Each month, Versatile’s Director of Product Marketing, Jackie Guilbault, speaks with site power users about their experience using Versatile®.
Versatile creates solutions that measure and analyze your jobsite automatically without impacting any aspect of the jobsite operations. Our platform aggregates daily performance and production metrics for key site activities on an online dashboard and in a daily or weekly round of emails with individual reports we call “widgets”.
Our Widget Wednesday discussions focus on the question: How is our non-intrusive IoT device helping elevate users’ instincts and change the way they work for the better—including monitoring, controlling, and improving processes on the jobsite daily?
This month, Jackie speaks with Assistant Superintendent Josh Strupeck of Pepper Construction.
Pepper Construction is a forward-thinking company that continuously inspires us. I’m grateful to work with you and the team. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.
Thanks for having me. I’ve got about five years of full-time experience and two years of an internship experience, all in construction. I come from a construction family, so I’m born and bred. I’ve used Versatile on a number of projects and have covered a breath of different markets.
I was first introduced to Versatile at the Oracle Industries Innovation Lab, a shining star of all the tech that I used out there. CraneView stood out to me as a forward-thinking device and keyed into the needs of the construction industry.
I convinced the project team that this was something they should invest in. We got the IoT device out on site and let it rip. We learned a lot from that project.
Both good and bad challenges of our industry are numerous. You never know what you’re going to get when you’re bringing something new out to a site. After that, I had the opportunity to start using Versatile on a cast-in-place high rise building. We covered a couple of different markets and are learning a lot from each individual project.
“Time on the Hook” and “The Outliers” Widgets
Each time we deploy the device on another project, we can see the growth. You can see the tradesmen start to open up to what the device is capable of and what we can learn and accomplish as a group. Obviously, the daily reports and the widgets that we get from you guys is key to that. What I use most is the “Time on Hook” and “The Outliers.”
That gives me a solid understanding of what my crane is doing, because time is money, especially in this industry. Budgets are tighter and schedules are shorter. We have to maximize what we’ve got, especially in the face of the recent challenges we have had with COVID.
“[Versatile] gives me a solid understanding of what my crane is doing, because time is money, especially in this industry. Budgets are tighter and schedules are shorter. We have to maximize what we’ve got.”
-Josh Strupeck, Assistant Superintendent, Pepper Construction
Navigating labor shortages
Labor shortages are also becoming a much greater thing. Understanding in greater detail how my crane is spending its time, what it’s spending its time on, and where it’s losing its time, drives a lot of decision-making for me.
These details have sparked informative conversations, including being able to approach someone that’s been doing this for 25 years with their wealth of experience and life on the job.
Being able to approach conversations in a very non-biased manner and just say, “Hey, this is what my unbiased third-party data capture device is telling me: help me help you.” I’ve approached it like that with information and numbers.
Labor shortages are also becoming a much greater thing. Understanding in greater detail how my crane is spending its time, what it’s spending its time on, and where it’s losing its time, drives a lot of decision-making for me.
-Josh Strupeck, Assistant Superintendent, Pepper Construction
Starting conversations with Versatile data
Using Versatile as a tool to connect between my growing experience and other employees’ repository of experience has been crucial with making decisions and getting people to open up to something new. As we all know, bringing something new is always an uphill battle.
But we approach it with a team building attitude, use the data to start the conversations, and then use Versatile to help drive the decisions.
Those two widgets, “Time on the Hook” and “Outliers” are the foundation for when I go into those meetings and share, “Hey, I want to help you be the best at your job and I want to learn from you guys. This device is going to help me do that and it’s also going to help you do your job to the best of your ability.”
Versatile bridges the gap between the wealth of information that we lose when experienced construction employees retire. It’s taking a lot of that data and putting it in a format that I can easily digest. Hopefully, as my experience grows, I can use this data to pass along to the next generation so that they don’t have to start from zero; they’ve got a repository of information to work with.
[Versatile] bridges the gap between the wealth of information that we lose when experienced construction employees retire. It’s taking a lot of that data and putting it in a format I can easily digest.”
-Josh Strupeck, Assistant Superintendent, Pepper Construction
JG: That’s a fantastic perspective that highlights collaboration and the power of data. I can see how it’s changed the way things flow better on site for the better.
If you’d like to hear more about Versatile and what it can do for you, we’re always available for you at letstalk@versatile.ai.
Leveraging AI and IoT, Versatile helps streamline construction resource allocation while minimizing disruption to existing processes. The result? Increased productivity and efficiency, an improved safety culture, and the insights needed to manage and bid future projects more competitively.
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