrieve the data. Using cloud services facilitates sending e.g. as-built measurements, laid out points, and detected out-of-tolerance areas and reports quickly and safely back and forth between field and office. This cycle can cause some uncertainties amongst team members as to what was the latest, but integrated version tracking system/control eliminates this problem. Of course, this makes project data much more accurate, and helps teams to find out quickly whether the design data is already out of date. Such a mechanism eliminates doubts about what data should be taken to the field for further processing reducing possible mistakes during layout in the construction execution phase.

So now we understand the services and their benefits better, what supported cloud services does Leica iCON work with, and how easy are they to use?

There are lots of cloud-based data management tools available, which progressively make the building construction processes more collaborative and efficient from design, planning, building, and operation. Part of our philosophy for Leica iCON is to enable customers to work with their preferred service and data in their own way. That's why we not only support our own cloud service Leica ConX but also partners with leading solutions for design and construction professionals, such as Autodesk BIM360, Procore, Bricsys 24/7, and Bluebeam Studio Prime. This enables Leica iCON to integrate into existing processes, easily helping to further increase efficiency and productivity on projects.

Field crews can access cloud services on-board to download the latest and most reliable design data directly in the field. This enables them to complete the layout, as-built, and verification tasks on site minimising potential errors and reducing unnecessary rework during the project. Once the tasks have been completed, the recorded data, results and reports can be simply uploaded back to the cloud project. This way project managers and design teams can easily track the project progress and quickly make necessary design updates based on true field data to further minimise any potential issues later on in the project.

The common element between these products is that you need a license for your preferred service. After initial sign-in and authorization, these services allow you to quickly access the projects and data you need to complete tasks and ensure that you deliver the results to keep your project on track.

Where can we get more information about these services?

The interfaces we have established with our partners are designed to be easily set between iCON field software and their software, making it trouble-free for our customers to connect and benefit from these partnerships. Under our Software Partner hub, there is more information on the different cloud services and How-To videos that can support the users with the initial steps. For Leica Captivate users, additional information can be found in the article: “Keep connected with Leica Captivate cloud services”. In case you should have any further questions regarding our iCON software and/or hardware, please feel free to contact us.

This is great information! Thank you for your insights, Zuhal.

Zühal Duran Goeminne, Product Engineer @ Leica Geosystems AG