The biggest challenge for most mechanical contractors isn’t actually turning an architect’s or designer’s vision of a project into reality—it’s trying to connect all the moving pieces during the process. It all seems to get incredibly complicated when we put the vision into the virtual world first and then drag it kicking and screaming into the real world. 

For mechanical contractors, content is king. Real world parts from manufacturers (plumbing and piping components) and custom built parts (sheet metal) need to exist harmoniously in the virtual and real worlds to ensure a successful transition to a finished product.  

Currently, the main challenges for contractors when it comes to transforming a virtual project into a finished one are constrained product data (think ITM files), local data storage (internal networks), and incomplete or inconsistent product data. 

The current approach to handling the needs of everyone involved in the process—from design to installation and eventually billing—is implementing a set of complex integrations between systems that allow a user to achieve the basic functions of adding, modifying, and deleting information to and from a base product.  Once this is complete, the job becomes pushing and pulling information to ensure everyone has the current version. Tracking and maintaining this data can be an expensive and tedious process that is often fraught with inconsistencies.

So, what is the long-run solution? Why can’t a single product easily store all the data in one place, without complex integration? Why does the information have to be pushed, pulled, and constantly transformed? It doesn’t. All the required technology exists today, and it will continue to improve.  

At Buildcentrix, we know the future lies in letting go of the past. We are moving toward unlocking existing product data constraints so the information can serve the real-time needs of everyone involved in the building process. By creating centralized, web-based, virtual products with the ability to store all types of associated data in an open format, we can reduce costs and increase efficiencies for our customers. Open data combined with Buildcentrix’s powerful suite of contractor solutions is already opening the door to our customers’ future.

We realize this transformation is a process, and it will definitely not happen overnight. But it is starting, and we know it will happen because the industry is demanding a more efficient way to move from project design to completion.

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