The Internet shrunk the world by making it easy to connect companies and people to each other. Remember how difficult it could be to research a new product or find a new vendor before Google existed? It’s amazing how much has changed in such a short time, yet, for the most part, the real potential has not been realized. That potential is connected data.
In the business of capital projects and construction management, connected data has the potential to significantly reduce project costs without impacting scope or schedule. Several leading health care systems already are pushing the envelope by using technology, the Internet and connected data to reduce total project costs.
What Is Connected Data?
If all of the world’s data was neatly organized and easily accessible, people could make better decisions. For example, think of a man who walks into a doctor’s office with specific symptoms. What if his doctor could quickly find every person in the world who has those symptoms, every treating doctor’s diagnosis, every type of prescribed treatment, and the pros, cons and success rate of each treatment? Could the doctor make better decisions and provide better care?
The data exists, but it’s not easily accessible. It’s in different databases, paper charts, books and journals. Additionally, it’s neither organized nor arranged in a common language. Even if the doctor could access all the data, it could take months or years to make sense of it.
If all available data could be arranged in a standard format and multiple data sources could be accessed at the same time through the Internet, daily life would be radically transformed. The doctor could plug the patient’s symptoms into a computer and every database, patient chart, book and journal instantly would be analyzed to devise the best solution.
At the same time, all new data becomes available to every other doctor in the world who performs a related search. This model helps doctors make better decisions and provide better care.
Eventually this accessibility will become a part of every industry, including construction.
A Construction Case Study
Procuring a project is part science and part art. How does a firm know if it is getting the best price for a defined scope? How does the company spot red flags? How does it know the amount of risk to take on and contingency to apply to portions of each project?
Today, most construction professionals primarily rely on their experience and, to a lesser extent, on limited data. Connected bid data that is easily accessible to the facility owner will lead to better decisions, better bids and reduced costs.
An owner’s project management software contains valuable historical cost and vendor data. A group purchasing organization (GPO) also contains valuable historical cost and vendor data. Applying the connected data concept to bid information arranges the data in a standard format and makes it easily accessible by the owner’s project team.
With connected data in the bid process, a facility project manager can be more effective. He can access one system and see historical pricing, current project pricing for his own network of bidders and pricing (net of rebates) for the GPO bidders. More choices and more information result in better selection and lower costs for the same scope.
Because the connected data concept requires all the data to be presented in a specific format, the computer can aggregate it and present it to the project manager. It’s not a manual process, so the information can be acted on immediately. All the rebate information is available to the project manager, furthering his ability to take immediate action. Each vendor is lined up in an apples-to-apples format and can be compared against historical data.
This example illustrates the connected data concept for just one process—construction project procurement—with just a partial set of data (i.e., one project management system and one GPO). Imagine the possible benefits if all pricing information for every project and every vendor in the world was available every time a firm wanted to bid a job. Connected data puts the project manager in a different position when purchasing and negotiating for work.