Profiled on ZDNet, construction firm PCL is making good use of the latest technologies in order to enhance services. PCL Construction is the largest building firm in Canada, having a revenue of $8.5 billion. The organization is active in the commercial, institutional, multi-family residential, renewable energy, heavy industrial, historical restoration, and civil construction sectors.
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PCL has declared that it wants to be a trailblazer in the world of construction. The company is making effective use of big data, analytics, drones, and other advanced technologies in order to enhance its services.
With drone technology, PCL has not used drones was taking videos, as originally conceived. Instead the company has made use of drones to collect aerial data for measurement and analysis. This helped with design improvements for construction projects, as well as providing solutions to work seamlessly with the company’s existing tools and workflows.
A new innovation featured in the ZDNet profile is an information technology concept which involves the application of cloud-based document management, storage, and collaboration. The platform is termed Egnyte Connect from Egnyte.
Digital documentation management increasingly a requirement for large companies and, in the case of PCL, the construction giant has been rapidly generating more files, data and content. Given the advances in computers and design for architecture, these files are also becoming larger in size. File size has been increased through software used to create computer-aided design drawings (CAD).
The company generally deals with 200 projects at a time. These are of such size and complexity that a dedicated server is required for project management alone.
The new technology not only permits PCL to overcome its storage solution problem, it additionally addresses the issue of organization, which is a problem that many companies experienced as they expand. Before PCL put in place their new digital document management platform, the firm lacked a standardized strategy for effectively managing its documents.
For the next stage of its digital transformation journey, PCL is aiming to on-board artificial intelligence, machine learning and Internet of Things initiatives. These will supplement the advances already made with documentation control and data analytics.
