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This week in home building news! Catch up with Az and Pete and a colourful array of guests, to hear about who's killing it, who's innovating, and who's getting into strife in the world of new home construction.
Aaron Ng (00:00.654)
Off we go. All right. We're kind of recording right now. So I'll start to introduce you and everything. And sorry for this introduction, mate. Everyone's like, what the hell is wrong with you, man? But I'm like, Hey, I respect the people that come on these podcasts. And I like to talk about who they are. And, know, we like to tell their story and all that sort of thing, mate. So just a little bit of a introduction for yourself, All right.
Well, good morning and welcome to the Good Builder podcast. Today, I have someone who's quietly changing the way the industry is actually doing construction. He is a bit of a quiet person himself since meeting him. So I want to bring a bit of attention to this gentleman. He is the CEO and founder of the business we're going to talk about today, which is on-site scanning solutions and scaffold studio.
also a New South Wales chair member or the chair of the Scaffolding Association. He was in construction, of course, himself in engineering and construction and came across a lot of issues that I bet a lot of you builders out there are facing right now. But the difference between him and a lot of guys out there is he did something about it. And he's brought this amazing 3D technology and this platform to the industry.
And I am welcoming the legend to the podcast today, Mark Corkeryy from On-Site Scanning Solutions. How are you? Good, mate. That's a hell of introduction. you for that. Mate, that was just a brief of your career so far. And I think there's a lot more to come. And I only touched on three things that you've done, but mate, it's pretty impressive. No, thank you so much for having us. It's been, it's been a really fun ride over the last few years. Yeah. And as you just sort of said, it's Joe Technology moves so quick.
You ought to stay in front of the head. So it's always learning every day is a school day. Um, and yeah, it's always great fun. I love that saying man. Every day is a school. is, isn't it? If you are not trying to learn every single day, you're not trying to better something. think you kind of, I'm not saying wasting your life, but I think you, you know, there's, there's better things to be doing, you know, doing that sort of stuff that you've done. Oh, absolutely. So now, yeah, I've really, really enjoyed, um, being at the sort of the forefront of sort of different industries where it allows you a bit more into play and
Aaron Ng (02:19.606)
It feels less like work, a bit more like an adventure. Yeah. And so yeah, really, really enjoying what we're doing at the moment. Yeah. Wow. Well, take us back a bit, Mark. Could you tell us how you came into this industry, how onsite scanning solutions came about and, you know, this attitude of, know, making things better, raising the bar industry, which we love here at The Good Builder. How'd that all come about? So onsite scanning was born from our engineering company Scaffold Studios. So
Scaffold Studio is a specialist design engineering firm in scaffolding and temporary work. So we don't install scaffolding, we don't supply it, we only do the design engineering. So I have come from a scaffolding background, we did use to build it, we did use a sub-contract to it. And then we decided that the engineering space was very poor. A lot of the designs were obviously mandated that you need to have them. On paper, yes, structurally they worked, but on site.
But nothing ever lined up properly because the engineers aren't scaffolders. They don't understand the intricacies of how those scaffolding actually needs to be built or it can be maintained or adjusted. And so we sort of found a bit of a niche in that market by coming to that engineering and the design forefront by coming from that practical standpoint. And so our sort of, when we first started the company, was like, we'll give you designs that actually work. And that was sort of our USP. That's how we ourselves apart.
Over the time we're working with the engineering, obviously there was a lot of the flammable cladding replacement started happening. So, the Grenfell, there's obviously huge works around Australia in terms of getting all these existing buildings and getting this cladding replaced. And so a lot of the buildings didn't have documentation. They lived in, they worked in. And so the risk and the high risk in terms of the impact to stakeholders, residents, the general public is much higher because there's no longer a construction site.
And so what we were finding was that we weren't being given accurate plans. lot of the body corporates didn't have plans. And so we'd have our clients literally sending me videos of them stepping them out like they're Jack Sparrow trying to find the run and going, Joe, yeah, I think it's about nine and a half meters. Is it more, is it less? And so we went down the route of going, there has to be a better way. There needs to be a much more efficient way that we can do this.
Aaron Ng (04:38.958)
And so really started looking at what was around came across 3d sort of scanning and the largest sort of technology. Yeah. Fell in love with it really had to do our sort of some. So the only machine that was really viable at the time we were using a Trimble scanner. Yep. Very expensive to buy. was almost $100,000 to buy and then your annual fees are about nine and half thousand dollars to operate the software. So you've got these subscription models as well where it keeps coming. And so
Fantastic bit of gear definitely saw the value in it. We still have a Trimble scanner today. Yep, unbelievably accurate like we can get it to within 1.8 millimeters. So the accuracy is incredible, but very expensive and so it out of the reach and realm for Joe 99 % of people unless you're doing it every day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really a feasible option. And so about 18 months ago, we went there's got to be a better way for how else we can do this. And so my, my poor wife ended up with Jamie talking about nothing but scanners for about 12 months.
where we trialed almost everything on the market. And so there were some beautiful ones that were very expensive, very accurate, but once again, were a bit awkward. Sometimes a bit harder to use. Yeah. Weren't as responsive, weren't as quick to set up. Yeah. And so they all had their pros and cons. And then what sort of eventuated was we found this amazing technology coming out Singapore. And so the units were really well priced. They come with the software that actually supports it.
where and it's license free. there's no annual subscriptions, nothing like that. And then the technology was really stable. And so in terms of actually using it, you can set up really quickly. So went over tried them, loved them, bought a couple for our engineering firm. Wow. It started integrating into the engineering firm and then the company like, would you like to be the reseller for Australia and we're like, not
not the business model guys, where engineers appreciate the thought, not the model. then purely by happenstance, we had a couple of our clients go, if there's something really quick and easy where I could go to site, capture the data, send it to you so could design it properly. That would be the ducks nuts. And then we're like, yeah, okay, then maybe let me let me look into it. So we spent some time doing some digital intelligence with the companies and
Aaron Ng (07:00.652)
That's now how onsite screen has been born. so, onsite comes from a really different sort of angle where, yes, we are the reseller, but we're also the user. And so the idea that we have our engineers every day using this technology on our sites. And so that sort of understanding of good practice, how it works, how to optimize it, where you can and can't get away with things. All of that gets learnt in a real world scenario. So it's not an academic.
It's not an academic sort of way that we come to it. It's like, here's the brochure and the brochure says it does this many points. Sure, the technology and the specifics of it is important. It's important to some people more than others. Really what most people want is they just want the end result. And so this is the part where because that's what we're carrying and we're working on every day, we've really been able to help our clients optimize their...
workflows really integrated into it because new technology is scary. Yeah, new technology is one of those ones where if you don't know you've got to you got to find the time or a you to find the capital. Yeah. And so that's always the first thing where people are like, I don't even really I'm not sure about the ROI. How do I actually get money back out of this? Will this be things you've always got that first bit of fear? Yeah. And then from there, it's then you've got to have the time to actually learn the technology 100%. And so at the moment, this is one of the things that on site we do. And we've always done is
we don't just drop off, drop the box at your door and be like, good luck. See you later. Because we understand how scary that can be. Yeah. And so it's that sort of thing where it can sit on like I'm, I'm, guilty of it. I toys in the past. and they've sat on the shelf for four or five, six months because I'm just like, I just, it'd be so good if I could get to work, but then I don't have time. It's a real job.
I can't go there and then it not work. And so you've got all those sorts of things with it. So when we drop off the scanners, our, our designers or engineers will actually do one of the deliveries. So it's the people that actually use it. We'll be the ones who do it and do your training straight up. And so we'll turn up. We've got all the, like all the equipment with you. We've got, videos, we've got brochures. we've got, like, two days and a pamphlets, that sit in there as well as like quick start guides. And the idea is that basically.
Aaron Ng (09:22.414)
day one, you can hit the ground running, you're confident with the technology. And then you can actually start embracing it. And then our engineers use CAD, they use Revit, they use Tecla, they use SketchUp. And so they understand the workflows. so the idea of us also being our support much more than just being like, okay, here's the scanner. Yeah, we're also thinking, okay, this is your data. This is what you can do with the data. This is how you can change it. This is how you manipulate it. This is the most efficient way to do it. And that
to us is a full service. And so a lot of people will sort of say, it's a full service delivery, it's this or that. I find a lot of the time it stops one short of what you need. And so the scan and the data, like the scanner is what captures the data. You've then got your data and that's what comes in. But it's what you do with that data is the most important thing. And that's where you'll get your ROI. That's where you get your time saved. That's where you get your efficiencies.
And that's where you understand and that's where our team understand it. And so that's where onsite has a bit of a different origin story. So we haven't come for that usual reseller route where we're not salesmen. None of our team is salesmen. And so it's sort of a bit of a different sort of take in terms of what we do. But we've had a great, great response from the industry. We're very proud of what we've done so far and more than anything, we're really proud of our
clients, yeah, how they've adopted the technology, yeah, and how they're actually using it. And so we've seen just unbelievably cool things. Wow, that's coming from our clients outside of where we ever thought the realm would be using the data. And that's the point everyone knows their industry, everyone is an expert. Yeah, what they do. And so we can give you the tools and then we can show you how to use them. But what's been so cool is seeing actually how people are adopting them. That's awesome.
And how cool is it as you've been talking through for someone like you guys, I can tell straight off the bat that this wasn't about an affiliate fee for you guys at all. It was about finding the right solution and you found it for yourself so you could service your clients. And it just so happened that along the way your clients saw, you know, partners of yours said, Hey, we're looking for a similar solution. And I think that's really cool. The way you went about that, rather than looking at it from a business proposition, it was like, how can we actually
Aaron Ng (11:42.894)
help our clients find a better solution. And that's sort of it. And so it's sort of been that part where like Scaffold Studio has always been, Joe really proud at, really supporting our clients and really making sure that they get what they need and what they get. what you're doing. And so it was great because we did all the hard work. We did all the leg work. We've trialed all these different scanners. And so for us then to sort of land on the scanner that we were really happy with and we believed in, it wasn't...
it wasn't too far of a throw to them be like, okay, well, if this is great for us, it'd be great for others. And so what really changed or changed the way that we've been operating and then how we can actually operate these scanners and give them like to our clients is that the ease in which you can use them. Yeah. So you don't have to be a survey. You don't have to be a tech nerd. You don't need to be living in your mom's basement. Yeah, Joe sitting there.
building away on the computer is 2am with Gatorade and Red Bull on either side of your keyboard. that, that that that sort of technology gap or divide has been really closed in the last couple years. Wow. And it's fantastic to sort of see. And so it's super easy to use. Like the scanners come in a couple ranges of sizes. Yeah, can set up in under a minute, you can connect it to your phone or your iPad within another minute. So within two minutes of you turn up to site,
You're on. Well, we're to be showing that later on. Hey, Mark, we're going to do a bit of a demo. That's it. We can do it in real time. So you don't have to run around in the background. Just the speed in which you can do it is fantastic. And then what they've really done is they've looked and sort of said, Joe, everyone else, so like our, our Trimble comes with a tablet and so you've got to buy that. And that's the tablet comes with it. Yeah. Tablet dies, tablet breaks. Someone lost the tablet. Whatever it is. You're done. You need to order another one. Everything else.
So they've gone right from the start and going, okay, well, everyone's got phones or everyone's got iPads. Yeah. Great. Let's, let's make the interface off your phone. Yeah. And so you're operating, you're operating a scanner, which you with your cell phone or the tablet you've already got. So you're not having to go out and worry about getting new tech and trying to integrate that into the system. It's you've already got. Yeah. And then they've, the app comes free of charge. So you can have your entire team set up on, so everyone can download the app. They can all get basic credentials device.
Aaron Ng (14:03.096)
whoever's going to use the device on the day they go, yep, fantastic. I'll go up. You join via wifi. And so it's not using internet. It's just a much more stable connection. Yeah. So same exact same principle as Bluetooth except for with wifi. Yeah. Straight to the device. Yeah. Straight to the device. Data transfer is quicker. Yeah. And so the idea is that you can basically have anyone in your team basically go, yep, I've got this. I've got a site inspection.
doing a walk with a client, I've only got a limited time to get there. And that's where, especially with builders, when you guys are doing those pre tender walks, there's four other builders there as well. It's everyone gets the stink out of everyone as they're walking around. But you've got 10 or 15 minutes to look at an area that you guys are quoting and before you go off to the next area. so you can't pull out your old like you can't.
pull out the old terrestrial scanner, it takes 10 minutes to calibrate and then it weighs 15 kilos and you're dragging it around and you're like, oh, just wait up, wait up, I'm coming, I'm coming. And so the feasibility of scanning, even for inspections and that pre-start, that was never there a couple of years ago, just because of the time. So you'd have to come back on a separate day, organize a different inspection to get there, especially if you're on roofs or confined space or if it's a live area. It's really hard to organize those sorts of things. And so
because it sets up so quickly, it's now giving builders, and especially in the remedial space where they've got to do those inspections, they've got one chance to have a look at the job site before they go back to the office, they sit down with the rest of main team and they come up with the price. And so to be able to really quickly pull out your scanner, have it going within a couple of minutes, and then walk around your job site and pick up your area.
You can then bring that back into the office and then pull that on the conference, pull that on the big screen with your estimating team and go, okay, this is what we've done. And then, you've now got a digital twin of your site. And so what I mean by digital twin is it's not a, it's not a model. It's not a, it's not something that kind of looks similar, but it depends on data. This is everything that you've seen on site. You've got millimeter accuracy for everything. So anything you need to know about in terms of is it drainage pits? Is there trees? Is there vegetation? Where's the.
Aaron Ng (16:17.198)
All the cabling, the cabling, power lines, how often do you do overhead stuff. so it transitions from you can do your live measurements on the software that comes free of charge, you can do all of your measurements, you can instantly get square meters. So if you're just trying to price on working out, Jay, how much cladding is getting replaced in this one area, you can go through do you draw your boxes around it and go, okay, great. That's 244 square meters in that location.
And so it's that quick. so, unfortunately, with construction, there's always been that divide between the on-site team and the guys in the office. Yeah. And so the on-site team, Joe, they're on the, they're on the coalface. They're seeing it. They know what's going on. Trying to explain that back to the people in the office has always been a bit of a challenge. Massively. It's gotten better over the time. Like obviously now everyone's phone has cameras. So like 10 years ago, you weren't sending
Yeah, photos you would have to have the digital camera with you. And so every time there's been a leap in technology, things have gotten more efficient. And so this is now just an absolute frontier where you've got the ability to take your job site, create a twin of it, bring it back into the office, which is where you guys are doing your team to doing the estimations. You're putting all your pricing together. You're working out what your margins are going to be. You're working out your timelines, your deliverables.
Can you stick to the schedules? What are the delays gonna look like? And so all of that planning across multiple teams, whether it's your estimating, whether it's your work health and safety guys, trying to work out how they're gonna do their traffic management plans. What's the high risk activities are gonna have to happen on there? And it's a set to detection too. Clash detection, where are we gonna start running stuff? And so all of these things, this is what blows up a job. If you get it wrong,
Joe, your margins are gone. Like the margins at the moment in construction are so small. Yep. And so anything that you guys can be doing to guarantee that you can avoid as much as possible. Like, unfortunately in life, wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But with this sort of technology, you can mitigate and minimize that by tenfold. That's why having that planning there. And so that's where it's been really cool is just, as I sort of said, like, it's great seeing how people are doing it, because we never actually thought about
Aaron Ng (18:39.874)
the &S teams actually sitting there and going, this is how we're going to plan. This is where the trucks are going to go. This is how the movement goes. Used to be back on the day, you'd highlight on a 2D plan and go, yeah, this is kind of what we're thinking. Yeah. But you lose the reference around it. Yeah. And so you lose what's around you lose the fact that there's power lines there where your crane spot was. There's actually medium voltage power lines. You're gonna be within four meters off. Yeah. And two, you hit the site and they go to do the first lift and it's like, well, what do we do now? Yeah. And then everything's done on the fly.
risks are taken because people are just trying to solve things and it happens. so the technology has been, Jake, it was game changing for us as engineers. It was game changing for us as designers because we have confidence in what we're designing. But to then transport that into the different realms of construction industry, the different areas inside a building in terms of those pre-starts, the estimations.
you've got confidence that everything happens. And then the other thing that's been really cool, that we've sort of seen a lot of people really embrace is the stakeholder engagement. so anyone who's dealt with stakeholders within buildings or especially if it's public works or universities or JTAFES or schools or big public buildings, any sort of public buildings like that, you've got a whole lot of different people who will have a say on your project.
who aren't in construction. You give them a set of 2D plans and say, what do you reckon? 99 % of the time, you're gonna get pushback straight away. And a lot of that pushback comes from the fact that they don't understand exactly what they're looking at. And so if you don't understand the first reaction, the human reaction is fit. It's like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't know. you give us more details or can you give us another option? I don't understand what that's gonna look like.
let me talk to some other people and you that that planning process and that consultation process, it drags out. And so what's been amazing to see is because the scanners take obviously the digital point cloud data, but it also takes HD video at the same time, you can actually start overlaying your job sites, your planning processes, everything into that 3d space, and then can get shared with the stakeholders. And so
Aaron Ng (21:04.942)
If you're turning around to someone and saying, okay, we're going to completely renovate the building, your whole roof is coming off, we're going to need scaffolding for access and for protection. This is where you need deliveries. This is how we do stuff. Yeah. You give them a colored 2D plan. They're going to freak out because they have no idea how it's going to affect them, whether their access is still available, whether their fire regulations are going to be blocked in terms of
access and egress. So there's all these liabilities that come up on these existing buildings. And so to be able to show someone and go, this is exactly what's going to happen. This is your fire route here. We've made sure it's a minimum of 1200 mils that stays compliant. This is your fire door stays open. Delivery doc, no worries. We've got that here. We've allowed X amount of space. You can clearly see that there's And so to be able to give and talk to people, and especially if they're not in construction.
Yeah, in a 3d world where they can they can see it, they can feel that they can imagine it and really be confident in the decisions. Yeah, that that's changed the way a lot of our builders are actually going about projects. And not only is it saving them time, it's saving them money on rework that didn't need to be done. And Jane, the builders are you guys are experts in what you guys are doing. And so the 2d set of plans are the markups, they were correct. Yeah.
There was everything, all the fire stuff was assorted, but the fact that you've still got to other people to sign off on it, it's that understanding and that ability to be able to showcase and really get people to buy in. That's the next step. And that's where efficiency comes in. That's where you start seeing your ROI. And this is at the start of the project. You've now got this the whole way through. And so every stage you do it, you can check your data, you can re-scan sites and actually provide guarantees. And so we've got a couple of builders who are doing digital as builds.
So every core area of basically the build, they're going through and rescanning the site. And so they can show exactly where the piers are. can show before the concrete's core that they're at the depths that they need to be because you can cut sections and see things there. And so in terms of that builder's insurance, your warranties, the confidence you give your clients, if you can turn up and say, like, there's a lot of people nervous on construction at the moment.
Aaron Ng (23:19.851)
Yeah, I'm a couple of addicts and that's unfortunately, it's the same thing with most things in life. Yeah, Joe, it only takes a few to ruin it for everyone else who's Joe trying really hard. Absolutely. But another way you can look at it is, and this is how you get that efficiency is we've had yet builders go, okay, well, what's the what's the best way I can give confidence to people? Well, I can provide them with a full digital digital as built of it. And then so they'll hand over at the end of a job.
these digital files and go, this will be clearly shows your, the peers that they were down to the depth before they got filled up with concrete. This is your slab. can clearly, you can cut sections in your slab because if you know where ground level is, know where the cappings were, you can prove that your slab is at the thickness thing. Frames go in, you can then show your rough ins. And so the two things for rough ins is when we moved into our house,
we didn't know where any of the cables or the wiring of the plumbing was. And so when we're drilling and hanging stuff and putting in the laundry, we hitting a water pipe in our laundry. So we flooded the laundry within the first couple of months of moving in because we didn't have that done. And so the other part is though, you can sort of show that the trades haven't gone through and cut, okay, your plumber hasn't gone through and cut your load bearing wall like the stud and just run a pipe through it. And so the ability to be able to actually just showcase that the work has been done properly in a...
format that can be shared with anyone who's got designer engineers like CAD or any other software moving forward on renovations, you're designed to redo your bathroom. This is where the electricity is running at the moment. You can make those sort of decisions and it's a lot easier. And so that's been the really cool thing is obviously we've always looked at it from the start in terms of design and engineering and planning.
Yeah. But the fact that can go and use it all the way to the point of delivery. Yeah. That is a full life cycle of the project gets incorporated inside the data. Yeah. And that's where we just, it's blown our mind and we've really enjoyed being in this space because it is game changing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things we talk about at the good builder, what makes a good business or a good product is the three things that you've got to impact.
Aaron Ng (25:39.446)
time, transparency and trust. And I think you've done it. Time, you're getting your 3D model scans back in seconds, instantaneously. Saves time by a bunch of people. You went through all of that. Transparency, as you said, you can see how deep the piers went, how thick was the concrete, where the studs were put in, everything that you can see in that. And then obviously it builds trust, mate. I think every builder should use this platform.
And now I've seen it a lot in, well, I haven't seen it a lot, but I've seen some of this sort of technology in commercial applications in residential applications, Mark. Do you have a lot of builders that are using it in that residential space at the moment? So that's where the trends change. We are seeing, we are seeing a lot more residential builders actually adopt it. And it's, it's that exact thing where we it's that ability to be able to showcase your thing. so Joe, things are competitive, margins getting tighter.
Yeah. And so as you're going for tenders, as you as you're going to try to win the work, yeah, especially on the custom builds where there is three or four builders, tendering for it. Yeah. Is that idea that you can turn out and sort of say, look, this is our track record. This is what we've done. This is our showcase. Yeah. Also, this is how we actually build. This is how we do it. And so we're seeing a lot of people start to really see the value in that, as you said, that transparency and trust. And so, Joe, construction and someone builds a home.
it's the largest purchase they'll ever make. It's the largest investments they'll most likely ever make. So anxiety is high. The risk for them financially is high. There's all these things that change the way that people would generally react to situations. And so if you've got that ability to sort of go, look, we've got a proven track record, these are examples of our work, everything else. And now we are also at the forefront of making sure that we can provide
and make sure that our trades are doing exactly what needs to happen. So that we can give you the best possible outcome for your construction. And so it used to always be in major commercial projects because of the cost. The cost was always prohibitive. It's one of those ones where your residential builders not paying $100,000 to make sure that the peers are 600 mil deep. He's gonna go get the tape. He's gonna do a manual check.
Aaron Ng (28:01.952)
And he's done that check. And even if he goes and takes a photo of every single peer and numbers them, so he's got a record later on, very time consuming, very awkward. then got to then sort of sit there and go, okay, well, we've got to put it into a file and then make sure it also aligns. Everything becomes really quite clunky. And so a lot of the times the builder does the checks, goes, yep, no, I'm confident. I'm happy. move on.
How do you explain that to the owner going, yeah, I checked it, it's all good. Cool, so the trust needs to be there. And unfortunately, a lot of that has been eroded away over time from media through, like how often do see these sort of stories that pop up online? Social media also makes it far more easily accessible for people to tell their stories and when things have gone wrong. And so for the people out there who are doing things properly, spending the time.
making sure that everything gets done by the book, by the codes. It's just a way that they can actually set themselves apart from the pack by sort of going, we've got the capacity to fully integrate the data, show it, provide it, use it, leverage it on site. And then if something changes, if there's issues on site later on, they can make judgment calls. They know exactly where the peers are. They know where the power is. They know where the underground power is gone. And so it's always that idea that
things do change. And so if you can look back and go, I know exactly where everything is, you can then go forward with confidence. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And then you think about, I think you went through it, but one of the things I picked up on you were talking about was, you know, if you're tendering for something and we've got a lot of insurance builders that listen to us, they do thousands of jobs. Like you said, you know, when you go through a project, you're like, how much does this cost to restore? Restoration job. Go through, instead of dragging your clunky,
scanner that's going to weigh a ton. You've got this thing on your phone or your iPad or whatever and you've got an instant scan and bang. So I'll be introducing you to a few of our insurance builder community members. think that they're going to certainly enjoy it. Every, every part of the industry has, has their challenges and every part of the industry is actually using it in different ways, which has been awesome to see, but especially with the insurance, the insurance guys, the remedial guys.
Aaron Ng (30:15.982)
they're working with structures that are already there. So if the data is not there, if they don't have a good set of plans, they don't have anything, they're already behind the eight ball. And then even if it is an amazing set of drawings and they've got a full IFC 3D model of the building, that doesn't incorporate the current drainage, it doesn't incorporate the current gardens, the trees, access points, maybe how the residents are using certain areas. And so it's another thing where plans will still always be
And just off. It'll always be slightly off because it's incomplete. Yeah. And so for your the ability to be able to, Jay, as an insurance assessor, go, great, I need to look at all the gutter gutter in the longs there got to go I've got a hail damage here. Yeah, I've got this I've got that. For them to be able to really capture that in real time and just go, okay, I've turned up to site once I'm not going back again when they turn around and say, Oh, what about the other? What about that? Like the missing louver on the other side of the courtyard?
Yeah, Didn't say that. Yeah, yeah. And so straight away, you're back to site, you're driving through. You might not get back there for a week. That's it. then, Jay, anyone who's in any kind of regional, any sort of metropolitan thing, you can lose hours in traffic, back to bloody jobs. And so it's that idea of you go there once, you capture the data, if things change, I shouldn't say if things change, when things change.
you've got it and you can go through and go, yep, okay, all right, we're gonna add that now, that's gonna be part of the scope, don't need that, fantastic. So you can assess things in real time, adapt quickly, and it's one of those ones where like, how would you look in terms of with your clients or like the major insurances, if they turn around and say, okay, we're gonna change this, we're gonna add this into the scope now. Yeah, beautiful, got it, know the meters, know square meters, this is the price.
No mucking around, no delays. like, I've got to get back to solid. And that's it. That's it. And so everything in terms of the more efficient you can become, because unfortunately, costs have gone up, margins are coming down. And so we, unfortunately, as j-builders and in construction, can't just keep putting up prices to match. Yeah. Because then you become unaffordable and you're out of the game. And so you've got to look at other ways to help stabilize your margin. Yeah. Get it back to a healthy thing.
Aaron Ng (32:35.0)
bring confidence back into your jobs. And so that idea of being able to capture the site only go out once you have all the data as things change, you can make assessments, you can run it for the full life time of the thing. That's efficiency. Yeah, that's where you find that you can actually get those benefits, those time saving, you can eliminate errors, can eliminate rework, you can eliminate the
designs need to be changed two or three times because things didn't line up. Yeah, yeah. And that all costs money. And it's really amazing hearing back from some of our clients where they talk about their ROI. And then I had one engineer who reckons he's paid it off in six weeks. Really? He was just like, from from from just doing his scans. So he's just like, there were two jobs that he charged the client for the scan. So he can now offer that as a service. And so straight away, he's charging
a couple of grand or whatever, whatever he's doing for it. Wow. So he's doing that. And then he looked at his hourly cost to his engineers. They used to go out and on construction projects where it was remedial or extension work. They would go through and he would advertise that most of them would be doing and send to engineers out there. And they'd be out there four to six hours, which you're measuring by hand. Yeah, come back into the office, then have to hand draw, then have to draw back into the platform. Wow.
And so he did three of those in a month and goes, okay, well, the hours on that alone saved. he says, like, well, that's it. I'm done. I've paid this off. This is fantastic. And so, then with the precision as well, that they're giving the client see a better client experience, you know, paid off in months. Yeah. And so, so obviously, like, it'll change for every person depending on, we're not going to guarantee. It's not that golden guarantee. Six weeks or it's it is that part of.
Um, the ROI is as soon as you start thinking about efficiency, as soon as you start genuinely thinking about how long you travel, how long you spend on site, how often you're having to talk to people that rework. If you've got a site, a digital site in your office, the efficiency is your team. So your, your office team can pull up the model while they're talking to the site and it goes, okay, over here on the left-hand side, you can see the garden bed, uh, where the retaining wall is 1.2 meters high. Yep. Cool. I know exactly where you are.
Aaron Ng (34:55.486)
What's the distance from the here to here and can I can I actually physically do that or do we need to allocate something else? Yeah, yeah, so your site can actually communicate with the office in real time. They're both looking at the same thing. And so teams, teams speed up teams get more accurate. And that's, that's just where it becomes really cool where everyone's using it differently. Everyone's got different size companies. Everyone's doing things in different ways.
But the one commonality that's happened out of all of it is that they've all got more efficient. They've all got more accurate. And as you said, that customer experience has improved greatly. Yeah. Yeah. You know what to mark. The other thing, and I do draw a few long bows on this podcast, but I'm gonna draw another one. But, I think we've like, when you put in technology like this, that improves communication internally within a team and they work better together, you form a better team as well. A better team culture.
I had a lady on the podcast on Friday and I'm going to this mindfulness event. And I know it's nothing to do with what we're talking about here today. But anyway, she was a designer and estimator in a building business and she left the construction industry and he's now back in the construction industry, trying to teach mindfulness and getting through the pressures that we have because she was talking about the issues she used to have with her construction team and the pre-construction team.
And in my head, I'm listening to you right now. And like I said, I love drawing a long bow, but it's not a long bow. And I'm like, man, Stacey, if you had on-site scanning in your massive building business that you were working for, and I know who you are, the builder. So I'm going to send a little intro to Mark here. Maybe your team would stick around, you know, and not have that, that, that, you know, that, you know, that sort of thing in the, the,
the inaccuracy, the efficiency, all those things benefit. And that's it. It's one of those things where like you can get like ROI, like the return on investment doesn't have to be fiscal. No, that's it. That's what I'm saying. it's like construction is as you put it, construction is a high pressure, high intensity environment. And so things happen really quickly teams get stressed, everything else and then who's who's to blame? What's the issue? What's this actually costing? And so it's that idea that if you can streamline it from the start, the the
Aaron Ng (37:13.422)
answers on where you'll find productivity can be endless. And that's, and that's sort of one of the really exciting parts of, of what we're doing. And what we're seeing is finally like technologies caught up to a point where it's financially viable for smaller, for smaller builders. It's really easy to use. It's quick and easy. You don't need to be a survey. You don't need to be someone who is fully teched up. If you can operate an app on your phone,
where you can connect to a Wi Fi network, type an address and hit the button that says scan. Yeah, you can do it. Yeah. And then the amazing thing with the software is it does one box that are bringing your point cloud. You'll literally hit point cloud mapping. There's one box. And all you need to do is basically bring in the file, say what type of scanner it is, was it indoor, outdoor or in a tunnel. And you bring in a video file. Yeah, you hit go.
It does everything. And so the efficiencies of the backend as well. And so when we first started talking to people about this, who knew about point clouds and it sort of worked with them before, like I don't have four hours for my engineer or my designer to be modeling this point that I don't have. It's just not worth it for me. And it's like, well, hang on. What if, what if I can tell you that in 30 seconds they can have the point cloud mapped and then it'll go off in the background and do its own thing.
software super stable. So you just minimize it. You get on with your day's work. Half an hour when the point clouds finished and all mapped, colorized, ready to go. Little tile down the bottom goes red. Beautiful. Off you go. And that was when people were like, that's a, that's a thing. And that's now where it's successful. And so technology was always going to be one of those ones where there were benefits 10 years ago, which major construction, so major infrastructure sort, but they had the budgets to do it. Yeah.
And so those benefits that major construction saw are now starting to be accessible to smaller builders, smaller insurance. And that accessibility, that's what's going to change the game. And the people who can adopt it, the people who can really think about where they're spending their time at the moment, where they're spending their money, where are the most mistakes. If you can genuinely sit down and do a bit of a health check on your business and go,
Aaron Ng (39:37.646)
where do I have my issues? Where do I cost it? If I end up with a job that I've blown my margin on, what really happened? And a lot of the time, it doesn't take long to sit there and go, generally it's bad data. It's, Joe, had poor plans or no plans. took, estimates were taken because that was the best you could do. And then things went south from there because then you had an issue with this and an issue with this in snowballed.
Yeah. And that sort of happened. And so 90 % of the time, what we see is it's, it's bad planning. Yeah. And it's not necessarily bad planning because the person doing the planning didn't know what they were doing. Yeah. A lot of times they have shit data. Yeah. And it goes back to that, that old adage, you might believe this one out. It's the shitty and shit out. Yeah. Yeah. Where and so you're only as good as the data you've got. And so if you can capture millimeter accurate sites, bring it back to your office and bring it back to your team.
that excuse is gone. You know what you're doing. You know how to do it. And so that's the part where we're really excited to see what construction will do in the next 12, 18 months because it's at a price point now it's accessible. It's easy to use. And I think you'll find that the guys who adopt it in turn and come in really mindful about how they want to use it and then what they want to get out of it. They're the ones who get the most benefit.
because they've been mindful. You can go and scan anything. Like we can go scan your office now. Yeah, which we will. And which we will. But Joe, if you don't have a real plan for what you're be doing with the data, it's like, I've got this stick scanned on my office. But yeah, cool. Yeah. But if you know that you're about to put in some walls and you're trying to work out, you want to make sure that you've still got good light flow, where's that gonna land? How dark is it gonna get? You can actually start planning. You can actually start putting your petition walls in and you can have three different options.
you can sit down with your team and go, yeah, this is what we want to do. So as soon as you have a plan for the data, what you want to do with it, how you want to use it, that's where it becomes successful. And so to anyone out there who's sitting there going, this sounds really cool, or I'm really, I'm not sort of sure. Obviously, we're always available for a chat, love a good chin wag. Reach out to us more than happy to talk. But it is that thing where I'd encourage you guys to really look at your business. And so we're coming into a Christmas shutdown.
Aaron Ng (41:58.71)
It's chaos at the moment for everyone. Everyone's around like a headless chicken. Yep. You've got that January time when things are normally a more quiet. And sometimes it's good to just to sort of when you've got a bit of chance, it's calm, you breathe, you can always look back and go, what was this year like? How did we go? What's the stuff? And so with new technology, and especially with the 3D scanning space, it's that sort of thing where we've seen benefits and we've seen people find real ROI advantages.
from remedial to insurance to brand new residential builders, landscape architects, landscape builders, pool builders. Developers. Developers. And so we've seen multiple industries really embrace it and get a lot of advantages out of it. But you need to be mindful about what you want to achieve. And so it is that sort of thing where have a think about where you spend your time, have a think about where you spend your money. And then that's where you'll find your savings.
That's so cool, Mark. Well, what we might do now, guys, is we're going to go and take a bit of a scan of this office. And we're going to put it in between this podcast right here so you can have a look at how this technology works. And Mark's going to walk us through it right now. Then I'll just cut it. And then I'll ask you this last question, but we'll go and film this after I ask you this last question. in there.
That was pretty cool, Mark. Mate, I have one more question for you. Now, first of all, we will put all your details down the bottom and ensure that everyone out there can get in touch with you because it's phenomenal. piece of technology that you've done, and as we've said, efficiency, time improvements, cost improvements, teamwork, culture, communication, customer experience. I think it just touches everything. I'm big on like ripple effects.
how something that it sounds like, know it's one of the best or the best solutions in engineering out there. But what I love is when a solution actually impacts other parts of your business. Like I think this does, as I said, with communication and teamwork and all that stuff, Mark. But mate, I think you've got it figured out, but you know, called the good builder. What makes a good builder?
Aaron Ng (44:12.514)
Well, there's, I think there's multiple different assets about it and aspects about it. But I think for me, a good build is someone who is accountable and proud of their work. so what I mean by that is, you guys work tirelessly to make sure that, Jay, you've got all your compliance issues, you've got all your financial issues, you've got stakeholder engagement you guys have to deal with. So every build, there's always challenges, there's always other stuff. And so
I think the guys who, the builders that can really respond to that by circumnavigating it, by getting in front of it with adopting good data, really relying on good people and that sort of stuff. I think that's what really makes a good builder. And so it's the ability to be able to take the information you're given, process it, come up with an efficient way to solve it. That's a good builder. I agree. And I think everything that you have created with onsite scanning solutions makes a good
builder like it really does like, as I said, impacts time, transparency, trust, what else do have to impact? So it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast, Mark. And mate, we're gonna have you back on and I think you are going to be back this week and I'm going to head to a site with you. So keep an eye out because I'm gonna do a video with Mark out on site showing you how to use this thing. But yeah, make sure that you keep in touch with Mark.
I'll put all the links in the bottom. And if you need anything in this realm, you know, they're getting in touch with me. Otherwise click on the link and talk to these guys. They're going to make your business so much better. So thank you, man. Thanks so much. pleasure. You're a legend. All right. I'll stop this and now we've got to go and record that. That's the weird bit of this stuff. That was so cool.