Transformational Thinking

Our Head of Digital Transformation Gary Ross explains why nmcn are using this technology, and why we are making it available to our peers.

At nmcn we naturally aim to be the best, but simply being at the front of a race isn’t enough to change an industry. True leadership means that we have to bring the pack with us, like a flock of birds or riders in the Tour de France. Let others take the front spot from time to time, learn and work together, share the effort, and then sprint to the destination.

All good businesses make improvements from time to time, but improving what we did yesterday will only provide marginal changes in what we achieve tomorrow. My approach has always been to rethink the problem and then innovate with a solution, which does not necessarily need to be anything like the old process.

Take the car as an example.  The problem was to get from A to B as quickly as possible. Faster horses? Bouncy shoes? – no. The world has spent a hundred or so years and multiple lives lost making cars quicker, more comfortable and more efficient, and only just recently we are starting to re-think the original question. How do I get from A to B in the most efficient, safe and comfortable way? The answer that is evolving is automated cars, taking away the need for a human driver (and all of his/her faults) and simply applying the best technology to the problem.

One of the problems we face in construction is accurately  capturing what happens on our sites. Reality Capture using static scanners has been provided as a solution much like the car was, but that doesn’t answer the whole question.

Capturing reality means just that, and reality changes over time – what was there yesterday will not be there today.  A one-off scan therefore cannot be the answer. What we needed was a way to use accurately scanned data daily, and make it cheap and simple enough to be efficient in a world where the skills gap, time and cost all have an impact.

The problem we needed to solve was to reduce the cost of the tools, simplify the skills needed, improve the speed of the process and therefore make single scans a whole lot more palatable, and multiple, repeated scans a feasible possibility.

After a lot of research, we found that the PX-80 was the answer for us. Simple to use, amazingly fast and accurate enough for 95% of our needs, and the combination of that makes it up to ten times cheaper compared to tripod based scanning.

Training for the PX-80 takes no more than half an hour, and it’s simple, two click approach puts it in the hands of everyone.

So much so, we quickly moved from the idea of simply making our own business better, to having a positive impact on the whole industry, and making the PX-80 available to our peers.

By releasing this innovation to our peers, we are able to move the industry forward in big steps, towards a better future for generations to come, and in doing so, operate our own business more efficiently, safely and at the cutting edge. That has always been my personal goal, and the PX-80 is one of many ways that we are able to do this.