{"id":26072,"date":"2024-06-04T15:23:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T22:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/from-duct-taping-to-reinventing-construction-an-interview-with-steve-holzer\/"},"modified":"2024-06-04T15:23:24","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T22:23:24","slug":"from-duct-taping-to-reinventing-construction-an-interview-with-steve-holzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/from-duct-taping-to-reinventing-construction-an-interview-with-steve-holzer\/","title":{"rendered":"From Duct Taping to Reinventing Construction \u2013 an Interview with Steve Holzer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Construction tech is hot. The question is: Are the dollars are invested in contech reinventing the industry or are they merely adding patches to outdated processes? Steve Holzer, an industry expert and Product Evangelist at BIMobject, shares his views in this interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve
\nHolzer\u2019s LinkedIn profile details industry experience that starts from 1976
\nwhen he became the president and owner of Holzer Construction Company. Since
\nthen, he\u2019s been on the cutting edge of AEC technology and, today, is an
\nacknowledged tech expert and visionary.<\/p>\n

I came to
\nknow Steve from the AEC Hackathon. During a recent interview, I had a chance to
\nlearn about his experiences and how he sees the future of construction.<\/p>\n

From CAD to Early AI<\/h2>\n

Throughout
\nhis career, Steve has been interested in how to use technology for construction.
\nHe was an early adopter of job-costing systems and project-scheduling software
\nfor home building. He had already started using AutoCAD in mid-eighties. For
\nSteve, CAD was not just a fast way to produce drawings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the
\nearly 1990s, a home-building company hired me to extract attribute data from AutoCAD
\nfiles and bring it into a purchasing system called the FAST Management System,\u201d
\nSteve explains. \u201cFAST was popular among US home builders and I started
\nimplementing these systems all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In
\nmid-1990s, Steve was hired to implement one of the first artificial
\nintelligence systems for home builders. It allowed the use of natural language
\nfor inquiries. For example, a C-level manager could ask, \u201cHow many homes did we
\nclose last month?\u201d or \u201cHow many homes will we close this month?\u201d The app could
\nalso learn. If the system did not understand a certain word, it would ask for
\nthe user for an explanation through a simple dialog.<\/p>\n

Smarter Construction<\/h2>\n

Steve was
\noccupied with homebuilders across the country, but he realized that something
\nwas missing in how the building industry managed information. He had worked as
\na purchasing VP for years and knew that building materials did not have the
\nsame universal product codes as any staple in a supermarket. For example, the
\nsame ubiquitous 2\u00d74 precut stud could have four different product codes for a
\nsingle vendor .<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought
\nthat there\u2019s got to be a standard for this somewhere. That\u2019s how I discovered
\nbuildingSMART and got engaged with Deke Smith,\u201d says Steve. He became member of
\na team that developed the US-national BIM standard.<\/p>\n

Steve has an extensive network of industry front runners. In 2013, he joined forces with two of them, Damon Hernandez and Greg Howes, to start up the AEC Hackathon<\/a>. By this time, the community that grew from the initiative has organized over 40 hackathons across the globe.<\/p>\n

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A scene from the AEC Hackathon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BIM Objects<\/h2>\n

BIM software contain objects that represent real-life building parts and systems, but they are generic. However, designers and contractors need information about real products. This is why Steve was eager to learn about platforms that provided BIM content from manufacturers. He discovered BIMobject<\/a> and its founder, Stefan Larsson, in 2012.<\/p>\n

After
\nworking as a freelancer for the home building industry, Steve joined BIMobject.
\nThis happened right after the company had absorbed Autodesk\u2019s BIM content
\nservice, called Seek, in January 2017.<\/p>\n

Steve went
\nto work for BIMobject because he saw that they were not just a repository. They
\nwere creating new opportunities for the industry with several technologies \u2013 e.g.,
\nVR\/AR and the Hercules platform.<\/p>\n

Widen Your Horizon<\/h2>\n

Many building
\nproduct manufacturers believe that architects and engineers are the key players
\nin a project and that serving the designer is a way to make money. Steve
\nopposes that notion. Of the 10-trillion-dollar industry, 91% of the business
\nhappens after the building is completed. He believes that the building owner is
\nthe prime mover.<\/p>\n

The role of
\nthe owner has evolved. They used to order plans and specs from designers and,
\nthen, find a contractor who\u2019d mostly miscalculate their bid. The antagonistic
\nrelationship between project participants has transformed into a more
\ncollaborative one.<\/p>\n

We should widen
\nour technological horizon in VDC from the design and construction process to
\nthe use, operations, and maintenance of the built environment. From the
\nconstruction cost thinking, we should move to understanding the total cost of
\nownership (TCO).<\/p>\n

As for information management, Steve would have us stop talking about files and start creating common data environments. The project team should embellish the environment from day one and include geo-locations in the data. This way, the project becomes a part of the digital city.<\/p>\n

Duct Taping Manual
\nProcesses<\/h2>\n

\u201cI want to challenge the market. All that prefab stuff is great, and we\u2019re using automation and robotics, but that\u2019s not enough. We\u2019ve got to rethink the systems,\u201d Steve proclaims. \u201cWe continue to use systems that were devised for manual labor. Even the sheets of wallboard are meant for a human to be able to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"-\"\"-\"<\/figure>\n

Steve
\nreminds that we\u2019re building in pretty much the same way that we did a century
\nago. A tower crane and some new materials have emerged since then, but,
\notherwise, the process is essentially similar. New technology is just \u201cduct taping\u201d
\nthe existing practice.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s
\nhype around prefabrication and modular construction right now. Steve thinks
\nit\u2019s all about good marketing. Levittown is a good example of prefabrication
\nand vertical integration that took place in the 1950s, over half a century
\nbefore Katerra.<\/p>\n

Steve
\nhimself has a story of prefabrication from the late 1970s. He went into the business
\nof framing and assembling panelized homes from a company called National Homes.
\nWith six guys, they could put up a house in a day and a half from parts that
\nfit in two semi-trucks. The parts had computer-printed tags to show where they
\nshould go.<\/p>\n

More with Less<\/h2>\n

Technology
\nis supposed to let us do more with less. Building contractors moan about labor
\nshortage. Instead, Steve thinks that we have a productivity problem. Companies
\nin Nordic countries have been cutting back on work hours and still been able to
\nprovide a good living for the employees.<\/p>\n

Are we going to see a more profound change in construction? Steve is adamant that a radical change is due to happen: \u201cWhat happened in the auto industry will happen in construction. The industry is going to be reinvented by a couple of people and nobody else is going to be able to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can connect with Steve on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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