This is a hard reality to face, but many areas in the United States are facing a housing crisis. And if we keep building the way we’ve always built, we’ll keep getting the same results: slower timelines, higher costs, and fewer people served.
The good news is that there are folks in the industry committed to addressing the country's housing issues.
In this episode of Digital Builder, I sat down with Edie Dillman of B.Public Prefab, and Vamsi Kumar Kotla of ReMo Homes, to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing our industry: housing. From wildfire rebuilds to workforce shortages, we unpacked what it really takes to deliver affordable, resilient, and scalable homes. This conversation gets honest about what’s broken—and what’s possible when innovation, collaboration, and a little joy come back into how we build.
We discuss:
When asked about the residential housing crisis, Vamsi didn’t hold back: “Housing is broken in multiple ways,” he says. Here are the main factors driving that reality.
Build costs are outpacing reality
Let’s start with the math.
“Build costs all over the world are outpacing inflation. Operational costs are definitely outpacing inflation,” Vamsi says, and highlights California as an example. “Back in the day, the cost per kilowatt hour used to be 20 cents. Now in some peak times, it’s 50 cents per kilowatt hour—and people’s income didn’t go up by 150%.”
Natural disasters are shrinking supply
Beyond the rise and rise of today’s living costs, natural disasters play a role in the housing crisis.
Vamsi points to the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. “Only a third of the homes got rebuilt—and half the population is gone.” Years later, recovery still lags.
A more recent example would be the Southern California fires in early 2025. “It happened in places like Altadena,” he recalls. Families are underinsured or uninsured. Some don’t know how to navigate the rebuilding process.
Prices have surged, and it’s the people with the fewest resources who have the fewest options.
We’re not thinking holistically
For her part, Edie emphasizes that the housing crisis cannot be traced to a single cause. It is layered, systemic, and years in the making.
“It's a deeply complex problem. There are a lot of things that we can point to that have driven us to this point where we're not building nearly enough to house the people that we need to.”
She adds that housing affordability isn’t just about the price per square foot; folks must also consider the costs of actually living in their home over the long term.
“We’re thinking about maintenance, utilities, and health.”
All this to say: we need a holistic lens. That means considering build and operating costs, long-term durability, and even workforce capacity.
Because here’s another reality: we’re facing a 20% drop in trades as workers age out. And this comes at a time when demand is higher than ever.
These are challenging times for sure, but there’s still some good news. More communities, builders, and policymakers are waking up to it. And they’re asking for smarter, faster, more resilient solutions.
If you ask most construction pros (or even end-users themselves) whether they can have affordability, sustainability, and scalability at the same time, the answer is usually some version of “pick two.”
Vamsi and Edie don’t buy that.
It doesn’t have to be a tradeoff
“I feel it’s a false choice,” Vamsi says, speaking specifically about volumetric modular. “You don’t need to have a tradeoff. We can have it all. Sustainability, affordability, scalability.”
That doesn’t mean it works everywhere. “Not all sites are suitable for volumetric modular,” he explains. And yes, there are limits to customization before you have to retool a factory.
But for a large percentage of projects, especially standard low-rise multifamily, the model works. “If the developer or homeowner has some flexibility in customization,” he says, “we can do it all.”
The real opportunity is in soft costs
“A big part of construction is soft costs and labor,” Vamsi continues. These include engineering fees, architecture, permitting, etc. While material prices are harder to compress without scale, soft costs can be reduced when you standardize and repeat.
There’s a rule of thumb in modular: if you can do something in a factory, it’s three times more efficient than doing it in the field. Why? Because “the men and women, materials, machinery, and methods are a lot easier to control and optimize.”
Expanding who gets to build
There’s another upside that often gets overlooked.
“When you simplify and standardize your design and production methods,” Vamsi says, “can we open these jobs to women?” Construction has one of the lowest percentages of women in the trades.
Modular opens new doors, thanks to controlled environments and training pathways.
It also creates opportunities for people reentering the workforce. “You can easily teach and train them and bring them back into society,” he says.
We need all of it
Edie takes a broad view. “It’s not a silver bullet,” she remarks. “This is a shotgun approach.”
Some projects will use full modular. Others will rely on panelization. Some will remain site built. “We absolutely need all of them.”
The scale of the problem demands multiple solutions. For example, are you building for urban or rural? Is the environment fire- or flood-prone? Different climates have different constraints.
The path forward is not about choosing one method. It’s about using the right tool for the right project, sharing what works, and pushing beyond minimum code to create resilient, durable homes.
Offsite construction has a perception problem. If you’ve been in this industry long enough, you’ve heard the grumbling. It didn’t fit. It didn’t show up on time. It doesn’t work in the real world.
Changing that mindset starts with giving people more clarity and making sure they feel seen.
Start with components, not disruption
For Edie, it’s all about reframing what prefab actually is.
“Panelization is really like Legos made out of wood and cellulose,” she explains. Eight feet wide, up to 26 feet long. Each panel is engineered, repeatable, and designed to work on site, just like a brick or a window.
“We’re creating usable materials that just happen to be preassembled.”
Offsite is not replacing the builder. It’s delivering a high-performance component that integrates into light-frame, code-compliant construction. You still specify performance levels. You still control the finishes. You still build.
“We’re just taking a portion of the build,” Edie says. “That’s why we talk about it as a transitional offsite solution.”
She adds, “Nothing is hidden except for the cellulose.” The air-tightness layer, the weather barrier, and the thermal performance. Those come built in. Everything else stays flexible.
Precision in the factory, flexibility in the field
When components are standardized, crews know exactly what they’re getting. Instead of assembling a wall piece by piece, you install a structural, insulated envelope that already delivers air tightness and thermal performance. The rest of the work continues as planned. So it’s not a messy Jenga stack. It’s precision.
Of course, precision does not mean rigidity.
Vamsi makes that point from a modular lens. A home is deeply personal. “The homeowner wants to have a say,” he says. You can standardize structure and still offer wide latitude in cladding, windows, appliances, and finishes.
At the same time, you cannot ignore compliance or logistics. “When we say yes to the homeowner, we’ve thought through compliance, supply chain, shipping, and installation.”
Treat builders as partners
You can’t build trust offsite by dismissing field experience.
“Our process and R&D includes direct comments from the field experience of our builders,” Edie says. Every new release incorporates feedback from the people installing the product.
That partnership extends to training. According to Edie, builders come to the shop for building science sessions. They also get hands-on instruction and go through OSHA crane safety training. “It’s the brass tacks,” she says. “You’ve got a beautiful design. Let’s make sure it goes up very well.”
That approach does two things. Not only does it reduce friction, but it signals respect.
Remember, the fastest way to alienate a superintendent is to imply their experience no longer matters. The companies that succeed offsite understand the opposite is true. Technology works best when it complements the craft, not when it tries to replace it.
Technology in housing isn’t just about smart thermostats and apps. It starts much earlier and should last much longer.
Design beyond the project cycle
Vamsi makes a strong point about how we traditionally approach design.
“Some of the brightest people in the world are architects and engineers,” he says. But too often, they are compensated to work project by project, hour by hour. He shares an example of a large airport project that consumed roughly one million hours of engineering time. “That is more engineering hours than building the tallest tower in the world.”
That effort, while impressive, can also be inefficient when repeated from scratch every time.
“At ReMo, we should not be starting the process when the customer gives you cash and ending it when the customer gets to see the home,” he explains. Instead, they invest tens of thousands of hours upfront, through material selection, typologies, regulatory pathways, and more.
Extending care beyond handover
Technology also changes what happens after the keys are handed over.
“Home is one of the biggest purchases a person makes in their life, if not the biggest,” Vamsi says. And yet many builders provide warranty cards and manuals, then disappear.
“That’s not cool.”
His vision looks more like the EV industry. When his electric vehicle had a charging issue, the company diagnosed it remotely in seconds. “Why don’t we expect the same with the home?”
The answer, at least in part, is digital twins. Not just as-designed models, but as-built virtual twins that show plumbing, electrical, mechanical systems, fire suppression, and insulation. If something fails, you do not have to cut open drywall to find the issue. You know where everything lives.
Building resilience into the structure itself
Edie offers a complementary perspective.
Yes, monitoring matters. But resilience shouldn’t depend on an app.
“We’re really focused on not requiring those things to know how your house is doing,” she says. For her team, technology often means better materials and smarter envelopes. “Our technology is really wood and insulation. That’s permanent. Physics isn’t going to break.”
That conservation-first mindset prioritizes passive performance. Airtight construction. Thermal control. Materials that can be repaired decades from now with basic tools.
Smart sensors can prevent costly damage, of course. That said, long-term resilience also comes from building systems that work even when the power is out and the WiFi is down.
Technology in housing is not a single path. It is a spectrum that can go from digital twins and data feedback loops to craftsmanship and building science fundamentals.
The best solutions blend both.
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subcontractors must often shell out a significant amount of funds to make a project happen. Materials must be purchased, crews need to be paid, and equipment has to be secured to kick off the project properly.
Unfortunately, these subcontractors rarely get paid the moment work begins, and many wait 30 to 90 days or longer for client payments to arrive.
Subcontractor financing helps bridge these cash flow gaps so work can move forward without disruption.
In this guide, we’ll explain how subcontractor financing works, the different types available, their benefits and risks, and best practices subcontractors can use to fund projects while protecting their financial stability.
Table of contents:
Subcontractor financing refers to funding solutions that help subcontractors cover upfront project costs, manage cash flow gaps, and keep projects moving while waiting for client payments. It gives construction businesses access to capital for materials, labor, and equipment without draining their working capital.
Subscontractors often spend money long before they receive payment. Because many construction payments arrive 30 to 90 days later, financing helps subcontractors cover the costs while they wait to get paid. It provides short-term capital so they can keep projects moving without straining cash flow or delaying work.
Funds can be used for:
Construction projects follow a different financial rhythm, so subcontractors often need financing that matches how projects actually get paid. With traditional business loans, repayment schedules are fixed and based on predictable monthly revenue. Subcontractor financing is structured around project timelines and payment cycles. Consider the following:
Construction cash flow is rarely predictable. Subcontractors often pay for work long before the money comes in. Here’s why:
Subcontractors have several financing options. Each one solves different cash flow challenges depending on project size, timing, and risk tolerance.
What it is: A lump-sum loan that subcontractors receive upfront and repay in fixed installments over a set term.
Best for: Funding large projects, business expansion, major equipment purchases, or other significant investments.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
What it is: A revolving credit line that subcontractors can draw from as needed and repay repeatedly.
Best for: Managing short-term cash flow gaps between project expenses and client payments.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
What it is: Funding that advances a percentage of unpaid invoices so subcontractors can access cash before clients pay.
Best for: Subcontractors dealing with slow-paying clients or long payment cycles.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
What it is: A loan used specifically to purchase machinery, vehicles, or construction tools.
Best for: Buying excavators, trucks, loaders, and other heavy equipment needed for construction work.
Benefits
Drawbacks
What it is: An advance repaid through a fixed percentage of daily credit card or debit card sales.
Best for: Subcontractors who need quick access to capital and may not qualify for traditional loans.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
What it is: Government-backed loans issued by approved lenders and partially guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Best for: Subcontractors seeking lower-cost, long-term funding for business expansion, large equipment purchases, refinancing debt, or working capital with manageable monthly payments.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
What it is: Funding tied to a specific contract or project.
Best for: Subcontractors taking on large projects that require significant upfront costs for materials, labor, and subcontractors before progress payments are received.
Benefits:
Drawbacks:
Not all financing options work the same. This quick comparison shows how common contractor financing options differ in speed, cost, and risk.
| Type | Speed | Best for | Cost | Risk level |
| Term Loan | Moderate | Expansion | Medium | Moderate |
| Line of Credit | Fast | Cash Flow | Medium | Low-Moderate |
| Invoice Financing | Fast | Unpaid Invoices | Medium-High | Low |
| Equipment Financing | Moderate | Equipment | Medium | Asset Risk |
| MCA | Very Fast | Emergencies | High | High |
| SBA Loan | Slow | Large Growth | Low | Low |
Financing can address short-term cash flow problems, but it also introduces financial risks that subcontractors must manage carefully.
This is particularly true for short-term lending and MCAs. Some short-term financing products carry extremely high effective APRs. The Federal Trade Commission warns that merchant cash advances can have annualized rates exceeding 100%.
For example, if a subcontractor takes a $50,000 advance with a factor rate of 1.3, they must repay $65,000. If that repayment happens within six months through daily withdrawals, the true cost of capital becomes very expensive and can quickly erode project profits.
Financing works best when repayment is tied to predictable cash inflows. Problems arise when subcontractors borrow without mapping payments to project revenue.
For example, a subcontractor may take a $75,000 loan to cover materials but underestimate payroll and subcontractor costs. If progress payments arrive later than expected, the contractor could struggle to make loan payments while still funding project expenses, creating a cash squeeze that slows work or forces additional borrowing.
Some subcontractors stack financing products to keep projects moving. A company might use a line of credit for materials, invoice financing for receivables, and a merchant cash advance for payroll. Each product may seem manageable on its own, but combined repayment obligations can quickly overwhelm incoming revenue.
Construction delays are common due to weather, permitting issues, or material shortages. When projects run late, progress payments may also be delayed while financing payments remain due.
Let’s say the contractor finances $120,000 in equipment and materials, expecting payments within 60 days. If the project gets delayed by three months, they may face loan payments before the client pays their invoice.
This is especially concerning for invoice financing, because it assumes that the client will ultimately pay the invoice. If disputes arise over project scope, workmanship, or change orders, payment may be delayed or withheld. In those cases, the contractor may still be responsible for repaying the financing provider.
Many financing products require collateral, such as vehicles, equipment, or other business assets. If the contractor defaults on payments, lenders may repossess those assets. For example, if a contractor finances a $90,000 excavator and falls behind on payments during a slow season, the lender may reclaim the equipment. Losing critical equipment can halt projects and create additional financial strain.
Not every financing option fits every project. The right choice depends on your cash flow, timeline, and how you plan to repay the funds.
Start by looking at the scope and timeline of the project you want to finance. Smaller, short-term projects may only require a line of credit or invoice financing. Larger projects with long timelines may require a term loan or project-specific financing. The key is to choose funding that aligns with how long the project will run and when you expect payments to arrive.
Before accepting financing, map out when the loan payments will begin and how they align with project revenue. If repayment begins before client payments arrive, you may face cash flow pressure. For example, a loan with weekly payments may work for steady revenue but could strain finances if your client pays invoices every 60 days.
Interest rates only tell part of the story. Subcontractors should review the full cost of financing, including fees, factor rates, and repayment terms. A loan that looks affordable upfront can become expensive once all fees are included. Always calculate the total repayment amount so you know exactly how much the financing will cost over time.
Your business and personal credit profile can affect the financing options available to you. Strong credit often qualifies subcontractors for lower interest rates and longer repayment terms. If your credit is still developing, you may have access to fewer options or higher-cost financing products.
Different financing products solve different problems. A line of credit works well for short-term cash flow gaps. Equipment financing is better for purchasing machinery. Invoice financing helps unlock cash tied up in receivables. Choosing financing that matches the specific expense helps avoid borrowing more than necessary.
Rates, fees, and terms can vary widely, so request quotes from multiple providers and review the repayment structure carefully. Some lenders offer faster funding but charge higher fees, while others provide lower rates but require a longer approval process.
Use the following step-by-step framework to determine which financing option fits your project timeline, cash flow needs, and risk tolerance.
Financing works best when it supports healthy cash flow rather than covering financial gaps that could have been planned for.
Forecast cash flow regularly so financing decisions are based on real numbers instead of guesswork. Map out expected income and expenses for the next several months, making sure to include payroll, materials, subcontractor payments, and loan obligations.
It also helps to build projections around project milestones, since progress payments often arrive after specific work phases are completed. When you understand when money will come in and when it will go out, it becomes easier to choose the right financing product and avoid unnecessary borrowing.
Financing has a cost, and that cost should be factored into project pricing. Be sure to consider those costs—including interest expenses, financing fees, and payment timing—when preparing construction bids.
For example, if materials must be financed for two months before the first progress payment arrives, that cost should be included in the bid. Some subcontractors also negotiate payment schedules that reduce the need for borrowing, such as larger upfront deposits or earlier milestone payments.
Faster invoicing often leads to faster payments. Subcontractors who streamline billing processes can reduce their reliance on financing.
Organized financial records make it easier to secure financing and negotiate better loan terms.
Strong business credit can unlock better financing options and lower interest rates. Subcontractors can build credit by opening business credit accounts, paying vendors on time, and maintaining responsible borrowing habits. Establishing trade lines with suppliers and reporting payments to credit bureaus can also strengthen your credit profile over time.
Short-term financing products can solve urgent problems, but they are rarely the best choice for long-term investments. Merchant cash advances or short-term loans may provide quick capital, but the higher costs can eat into project profits if used for extended periods. Subcontractors should reserve these options for short-term gaps and use lower-cost financing, such as term loans or equipment financing, for longer investments.
Relying on a single financing source can limit flexibility. Many subcontractors maintain access to multiple options, such as a line of credit for working capital, equipment financing for machinery, and invoice financing for slow-paying clients. Having several financing tools available makes it easier to adapt when project timelines shift or new opportunities arise.
People often use the terms contract financing and construction financing interchangeably, but they refer to different types of funding in the construction ecosystem.
Subcontractor financing refers to funding used by construction businesses to manage operations and project costs. Subcontractors use these funds to pay for materials, labor, equipment, and other expenses before client payments arrive. Examples include lines of credit, equipment financing, invoice financing, and specialty trade business loans.
Construction financing typically refers to loans used to fund the construction of a property itself. These loans are usually taken out by property owners, developers, or homebuilders to finance the building of residential or commercial projects. Funds are released in stages as construction progresses and are often converted into long-term mortgages after the project is complete.
Residential construction loans fund the development of a property, while contractor loans help construction companies operate their businesses and complete projects.
Owner financing occurs when a property seller finances the buyer directly instead of using a traditional lender. Subcontractor financing, by contrast, helps subcontractors cover project expenses and maintain working capital while completing jobs.
Looking to qualify for subcontractor financing? Here are the factors to keep in check.
Credit scores help lenders gauge how reliably you repay debt. Many traditional lenders prefer a credit score of 650 or higher, while SBA-backed loans often require even stronger credit. Some alternative lenders may approve financing with lower scores, but those products usually come with higher costs. Maintaining a good payment history and keeping debt levels manageable can improve your chances of approval.
Most lenders want to see steady business revenue before approving financing. Requirements vary, but many lenders expect subcontractors to generate at least $100,000 in annual revenue. Strong and consistent cash flow signals that your business can handle repayment obligations. Lenders may also look at recent bank statements to verify incoming payments from clients.
The longer your business has been operating, the more comfortable lenders tend to be. Traditional lenders often prefer subcontractors with two or more years in business, while some alternative lenders may work with companies that have been operating for six to twelve months. A longer track record helps demonstrate stability and project management experience.
Most lenders will ask for financial and business records during the application process. Common requirements include bank statements, tax returns, profit and loss statements, and details about outstanding invoices or contracts. Some lenders may also request project documentation, especially for larger financing requests tied to specific construction jobs.
Certain financing products require collateral to secure the loan. Subcontractors may pledge equipment, vehicles, or other business assets. Collateral reduces lenders' risk and can sometimes help borrowers qualify for larger loan amounts or better interest rates. However, it also means the lender may seize the asset if payments are not made.
Financing options for subcontractors are evolving quickly as technology changes how construction businesses access capital. Here are some of trends and developments to watch today and in the near future.
Fintech lenders are making financing faster and more accessible for subcontractors. Instead of lengthy applications and weeks of underwriting, many platforms now allow subcontractors to apply online and receive decisions within days. These lenders often use digital data such as bank transactions and revenue history to evaluate risk, which can open financing opportunities for smaller construction businesses that may not qualify through traditional banks.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change how lenders assess contractor risk. AI-powered underwriting systems can analyze financial data, payment histories, and project performance much faster than manual reviews. This allows lenders to make quicker lending decisions while potentially reducing approval times for subcontractors. As these tools improve, subcontractors may see faster approvals and more customized financing offers.
Some construction platforms are starting to integrate financing directly into project management tools. Subcontractors may eventually be able to apply for financing directly within the software they already use to manage projects, invoices, and budgets. This approach can simplify funding decisions by linking financing options to real project data and cash flow forecasts.
Buy-now-pay-later models are expanding into construction supply chains. These programs allow subcontractors to purchase materials immediately and pay for them over time. For subcontractors dealing with tight project timelines, this can reduce the need for traditional loans while helping maintain cash flow during the early phases of construction projects.
Invoice factoring is becoming more streamlined through digital platforms. Subcontractors can now upload invoices online and receive funding quickly without extensive paperwork. Digital factoring services often automate verification and payment tracking, helping subcontractors convert receivables into working capital faster than traditional factoring methods.
Subcontractor financing refers to funding solutions that help construction businesses cover upfront costs before project payments arrive. Subcontractors often need to pay for materials, equipment, and labor weeks or months before clients pay their invoices. Financing helps bridge that gap so projects can move forward without putting strain on cash flow.
Subcontractors usually combine several financing tools depending on the size and structure of the project. Term loans and SBA loans can help fund major investments, while lines of credit, invoice financing, or project-specific construction financing help cover short-term costs tied to active jobs.
It depends on the lender and the type of financing. Traditional bank loans and SBA loans typically require strong credit, steady revenue, and at least a couple of years in business. Alternative options such as invoice financing or equipment financing are often easier to qualify for because approval may depend on client invoices or equipment value.
There is no single best option for every contractor. Lines of credit are useful for managing ongoing cash flow gaps, equipment financing works well for machinery purchases, and invoice financing helps subcontractors access cash tied up in unpaid invoices. The right choice depends on your project needs and repayment timeline.
Most traditional lenders look for a credit score of around 650 or higher. However, some alternative lenders may work with lower credit scores, especially if the contractor has steady revenue, valuable equipment, or strong client invoices.
Yes, although the available options may be more limited. New subcontractors often start with equipment financing, invoice factoring, or short-term funding products. As the business builds revenue and credit history, more financing options typically become available.
Financing can help keep projects moving, but it also carries risks. High interest costs, repayment pressure during project delays, and taking on too much debt can create financial strain. Some loans also require collateral, which means equipment or other assets could be seized if payments are missed.
Masonry construction remains one of the most trusted building methods in the industry. From structural walls to architectural facades – brick, stone, and concrete masonry units can deliver performance that lasts decades.
As with many other building systems, masonry construction comes with clear advantages, tradeoffs, and scenarios where it makes the most sense.
This guide covers everything you need to know about masonry construction – materials, best practices, and the tools that help teams build with confidence.
Table of Contents
Masonry construction is the process of building structures from individual units like brick, stone, or concrete block, set in mortar and arranged to create strong, durable walls and structural elements.
You’ll see masonry across commercial building shells, schools, hospitals, civic centers, and multifamily housing.
It’s also common in site walls, retaining walls, chimneys, piers, and decorative facades. Contractors rely on masonry when projects call for long-term durability, fire resistance, sound control, and low maintenance.
Masonry vs. framed walls (steel or wood) - Framed walls go up fast and are often more flexible when it comes to layout changes. They typically cost less upfront and make it easier to run MEP systems. Masonry takes more time and skilled labor, but it delivers superior durability, fire resistance, and sound control. If the project demands long-term performance and low maintenance, masonry often wins. If speed and adaptability are the priority, framed systems may make more sense.
There are a lot of areas where masonry shines, but it also has limitations. Consider the following.
Let’s take a closer look at the different masonry materials and their use cases
Clay brick is modular, durable, and consistent in size, which helps crews maintain alignment and bond patterns. It offers strong compressive strength and comes in a wide range of colors and textures. Designers can use running bond, stack bond, herringbone, and other patterns to shape the building’s look. You’ll often see clay brick in veneers, schools, multifamily housing, and civic buildings where long-term durability and architectural character matter.
CMUs come in standard sizes, typically 8-inch nominal blocks, though widths vary based on structural needs. Most are hollow, which allows crews to place reinforcement and grout in selected cells. CMU works well for load-bearing walls, foundations, and fire-rated assemblies. Bond beams and reinforced cells help improve lateral strength in seismic or high-wind regions.
Natural stone can serve as structural masonry, but it’s more commonly used as a veneer anchored to a backup wall. Common categories include:
Manufactured stone offers lighter weight and easier installation while mimicking natural textures. Proper anchorage and flashing matter, especially in exterior applications exposed to moisture. Stone performs well in high-visibility areas where aesthetics and durability are top priorities.
AAC is made by creating air pores in a cement/lime/sand slurry and curing it in a steam autoclave. It is lightweight compared to traditional masonry and offers built-in insulation due to its air pockets. Crews can cut and shape it easily on site, which speeds installation. It reduces structural loads but requires special fasteners and anchors because it’s less dense than standard concrete. AAC works well in projects focused on energy efficiency and faster enclosure.
| Mortar Type | Typical Use | Relative Strength |
| M | Foundations, retaining walls | Highest |
| S | Below-grade, structural | High |
| N | Above-grade, general use | Moderate |
| O | Interior, non-load-bearing | Low |
Mortar binds masonry units and affects overall wall performance. It helps distribute loads while sealing gaps against moisture paths. Type M offers the highest compressive strength and is used below grade or in heavy load conditions. Type S typically works well for structural walls. Type N balances strength and flexibility, making it common for above-grade walls. Type O is lower strength and suited for interior or non-load-bearing work.
Grout and steel reinforcement are added when walls need extra structural capacity. Reinforced masonry improves resistance to lateral loads from wind or seismic activity. Crews typically grout in lifts, following code limits on pour height, and use clean-outs at the base of walls to remove debris before placement. Proper consolidation ensures full contact around rebar and prevents voids that weaken performance.
Understanding how masonry comes together at the system level helps teams design smarter walls and avoid issues later.
Load-bearing masonry supports vertical and lateral loads directly through the wall system. It reduces the need for additional framing but requires careful structural design. Veneer systems, on the other hand, rely on a backup wall such as steel studs or CMU to carry the load. The masonry acts as a cladding layer tied back with anchors. There is often a cavity/drainage plane to manage water infiltration. Veneer offers more flexibility and lighter structural demands, while load-bearing systems can simplify the overall structure.
Reinforced masonry uses vertical and horizontal steel reinforcement within grouted cells. Vertical bars strengthen walls against uplift and lateral forces. Horizontal reinforcement, including bond beams, helps distribute loads and control cracking. Lintels span openings and support masonry above doors and windows. This approach increases structural capacity and improves performance in seismic or high-wind regions.
Cavity walls create a space between the exterior masonry wythe and the backup wall. Insulation typically sits against the backup wall, while an air and water barrier protects the building envelope. Flashing directs moisture out of the system, and weeps allow trapped water to drain. When detailed properly, cavity walls manage moisture effectively and improve energy performance.
Masonry expands and contracts with temperature and moisture changes. Control and expansion joints help manage movement and reduce cracking. Slip connections allow the structure to move independently from the masonry veneer. Anchors must accommodate expected movement while maintaining structural support.
In seismic and high-wind zones, masonry must resist lateral forces. Diaphragm anchorage connects walls to floors and roofs so the building acts as a unified system. Designers account for out-of-plane loads that push or pull on wall surfaces. Reinforcement, anchorage spacing, mortar selection, and connection detailing all play a role in maintaining stability under extreme conditions.
As with any project, contractors play a key role in bringing the structure to life. In the case of masonry construction, here’s what contractors are responsible for.
Strong masonry projects start with a clear understanding of structural requirements, material standards, energy codes, and the small detailing decisions that directly impact long-term performance.
Masonry design follows established codes and material standards. Key references include:
Contractors must manage:
If masonry fails early, it’s usually detailing — not the unit. Water management and movement details matter. Here’s what you should never overlook:
How do masonry jobs come to life? Here’s a look at the key phases in these projects.
It starts with a clear scope. Estimators quantify units, reinforcement, grout, and accessories, then review alternates that could shift cost or performance. They factor in access, scaffolding, equipment, and sequencing with other trades.
Before installation begins, contractors submit brick samples, mortar mix designs, anchors, and shop drawings for review. These documents confirm compliance with specs and codes. Shop drawings often detail reinforcement, bond beams, and connection points.
Mockups set expectations. They allow teams to confirm color blends, joint tooling, bond patterns, and overall workmanship before full production. This is also where testing plans align with project requirements, including mortar or grout verification.
QA plans typically define key inspection points such as ties, cavities, flashings, and reinforcement. They also address weather limitations and protection requirements, along with approved cleaning methods and products.
In the field, crews focus on layout, alignment, and sequencing. Walls are raised in controlled lifts to meet code requirements for grout placement and curing. Mortar needs proper curing time to reach strength. In colder climates, winter protection such as heated enclosures may be required. Tight coordination keeps progress steady.
As the project wraps up, teams address cracked joints, alignment issues, or incomplete sealants. Cleaning requires care. Harsh chemicals can damage masonry if misused. Contractors often provide operations and maintenance guidance so owners understand cleaning methods, sealant upkeep, and long-term care. Proper closeout protects both performance and appearance.
The right tools and field habits make the difference between a wall that looks good on day one and one that performs for decades.
Accurate layout sets the tone for the entire build. Teams rely on a mix of field tools and digital coordination to stay precise:
Mortar performance starts at the mixer. Crews follow specified mix designs and measure water carefully to maintain consistency. Retempering is allowed within limits, but once mortar begins to set, it should not be reworked. In hot weather, materials may need shading and shorter board times. In cold weather, heated water and protection help maintain proper curing conditions.
Joint profile affects both appearance and long-term performance. The right technique and timing make a noticeable difference:
Moisture management depends on proper flashing installation. Materials must be compatible with adjacent air and water barriers. Crews lap flashing correctly and seal transitions at corners and penetrations. Weeps are spaced to allow drainage at the base of walls and above openings.
Traditional frame scaffolding works for many projects, while mast climbers can improve speed on taller buildings. Proper scaffold loads and tie-ins maintain stability. Debris netting and containment keep the site clean and protect pedestrians. Clean platforms – free of tripping hazards and mortar buildup – protect workers. Good access planning reduces downtime and supports consistent workmanship.
Quality does not happen by accident. It takes testing, documentation, and consistent field oversight from start to finish.
Material testing confirms the wall performs as designed. Labs may conduct:
Many projects require special inspections under the building code, especially for reinforced masonry. Inspectors verify reinforcement placement, grout lifts, and anchor installation. Frequency depends on the jurisdiction and project type.
Inspectors and project teams look for measurable benchmarks. These include adequate bond strength, proper reinforcement placement, and alignment within allowable tolerances. Walls should be plumb, level, and true to layout. Joint consistency and surface appearance also factor into final acceptance.
Field observations should be documented with photos and clear notes. An issue log helps track open items, assign responsibility, and confirm resolution. Address problems early. Small corrections during construction are easier and less expensive than post-completion fixes.
Masonry work is hands-on and physically demanding. Strong construction safety programs protect crews and keep projects on track.
Masonry jobs carry predictable hazards that teams must manage every day:
Recognizing these risks upfront helps teams put the right controls in place.
Effective controls reduce exposure and prevent incidents:
Aside from having the right systems, ongoing training keeps safety top of mind. Topics often include:
Masonry can support long-term sustainability goals when teams design and detail it with performance in mind.
Masonry absorbs and releases heat slowly, which helps stabilize indoor temperatures. This thermal mass can reduce peak heating and cooling loads, especially in climates with wide temperature swings. Pair masonry with continuous insulation to meet modern energy codes and improve overall envelope performance.
Masonry buildings are built to last. Brick, block, and stone resist impact, fire, and weathering, which reduces the need for frequent repairs or replacement. Fewer replacements mean fewer materials consumed over the building’s life. That long service life plays a major role in lowering lifecycle environmental impact.
Many masonry products now come with Environmental Product Declarations that outline embodied carbon and material impacts. Teams can also specify low-carbon cements and supplementary cementitious materials to reduce emissions in grout and block. Clear data helps owners make informed material choices that align with sustainability targets.
Masonry materials can often be reused or recycled. Salvaged brick and stone can find new life in renovations or landscape features. CMU can be crushed and recycled as aggregate. Planning for reuse or recycling keeps materials out of landfills and supports circular construction practices.
Masonry costs depend on more than material price. Scope clarity, site conditions, and detailing choices all shape the final number.
Several factors influence masonry budgets:
Cost savings do not have to sacrifice durability. Consider:
Thoughtful adjustments can maintain performance while keeping budgets in check.
Even well-built masonry can run into problems if details are missed or maintenance falls behind.
Efflorescence shows up as a white powder on the surface of brick or block. It happens when water moves through masonry and leaves salts behind as it evaporates. Prevent it by managing moisture with proper flashing, weeps, and drainage. Store materials off the ground and protect walls during construction. If cleaning is needed, use manufacturer-approved cleaners and avoid aggressive methods that can damage the surface.
Not all cracks mean structural failure. Some result from shrinkage or normal movement. Others may point to load or foundation issues. The best defense is proper detailing. Install control joints where required and reinforce walls according to design. Coordinate with structural teams early to reduce stress points around openings and transitions.
Water problems usually trace back to missed flashing, poorly spaced weeps, or gaps at sealant joints. Cavity walls must allow water to drain freely. Pay close attention to shelf angles, penetrations, and window perimeters. Proper pointing and sealant installation at interfaces help keep moisture out and protect the assembly.
Overly harsh cleaning methods can cause permanent discoloration. Always choose cleaners that match the masonry type and mortar. Test cleaning solutions on a small, inconspicuous area first. Follow dilution guidelines and rinse thoroughly. High-pressure washing may drive water into the wall, so it should be avoided. Smart cleaning practices protect both the look and integrity of the wall.
Digital tools help masonry teams coordinate better, reduce rework, and document performance from design through closeout.
3D models and BIM improve clarity before crews mobilize. Teams use digital models to coordinate:
Early coordination reduces clashes between structure, enclosure, and masonry. When everyone builds from the same model, field surprises drop and material use is optimized.
Technology also supports day-to-day execution.
Connected platforms streamline tracking and accountability.
Digital records do not stop at handover. Owners benefit when teams link:
With Autodesk Build, teams can connect project management, field execution, quality tracking, safety programs, and cost control in one platform. Create and manage RFIs, streamline submittals, track issues, standardize safety and quality forms, and close out projects faster with mobile punch lists and real-time reporting.
See how Autodesk Build can help you deliver masonry projects on time and on budget.
The right contractor can protect your schedule, budget, and long-term building performance. Here’s what to look for when selecting a masonry contractor.
Start with the basics. Confirm the contractor holds the proper license for your state and carries general liability and workers’ comp insurance. Review their safety record, including EMR and TRIR if available.
Look for projects similar in scale, climate, and wall system. A contractor who has built schools in your region or managed reinforced CMU in seismic zones brings practical insight. Ask for references and speak directly with past clients. Focus on schedule reliability, quality of workmanship, and how the team handled challenges.
Strong masonry partners engage early. They review drawings, flag constructability issues, and suggest practical adjustments before problems reach the field. Ask if they support mockups and proactive coordination meetings. A contractor willing to problem-solve upfront can prevent costly rework later.
Understand what the contractor stands behind. Clarify warranty terms for workmanship and materials. Ask whether they provide maintenance guidance after turnover, including repointing timelines or sealant upkeep. A reputable contractor thinks beyond install day.
When reviewing bids, look past the bottom line. Confirm scope clarity, unit quantities, reinforcement assumptions, and included accessories. Review allowances and alternates carefully. Make sure each proposal reflects the same details and performance requirements so you can compare fairly.
Thinking of becoming a masonry contractor? Here’s what you need to consider.
Many masons start as apprentices, learning the trade under experienced crews. From there, they move into journeyman roles, taking on more responsibility for layout and quality. Strong performers often step into foreman positions, leading teams in the field. With experience, some transition into estimator or project manager roles. Others launch their own contracting businesses and build crews of their own.
Most masons enter through formal apprenticeship programs offered by local unions or trade associations. These can include:
Success in masonry requires both technical skill and field awareness. Top performers bring:
It is physical work, but it also demands precision and problem-solving.
As for how much you can expect to earn, masonry construction jobs have a nationwide median salary of $55,866, with the highest earnings making $80,500, according to ZipRecruiter.
Masonry has stood the test of time because it delivers strength, durability, and character in one system. But great results do not happen by default. They come from smart design, tight coordination, skilled craftsmanship, and disciplined execution. Whether you are specifying a wall system, estimating a project, or building your career in the trade, understanding the fundamentals gives you an edge. Build it right, and masonry will perform for decades.
The dialogue around AI and sustainability has a bit of a tug-of-war feel to it.
On the one hand, there are very real concerns about AI’s environmental impact, given its electricity and water use, as well as the embodied carbon tied to the facilities that power AI technology. On the flip side, AI has the potential to help us design smarter, detect inefficiencies faster, and even cut carbon at the source.
In this latest Digital Builder episode, I sit down with Sara Neff, General Manager of Sustainability and ESG at Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation, to unpack one of the biggest tensions in the built world today: the AI boom and the explosive growth of data centers.
We discuss
AI is driving massive demand for data centers, and with that comes more energy use, more cooling, and more materials. It very much seems like these goals are at odds with each other, but according to Sara, growth does not mean backing off on climate goals.
“At Microsoft, we have not changed any of our climate commitments,” she says. “It’s not, ‘We’re growing data centers, so no more 2030 goals.’ Microsoft is still committed to being carbon negative, water positive, zero waste, and protecting more land than we use by 2030.”
In other words, scaling up means stepping up. “If we’re building more, we need to do more and we’re up to that challenge.”
That includes securing enough carbon-free energy to meet demand and pushing the market forward on materials. “We know we need more low embodied carbon concrete, which is why we are doing deals for low carbon concrete, same for low carbon steel. Everything. It’s just more of it.”
The balance, she explains, comes down to discipline. Keep the commitments. Plan carefully. Keep going.
There is also a less visible part of the story that does not get enough attention. “More than half of a typical data center’s embodied carbon is in its HVAC equipment, in the cooling equipment itself,” Sara says. That means decarbonizing data centers is not just about power sources. It is about rethinking cooling systems from the ground up.
Microsoft recently collaborated on a lifecycle assessment of HVAC equipment, and the conclusion was encouraging. “The equipment that most leads to energy efficiency is also, over its lifecycle, the lowest embodied carbon.”
It may not seem like the most thrilling use case for AI, but Sara is most excited about its ability to find practical, measurable reductions in carbon, water, and energy.
AI can monitor water consumption, spot when something is off, and flag leaks before they turn into major waste. It can adjust cooling set points in noncritical spaces like admin areas to cut unnecessary energy use.
She is especially excited about AI for concrete. By analyzing a ready-mix supplier’s historical mix designs, AI can identify the lowest-carbon option that still meets performance and schedule requirements. That means fewer emissions without slowing projects down.
“These are examples of AI saving tons of carbon, saving gallons of water, saving energy. It’s all happening right now,” she says.
Sara continues, “We're all good at AI for process efficiency, and that's really important because it frees up more time to help do regular efficiency work. But I really get really excited about AI tools now for finding those reductions.”
Here’s the reality: you can’t decarbonize in silos. Collaboration is critical to getting sustainable solutions adopted at scale.
Sara shares a great example of this in action: Microsoft signed a deal for steel with 95 percent reduced embodied carbon for a new facility in Sweden. But as she put it, “I’m Microsoft. I don’t buy steel. I buy general contracting services.”
That decision forced deeper collaboration across the supply chain. “Now we have to work down our supply chain radically. How do we work with suppliers making rebar? How do we work with our HVAC suppliers?” What started as a procurement deal quickly became a coordination effort that stretched five steps downstream.
Sara explains, “We did this amazing procurement deal, and now we're having to radically collaborate with places in our supply chain. To be able to really teach everybody how to get green steel and make more of it in the market… that to me is wonderful and transformational.”
Concrete is no different. “There’s us, the owner, then the general contractor, then the concrete subcontractor, then the ready-mix supplier, and then the cement manufacturer. And all of those teams need to be on board for it to work.”
When Sara looks ahead, she’s not just thinking about better data centers. She is thinking about an AI-fluent industry.
“What I’m really, really excited about is the idea that everybody throughout the AECO world, as well as all of our suppliers, gets high levels of AI fluency,” she says. “We’re just in the early days of knowing what AI can do for us.”
In her view, the future is not about a single innovation. It is about widespread capability. Designers, contractors, operators, and suppliers would all understand how to use AI in their own sphere, whether that is design optimization, operational efficiency, or preventative maintenance.
“I really see, and I don’t think it’s going to be that far away, where everybody who helps us site, build, design, operate, deconstruct, and decommission a data center knows how to do it with a clear focus on climate and with AI making it go faster.”
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Preconstruction has always been about managing risk. And while project risks certainly come in the form of price volatility and schedule pressures, one of the biggest, often overlooked risks today is data.
More specifically, it’s the way that data is scattered, duplicated, and disconnected across teams and tools.
Spreadsheets, PDFs, disconnected systems, and tribal knowledge still dominate preconstruction workflows, making it harder than ever to trust the information driving critical decisions. When data can’t be trusted, risk quietly enters the project long before construction begins.
Too often, teams today leverage multiple systems, send documents via email or shared drives, and generate endless versions of the same file, all of which result in confusion and diminished confidence in the numbers.
Consider the following:
Even with the most collaborative mindset between owners, designers, GCs, and subs, alignment will break when information lives in too many disconnected places.
All of those results in a story that we’ve all lived at some point: Teams spend hours reconciling files instead of moving the project forward. People double-check numbers that should already be trusted. No one is fully sure which version is current.
Bottom line: If you can’t trust your data, you can’t trust your decisions.
Fragmented data is insidious because, unlike obvious risks like material price spikes or labor shortages, data problems often go unnoticed until it’s too late.
When preconstruction data is fragmented, teams end up working with outdated or conflicting information. This leads to assumptions getting lost between handoffs and scope gaps being overlooked during construction. Not to mention, cost certainty erodes before ground is even broken.
These issues have a devastating, costly downstream impact on projects once construction begins. Teams that rely on scattered spreadsheets, files, and communication must then navigate rework, change orders, budget overruns, strained relationships, and lost confidence.
Much of that pain could have been avoided if the data had been connected and structured from the start.
Disconnected data doesn’t just create inconvenience. It directly drives risk, cost overruns, and missed opportunities. The first step to addressing data silos is to bring all your data, people, and workflows onto a single platform.
That way, you and your teams benefit from having:
Leveraging a unified platform for managing all aspects of your projects isn’t just about adopting a new tool or technology. It’s about creating a single source of truth that everyone can rely on.
When you have a true platform as the foundation for preconstruction, you unlock efficiencies, improve visibility, and de-risk the project.
Think about it: everyone can use the same documents and models throughout planning, estimating, and execution, so there’s no need to rework or reinterpret information at every phase.
A unified platform also enables tools like RFIs and Issues to begin in preconstruction and continue seamlessly through construction, preserving context and accountability across the lifecycle.
And because the platform is designed for openness, teams can integrate the tools they rely on without sacrificing continuity. They benefit from having other software, data sources, and workflows staying connected, rather than competing with each other.
Ultimately, this kind of foundation reduces rework, improves traceability, and ensures decisions are made with full context.
When you have a solid, unified foundation for preconstruction data, you’re well on your way to creating the structure needed to support project continuity. From there, standardization becomes the multiplier.
At the database level, assigning common classifications—such as UniFormat, MasterFormat, and cost codes—allows estimates to transition smoothly into project execution. This enables:
Beyond smoother handoffs and tighter cost control, standardizing classifications and cost structures also unlocks capabilities such as historical analysis and validation, side-by-side estimate comparisons, and more consistent, repeatable outcomes.
Unlocking rich 3D data in preconstruction can be a turning point for teams that want higher-quality, more trusted information. But for many estimators, models have felt out of reach. The tools were too complex or the learning curve too steep.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Preconstruction teams should be able to leverage both 2D drawings and 3D models within the same workflow. One solution. No tool hopping. Quantities are pulled directly from drawings or models and fed straight into cost calculations.
When takeoffs are simple and intuitive, model-based estimating becomes more practical. Teams can move faster, reduce manual measurement errors, and build estimates on richer, more reliable data.
That’s how 3D data shifts from a design asset to a preconstruction advantage.
Teams that unify their preconstruction portfolio see immense benefits across the board. When documents, models, takeoffs, estimates, and classifications all live in one solution, teams can actually experience true collaboration where they:
The struggle with data won’t disappear overnight, but a unified platform makes everything manageable, measurable, and solvable.
We just shared what happens when fragmented data runs the show and what’s possible when you build on a connected foundation.
If you’re looking to put all of this information to work in your preconstruction workflows, the following action steps will go a long way in helping fix the data issues you’re facing today:
Preconstruction success starts with trust. Trust in your numbers. Trust in your assumptions. Trust in the decisions you make before ground is ever broken.
Solving the data problem is not about adding more tools. It is about building a connected foundation that keeps teams aligned, reduces risk, and supports better outcomes from day one.
Explore the Preconstruction Bundle and start building on a foundation you can trust.
Construction teams do their best to plan in advance with detailed critical path method (CPM) schedules and milestone targets. Nevertheless, even the best master schedules can unravel in the field; crews arrive before work is ready, materials aren’t where they need to be, and trade coordination breaks down. All of that leads to wasted time, wasted labor, and lower margins.
This is where Workplan in Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) comes in.
In our recent webinar, Autodesk experts unpacked how short‑term planning using Workplan can help teams reduce waste, improve reliability, and turn strategic schedules into predictable execution. Let’s explore some of the key takeaways from the event that you can take into your next project.
Watch the webinar on demand: Build with Confidence: Smarter Short‑Term Planning with Workplan
Construction waste isn’t just about materials. It’s also time, labor, and momentum that slip through the cracks when plans don’t translate to the field. When any of these components fall out of sync, teams risk missed handoffs, rework, and lower margins.
Due to unique nature of construction, projects tend to create more waste than other industries. Consider the manufacturing industry. Construction sees nearly double the waste, compared to manufacturing, with over half of work spent on non‑productive activities.
As Chris Chiros, Technical Solutions Executive at Autodesk, points out, “There’s a big problem in construction today, and that’s waste. Material to labor resources tend to fall through the cracks, which is all revenue being left behind.”
He adds that construction doesn’t benefit from the same controlled environment as manufacturing. “There’s so much noise, and you want to make sure that you can get ahead of this as best as you can.”
Short-term planning helps teams get in front of those issues instead of reacting to them. It brings clarity to who’s doing what, when, and with what resources. And when teams apply lean principles consistently, they experience payoffs like higher quality work and more projects delivered ahead of schedule and under budget.
Lean construction is an excellent model for reducing waste and improving predictability. That being said, lean principles succeed when teams consistently make work ready, lock commitments, and learn from missed promises. Without structure and data, those conversations become subjective and repetitive.
“A lot of our customers are doing short-term planning, and we really want to highlight the benefit of these lean construction principles,” remarks Chris.
The challenge is that many teams still manage weekly work plans in spreadsheets or from master plan printouts. So, the intent is there, but the execution is not always connected.
When lean short-term planning is applied consistently, the results speak for themselves. Autodesk has seen customers achieve higher quality work, better safety, and greater productivity.
In fact, companies using these lean methods have completed 45% of their projects earlier and delivered 70% under budget.
CPM schedules are great for tracking milestones, but they’re not built for managing daily crew-level commitments. Relying on the master schedule for short term task planning can cause confusion and limit effective trade coordination.
Teams must understand the difference between the Schedule and Workplan. Emmet Smith, also a Technical Solutions at Autodesk, breaks it down really well.
“When we talk about schedules in Autodesk Build, we’re talking about the strategic backbone of the project,” Emmett explains. The schedule is the long-term, CPM-based master timeline. It captures project-level logic, the critical path, and milestone structure. It’s built in tools like Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, then surfaced in ACC, so everyone sees the same baseline.
More importantly, the schedule is meant to be read and understood by the team, not rewritten day to day. That protects the baseline and keeps forecasts clean. As Emmett puts it, “The schedule gives you the what and when at scale, but not the crew roster or daily promises.”
That’s where Workplan comes in — it helps you manage the tactical layer of the project execution. Workplan enables you to define what the team will actually attempt in the near term. Foremen set crew sizes, assign responsibility, and commit to dates. If something slips, a reason gets recorded. Roadblocks are logged and tracked. Percent plan complete and root cause analytics turn gut feel into measurable performance.
In short, the schedule tells you what should happen. Workplan shows what will happen and whether it did.
The schedule and workplan must stay connected — but serve different purposes.
When commitments are verbal or undocumented, missed promises turn into finger‑pointing instead of improvement opportunities.
Workplan in ACC introduces formal commitment tracking and promotes accountability. According to Emmett, work plans show “what will happen in the short term, who owns it, what’s blocking it, and whether commitments were kept.”
Commitments are documented. As Emmett explains, the weekly work plan is where teams “lock commitments, set crew sizes, and confirm responsibility for the next week.”
If something changes, it is not quietly adjusted. It is replanned and recorded. That creates a clear record of what was promised and what actually happened.
The goal is not to catch someone slipping. It is to replace opinion with facts. When commitments are visible, accountability becomes shared. Teams can see patterns, address recurring issues, and have better conversations about performance.
Most delays are visible weeks in advance, but only if teams have a place to log, assign, and act on them.
Too often, roadblocks get mentioned in a meeting and then disappear into someone’s notebook. By the time they resurface, crews are already standing around waiting.
Workplan changes that dynamic. “Workplan brings constraints and roadblocks into the workflow, where they can be acted on,” says Emmett. Instead of talking about a problem and moving on, teams record the issue with photos or files, assign accountability, and escalate it to an Issue or RFI when appropriate. Then they track it through resolution.
It moves planning out of reactive mode. “Planning stays ahead of problems and not chasing them,” Emmett says.
In practice, this happens during the look-ahead window. Teams break the work into phases and run a three- to six-week look ahead to identify and remove roadblocks before crews mobilize. Work gets made ready. Risks get surfaced early.
The key takeaway is simple. When constraints live inside the plan, they are far less likely to derail the schedule when boots hit the ground.
When teams aren’t tracking the right metrics or KPIs, they’re bound to repeat the same planning mistakes. The best way to improve week over week is to look at the data, understand what missed, and adjust accordingly.
That’s where performance metrics come in.
Emmett says that the best practice is to “create your work plans and, as you get to the end, assess what went well and what didn’t. Look at the data in the metrics dashboard, and then replan for the next three to six weeks.”
Workplan automatically tracks percent plan complete, or PPC. It shows week over week how many committed items were actually completed.
Emmett shares a hypothetical example: “Last two weeks, we crushed it at 100%. Prior to that, we had a lot of shifts and changes on site. We can see a summary of averages over the last six weeks, where it was sitting about 60%.”
Root-cause analysis adds another layer. Teams can see why the work was replanned. Was it materials? Design? Labor? Coordination? The point is not to call someone out. It is to coach performance.
Short‑term planning often breaks down when it lives on sticky notes or in disconnected spreadsheets that require constant manual updates.
Chris puts it plainly: “You don’t have to go into the trailer anymore to take a look at the sticky notes.”
With Workplan, teams can build and adjust plans in a shared digital space. Multiple people can import, create, or copy activities and start building out the weekly plan together, even if they are not in the same room. That shared access matters. “You don’t have to be in the same trailer to come in here and collaborate,” Chris explains.
Teams can see who is in the plan, who is working on it, and update tasks in real time. Workplan keeps familiar planning methods intact. The swim lane view mirrors the whiteboard approach many supers already use. The list view offers a structured way to manage tasks and details. Field teams can update progress from mobile devices, so the plan reflects what is actually happening on site.
The result? More alignment, fewer side conversations, and one plan everyone can see and trust.
Short‑term planning is where strategy meets reality. By connecting CPM schedules to collaborative Workplans, teams can reduce waste, improve reliability, and build confidence — not just in the plan, but in execution itself. Autodesk Build’s Workplan helps teams move beyond spreadsheets and sticky notes to create accountable, data‑driven planning cycles that get better every week.
A lot of the time, decarbonization is discussed in abstract terms, like “net zero targets” or “long-term climate commitments.”
These are all incredibly important. But when decarbonization is framed this way, it’s hard to take action because the work feels distant and disconnected from day-to-day decisions.
If we want to build more sustainably, we need to demystify decarbonization and tie it back to the real choices teams make every day. Here to help us do that is Jack Rusk, Co-founder of C.Scale, a platform that helps architects and builders make data-driven design decisions to reduce project costs and carbon emissions.
Jack breaks down the notion of decarbonization in practical terms and shows what it means for the built environment.
We discuss:
Jack starts off by stating that decarbonization can mean different things across industries. Sectors like agriculture and transportation view decarbonization through their own lenses and priorities.
In the AEC industry, decarbonization centers on how buildings move energy, materials, and labor through a global system. “Every building is like this node in a global network,” Jack explains.
When teams design and construct buildings using cleaner materials and cleaner energy, they can influence change well beyond the jobsite. That is really the core of decarbonization in AEC.
This shows up in a few practical ways.
Building with less
The first and most essential step is simple in theory and hard in practice: use less. That often means adaptive reuse. Instead of starting from scratch, teams find ways to make better use of what already exists. This lowers material demand and avoids unnecessary emissions tied to new construction.
Preservation of cultural stories
Adaptive reuse is not just a climate strategy. It is also a preservation of cultural stories. “We aren’t just decarbonizing buildings because we care about climate change,” Jack says. “We also care about culture and people.” Reworking existing spaces can create better experiences and living environments without erasing history.
Looking upstream (the supply chain)
Decarbonization also requires looking upstream. Buildings rely on hundreds of materials, all sourced, manufactured, and transported to different places.
“All those materials come from somewhere. When we get serious about where they come from and how they're produced, we can take these positive impacts we have on the building site. And then we multiply those positive benefits upstream where the materials are manufactured.”
All together, decarbonization becomes a lens that connects healthier buildings to healthier systems overall.
Decarbonization starts long before a project makes it to the job site. In fact, it can happen in ways that feel abstract or even theoretical, especially when tackled in the design stage.
As Jack puts it, designers work at “various degrees of abstraction.”
“Maybe they'll plan a whole neighborhood or district, and they're planning it just with rectangles drawn on a map.”
It doesn’t feel concrete, but within a few years or so, those shapes will turn into real buildings made of real materials.
“An architect will draw a wall section, and the way that wall section is drawn determines the labor that puts it together and the material supply chains that are mobilized to make it work,” Jack says. Gypsum comes from somewhere. Wood comes from trees. Steel comes from either primary materials or recycled ones. Small decisions stack up.
This is why embedding carbon thinking into design matters. It helps teams understand how early choices can have a significant carbon impact.
Jack says it best: "Designing with intention really is the name of the game."
Decarbonization isn't without its challenges. One big hurdle, says Jack, is a lack of data. And there’s the fact that teams are expected to reduce carbon while still delivering on cost, schedule, and design outcomes.
Traditional workflows also pose a challenge.
Jack notes that “legacy processes for doing carbon assessment require the project to be complete.”
And while there’s definitely something to be said about looking back at your decisions, that approach leaves very little room to change the outcome.
“Ultimately, we want to focus on moving decisions earlier in the design process and allowing people to make tactical, directionally accurate decisions early in the game.”
When it comes to tracking a project or a building's carbon emissions, Jack points to two factors: the building materials and the sources of those materials.
“Lifecycle assessment requires comprehensive tracking of materials and processes. That's always the first layer—it’s just tracking what goes into the building. And then the second question is, well, where did that stuff come from?”
“This starts to give you a couple of different levers to play with in reducing the environmental impact of a building,” he adds.
Those levers include using fewer materials and then using better materials.
From there, teams can start connecting design intent to real supply chain data. The first pass at quantity surveying typically happens inside digital design tools like Revit. Once those quantities are known, environmental product declarations help fill in the gaps. As Jack explains, these declarations “take a lot of the complexity of supply chain impacts and roll it into simple documents that you can reference.”
This helps teams make more sustainable decisions. For example, if steel from one manufacturer carries a certain carbon impact, teams can explore alternatives. Could the structure be designed to use less steel? Would sourcing steel from another manufacturer help?
Whatever the case, having clear data early allows teams to ask better questions and make informed tradeoffs before decisions are locked in.
AI is starting to influence decarbonization in very practical ways, especially in how teams design and make decisions earlier in the process. Jack sees its impact in two key places: at the bottom of the AEC tech stack and at the top.
Those that leverage AI at the bottom of the tech stack are all about using things like statistical models and machine learning to make more sustainable decisions at the design stage.
Over at the top, Jack says the focus is on changing how people interact with carbon data and models in their day-to-day workflows.
“We have our classic SaaS product. We just released to a beta group, an MCP that allows people to interact with our carbon models through a chat interface embedded in whatever their sort of LLM of choice.”
Concerns about AI and sustainability
There are, of course, valid concerns about AI’s environmental footprint. Jack acknowledges these things and frames them in terms of leverage.
“Let’s say the impact of AI and data centers is a little less than 1% of global emissions, and the built environment is closer to 40%. If we can achieve massive reductions in built environment emissions, leveraging data center emissions, I think we have the potential to do a lot of good in the world.”
In other words, if AI helps drive meaningful reductions in the built environment, the net positive impact can be significant.
For teams trying to figure out where to begin, Jack’s advice is to start with data.
“Start doing some analysis. We work with Autodesk Forma, and it’s great if you're in the larger Autodesk Construction Cloud, as you have access to those tools.”
Beyond that, he emphasizes the importance of learning and engaging with industry peers.
“Join communities of practice. So much of the knowledge that lives in the construction industry lives in people.”
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
In today's fast-paced construction industry, staying mobile is not just an advantage—it's a necessity. The proliferation of construction apps has empowered professionals to work more efficiently and flexibly, no longer confined to desks or offices. As workers frequently move from location to location, even across multiple jobsites, they absolutely need to manage critical tasks on the go. Mobile apps have become essential tools for managing construction schedules, tracking projects, and communicating with teams in real-time, no matter where you are.
With that in mind, we've put together a list of the top 20+ construction apps to help level up your mobile tech stack in 2026.
Autodesk Construction Cloud for mobile is a powerful construction app for teams needing seamless collaboration and real-time access to project data including sheets, files, and 3D Models. It brings Autodesk Build, BIM Collaborate, Docs, and PlanGrid into the field while harnessing the power of Revit, Navisworks, and AutoCAD, enabling you to connect your processes and teams no matter where they work.
The Autodesk Construction Cloud app enables project teams to work together easily by centralizing construction workflows in one place. From architects and designers to project engineers and superintendents, anyone on-site can connect with teams in the office to track quality issues from design to handover, assign responsibilities, and resolve them quickly with supporting photos, files, and RFIs.
Working with tight timelines? Use the schedule feature to keep projects on track, filters, and review for dependencies schedule updates. Additionally, the forms feature lets you collect essential information for safety programs, daily checklists, or other project-specific requirements.
Need to check construction drawings or models on the go? Easily find and collaborate on drawings anywhere, anytime, on any device, ensuring teams have access to the information they need at their fingertips. Field teams can quickly view the most up-to-date design files, online or offline.
Esri’s ArcGIS GeoBIM connects BIM data in Autodesk Construction Cloud with geospatial data and services in ArcGIS, creating a unified environment for teams working across design, construction, and operations.
By linking AEC project information with location intelligence, ArcGIS GeoBIM helps teams collaborate more effectively, reduce data silos, and make better decisions in context. Stakeholders can easily build and share apps, field maps, and issue dashboards to stay aligned with the latest project information.
This connected approach streamlines digital delivery, improves visibility across the project lifecycle, and empowers teams to put data‑driven insights into action for more efficient planning, execution, and operations.
Agave connects the systems contractors rely on to run their financial operations. Its SYNC product bridges Autodesk Build with 11 leading ERPs, so field teams see live project financials in Autodesk and accounting teams get that data in their ERP automatically. No double-entry, no manual exports, no lag across budgets, costs, contracts, and timesheets.
On top of SYNC, Agave's expanding platform covers AP automation and expense management, giving finance teams the operational infrastructure to close books faster, reduce errors, and maintain a single source of truth across every system they touch.
With 500+ contractors, from $5M to $5B/yr in revenue, and deep expertise in the ERP ecosystems that GCs and trade contractors actually use, Agave makes it easy to run a back office that keeps pace with the field.
Aurigo Primus Plan is an AI-powered capital and portfolio planning solution that helps facility and asset owners prioritize projects, model ROI-driven scenarios, and optimize investments across complex, multiyear programs.
Primus Plan bridges planning and execution to connect early capital decisions with downstream project delivery. Approved plans and budgets flow into execution, while real-time project data flows back into planning.
With capabilities spanning project intake, budgeting and forecasting, scenario analysis, portfolio optimization, and performance dashboards, Primus Plan gives owners a clear, connected view of portfolio health to help them allocate capital confidently, reduce risk, and maximize long-term value across their programs.
Bridgit is a people-first, data-informed workforce planning solution that helps contractors gain visibility into their workforce plan, understand true capacity, and build project teams with the right experience and skills, improving project outcomes and retention at the same time.
Bridgit AI brings the most relevant information about your team to the forefront of planning, turning messy, siloed people data into immediate answers, explainable recommendations, and faster workflows. With clear visibility into utilization, bench cost, skills, project history, availability, and experience by project type, contractors can see not just what work they have, but whether they truly have the teams and capabilities required to execute it.
The result is greater predictability through more confident bidding, earlier hiring and training decisions, better workload balance, reduced bench time, and stronger project delivery, with alerts and updates that keep teams aligned.
Clearstory is construction’s only purpose-built platform for managing Change Orders, built for General Contractors and Specialty Contractors alike. It brings field-directed T&M work, owner-driven design changes, and subcontractor-initiated Change Orders into one live, sharable, cloud-based system.
With a shared, real-time Change Order Log, Clearstory aligns stakeholders around a single source of truth. Automated workflows replace static COR logs, carbon copy T&M tags, and scattered email chains, eliminating manual and disconnected processes regardless of the financial systems each company uses internally.
Used by thousands of GCs and Specialty Contractors, Clearstory helps teams get paid faster, forecast smarter, and finish stronger, saving 1–2 hours per person per day while delivering complete cost visibility across every project.
Cloudsfer is an enterprise-grade migration, synchronization, and backup solution built to protect and govern mission-critical BIM and construction data.
Designed specifically for cloud ecosystems, Cloudsfer enables secure, high-speed data movement with zero installation, no additional hardware, and no impact on your bandwidth.
Fully supporting Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) and Autodesk Build, Cloudsfer allows organizations to seamlessly migrate, consolidate, and synchronize data between ACC and over 20 cloud and on-premise platforms — including SharePoint, Egnyte, Box, and legacy ECM systems. This ensures smooth cloud adoption, structured data governance, and uninterrupted project continuity.
Beyond migration, Cloudsfer provides automated, policy-driven backup with built-in ransomware protection, a virtual recycle bin for instant recovery, and intelligent “set-and-forget” workflows that continuously safeguard project data — ensuring compliance, resilience, and operational peace of mind.
Cupix is a spatial intelligence and reality capture platform that transforms how construction teams capture, track progress, and collaborate on jobsites. Using simple 360° cameras and a mobile app, Cupix converts site walkthroughs into powerful digital documentation, combining spatial reality with BIM data, timelines, and AI-driven insights.
Seamlessly integrated with Autodesk Construction Cloud, Cupix brings real-world conditions and design models together in one unified platform. Teams can monitor construction progress remotely, validate work against BIM, and generate detailed as-built documentation, reducing costly site visits and minimizing rework.
With AI-powered tools like SiteInsights for progress tracking and SkyMap for drone data management, Cupix gives field teams, office teams, and owners the confidence and reassurance they need to stay on time and on budget.
Drones and 360 cameras are essential tools for reality capture, enabling contractors to quickly and easily survey jobsites, document existing conditions, and monitor construction progress.
When integrated with the DroneDeploy reality capture platform, these tools empower users to efficiently capture, visualize, and analyze both aerial and interior data via purpose-built mobile apps or a web browser.
DroneDeploy simplifies site documentation, allowing contractors to walk their site with a 360 camera or autonomously control drone flights to generate high-resolution ortho imagery and models. With robust features for analysis, annotation, and seamless sharing, the platform enhances communication, fosters collaboration, and supports smarter decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
EarthCam’s Control Center 9 powers visual intelligence for construction and infrastructure projects worldwide. Through Control Center’s mobile app and desktop interface, teams can access live streaming video, AI-driven insights, and comprehensive project documentation from anywhere, enabling faster decisions and stronger oversight across every phase of construction.
Designed for real-time remote collaboration, the app provides intuitive pan, tilt, and zoom controls, allowing users to focus on critical details or view the full jobsite with clarity. Integrated AI analytics deliver automated alerts for safety, productivity, and asset tracking, transforming visual data into actionable intelligence.
Control Center 9 automatically generates professional time-lapse videos to showcase milestones, progress, and project achievements. Built-in sharing tools streamline communication across stakeholders, while seamless integration with Autodesk Construction Cloud ensures imagery and AI-tagged data flow directly into existing project workflows for unified documentation and reporting.
Egnyte empowers businesses to securely manage, share, and collaborate on critical data, addressing the diverse needs of stakeholders across architecture, engineering, construction, and operations.
With the Egnyte mobile app, you can access essential platform capabilities directly from your phone, ensuring you stay connected to critical files and folders anytime, anywhere. Stay informed with real-time notifications, so you’re always up-to-date on important updates or questions requiring input.
The app’s advanced search functionality lets you quickly locate files and filter by keywords, streamlining business workflows and enhancing stakeholder productivity.
Evercam is a reality driven intelligence platform designed to give teams clear, on-demand visibility into jobsite progress. With an easy-to-use interface, Evercam makes it simple to capture, view, and share visual data from anywhere.
The platform provides live site views, high-resolution progress photos, automated timelapse videos, drone flights and 360 walks that document the full project lifecycle. Teams can securely share live or recorded footage, compare before and after images, and mark up visuals to communicate issues or updates clearly.
With advanced tools like Smart Search, BIM overlays, drone mapping, and 360° walkthroughs, Evercam helps teams track progress, verify work, and make informed decisions using accurate, visual context throughout the project.
GAMMA AR enables field teams to preview construction models using Augmented Reality in the right spot, so they can verify constructability, detect clashes with existing conditions, identify routing conflicts, and spot missing components early.
This results in faster on-site coordination, clearer communication, and less costly rework. General Contractors, Subs, and Engineers report rework reductions by 48% and speed up on-site coordination and inspection up to 78%.
The app helps Superintendents, foremen, and engineers to reduce guesswork, improve trade coordination, and conduct accurate field inspections - from daily walks to coordination huddles.
Fully integrated with Autodesk Construction Cloud, GAMMA AR synchronizes Models, Issues, and Progress information bidirectionally and fully hands-free.
Kroo is the trusted knowledge platform for construction, delivering turnkey data solutions to general and specialty contractors for construction analytics and AI use cases. Kroo unifies siloed construction data across multiple systems to help teams automate powerful business intelligence, maximize visibility across projects, and unlock AI-powered enterprise search capabilities.
By pulling data from Autodesk Construction Cloud and other software into a centralized data warehouse, Kroo empowers construction teams with context-rich answers and insights at their fingertips backed by Kroo's proprietary, unified data models. Additionally, Kroo provides two-way data syncs to keep information aligned across systems, eliminating double entry for items like RFIs and submittals.
For general contractors and specialty contractors seeking to advance their data and AI strategies, Kroo offers a platform of data solutions built for the industry.
Matterport uses reality capture to create dimensionally accurate digital twins that support design, construction, and operations across the full project life cycle. In addition to capture with its LiDAR-based Pro3 camera and other supported 3rd party 360 cameras, teams can import E57 point clouds to generate immersive digital twins from third-party scan data.
New Side by Side comparison tools allow stakeholders to visually track progress and changes over time, while Color Adjustment controls help improve clarity and consistency for imagery. Matterport exports BIM files directly into Autodesk Build and Autodesk Docs, where teams can reference site context and manage RFIs with precise location-based visibility from the digital twin.
NavVis is a spatial twin platform for the built world, helping teams keep physical reality and digital plans in sync across complex commercial and industrial environments. NavVis IVION turns high-precision reality capture into a single, trusted spatial twin that teams can access, measure, and build on in the browser.
By combining survey-grade scan data with an intuitive, collaborative interface, NavVis IVION makes as-is conditions easy to understand and share. Teams can explore sites remotely, overlay design models, verify installations, and flag issues without the need for specialized tools.
Workflows in NavVis IVION are especially designed to keep site data current and easy to update. This helps teams make faster, safer decisions and stay aligned on accurate, up-to-date reality throughout the project lifecycle while laying the groundwork for more advanced analytics and automation over time.
OpenSpace brings new levels of transparency to construction by making it easy to capture, share, and understand what’s happening on the jobsite. Using off‑the‑shelf 360° cameras combined with computer vision and AI, OpenSpace creates a complete visual record of construction progress.
With the OpenSpace mobile app on iOS and Android, everything needed on site is just a tap away. Teams can capture 360° videos, photo stills, and 3D scans directly from their phone or tablet, then automatically upload and share the data through the cloud.
This visual context helps teams stay aligned, quickly understand site conditions, and keep projects moving forward with confidence whether they’re in the field or working remotely.
Outbuild is an AI-enabled construction scheduling platform built specifically for contractors to plan, manage, and execute project schedules with greater clarity and control. It connects the master schedule, short-term lookaheads, and field updates in one system so teams can coordinate work more effectively. Through its integration with Autodesk Construction Cloud, teams can automatically push updated schedules from Outbuild into Autodesk and link RFIs and submittals directly to schedule activities, helping ensure critical items are completed on time and reducing the risk of project delays.
At its core, Outbuild provides a collaborative planning environment where superintendents, project managers, and trade partners can work together on lookaheads, track constraints, and adjust plans in real time. Field teams can capture delays and roadblocks from mobile devices, keeping schedule updates visible and actionable. Combined with AI tools like the Outbuild AI Assistant and executive dashboards, Outbuild turns schedule data into actionable insights, helping teams identify risks earlier, make better decisions, and deliver more predictable projects.
ProjectReady simplifies how AEC teams work across platforms—without forcing them out of the tools they use every day. It connects Autodesk Construction Cloud, Procore, Microsoft 365, Egnyte, Box, Bluebeam, HCSS, and Autodesk BuildingConnected so project teams and data stay aligned across the entire project lifecycle.
ProjectReady WorkBridge bridges workflows—such as RFIs and submittals—and project information, including documents and drawings, across Autodesk Construction Cloud, Procore, HCSS, and SharePoint—eliminating silos, duplicate data entry, and misaligned data.
ProjectReady Central makes it easy to set up and manage different CDE’s and information systems from the start, with consistent structure, permissions, and governance across platforms. It also enables automated cloud backup of Autodesk Construction Cloud data into Microsoft 365.
Built for the field, Raken improves jobsite visibility and reduces risk by centralizing project documentation, communication, and tracking. Field teams easily generate daily logs and reports with supporting video and photo documentation in the Raken app, with all data shared to the office in real time.
Raken’s streamlined RFI workflows accelerate turnaround times and help keep projects on track. A comprehensive safety platform further supports risk reduction with toolbox talks, customizable checklists, and incident tracking with a simple one-click submission of annual work-related illness and injury data directly to OSHA.
Flexible time tracking options include a time clock with geofencing and AI photo ID verification, a shared kiosk, and supervisor-led time cards. Custom payroll policies such as overtime and break tracking support compliance with union, state, and other regulatory requirements. Shift scheduling and production tracking are also streamlined in the Raken app, helping teams know where they need to be and what equipment and materials they need
Stratus is a cloud-based platform designed for MEP contractors that integrates with BIM tools such as Revit and AutoCAD to streamline BIM, Fabrication, Logistics, and Installation workflows. By reducing errors, boosting efficiency, and enabling real-time collaboration, Stratus empowers contractors to manage workflows from BIM to installation with precision and ease.
Enhancing this functionality, Stratus Field is a suite of tools specifically designed to solve the needs of field workers while integrating seamlessly with Stratus. Together, Stratus and Stratus Field deliver an end-to-end solution for MEP contractors, from design to installation, providing the tools necessary to stay connected, informed, and efficient by enabling true Data-Driven Contracting.
Trunk Tools uses construction-focused AI, built with guidance from seasoned industry professionals, to organize vast amounts of unstructured data and automate repetitive workflows, helping teams increase field productivity.
With Trunk Tools, AI-powered workflow automation lets builders offload manual, administrative tasks and stay focused on what matters most. These agents can monitor schedules, prepare teams for meetings, compare project information against standard operating procedures, and more.
Vcad is an integration with Autodesk Construction Cloud that makes it easy to create rich, interactive reports and dashboards using BIM data.
With Vcad, teams can automatically generate decision-ready reports with interactive 3D model views alongside model data, including elements, attributes, spaces, and relationships, always updated in real time and easy to share.
Supporting IFC, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Navisworks, and DWG, Vcad connects model data to enterprise BI in Power BI and Tableau, enabling 4D and 5D reporting, clash and BCF analysis, quantity takeoffs, maintenance and IoT dashboards with full control of data.
The right construction apps can make all the difference in your workflows, collaboration, project success. Of course, the operative word here is "right," in that you must always take your business and project needs into account when adopting new technologies.
Looking to explore how new construction innovation is reshaping construction? Watch Autodesk's Construction Innovation webinar to stay ahead of the curve.
Last year was a tough period for a lot of folks, particularly in Southern California, which experienced devastating wildfires that destroyed around 19,000 structures, 16,000 of which were single-family homes.
Rebuilding efforts are well underway, and to learn more about how recovery is unfolding, I caught up with Ben Stapleton, Executive Director at USGBC California. In this episode, Ben discusses what it takes to rebuild after the wildfires, how climate change is reshaping our communities, and why action, education, and resilience matter now more than ever.
We discuss:
The scale of the 2025 wildfires in Southern California is still hard to fully process. Entire neighborhoods were impacted. Families were displaced. And the rebuilding journey ahead is long. Ben recalls that in the weeks after the fires, communities rallied and plans formed quickly. But that early momentum doesn't last forever.
“We're helping each other, and there's this high that comes from that. But then the action fades. People move on. We're in this dip right now, and the reality is it's going to take five or 10 years to rebuild from this,” he says.
Through his work on the LA County Blue Ribbon Commission, Ben saw just how complex recovery is. Still, one thing stood out. Access matters. Compared to other disasters, LA’s recovery moved faster because resources were available.
“We were already much further ahead of recovery than the folks who lived through the Lahaina fire in Maui. And that's simply because of access to resources and supply chain.”
That perspective shaped USGBC California’s response, and the team focused on educating and coordinating with key community members. They unified green building groups across the country and leaned on lessons from past fires.
This helped Ben and his team gather even more insights and set clear goals for recovery.
For example, Ben initially told his team that if they could help 20% of the roughly 16,000 destroyed homes be rebuilt in a more resilient and sustainable way, that would be meaningful progress. But those expectations quickly shifted.
“I talked to a gentleman who managed a lot of the recovery from the Marshall Fire out in Colorado, and he said that by educating the public and the contractors and by creating some availability incentives, they were able to get 80% of homes rebuilt to be all electric and more resilient and sustainable.”
Natural disasters like wildfires can feel completely out of our control. And while there are a lot of aspects that are out of our hands, there are things we can do to better prepare our homes and communities.
Simple steps like protecting vents, closing eaves, using more fire-resistant materials, and avoiding attached structures can reduce wildfire risk. A lot of these things aren’t difficult or expensive to do. The gap, says Ben, is in awareness and education.
And so, USGBC California stepped in to fill that gap, through efforts like:
“I found there was no one owning this space, and the education could do so much,” Ben remarks.
“We need to start taking more ownership as communities on how we care for each other and how to respond to a disaster. We’d like to think our first responders are the fire department and the police, but honestly, it's probably your neighbors. So, how are we lifting each other up in those events of disaster and putting the tools and infrastructure there to support that?”
Even when people want to rebuild greener and more resilient, cost can be the biggest barrier.
To this, Ben says that USGBC California set out to make rebuilding more affordable and accessible. Instead of leaving homeowners and contractors to navigate pricing on their own, the team created a shared marketplace designed to lower costs through scale.
“We white-labeled a platform by a company called Building Ease, and we created a rebuild marketplace,” Ben explains
When people in the same area need similar materials at roughly the same time, those purchases can be bundled. That gives manufacturers an incentive to compete on price.
“If people are going to purchase a hundred grates, they might get, say, a 25% discount. And you can see it as a neighbor and go, ‘Oh, there's a bunch of people here purchasing heat pumps. If I get on that, I can drop my cost by 15%.”
He continues, “We’re trying to get these things out there to see how we can do this a little bit differently.”
Rebuilding is always a challenge. For those dealing with the aftermath of the Southern California fires, those hurdles include the following.
Supply chain and logistics
Los Angeles already struggled to build housing before the fires. “The LA region built about 12,000 homes in the last decade,” Ben says. Now, communities are trying to rebuild roughly 16,000 homes in just a few years.
Developers feel the strain. “We need 20 to 50 more of us,” Ben recalls hearing from builders. “There’s no possible way we can build enough.”
Electrification costs and knowledge gaps
While all-electric homes can lower utility costs over time, upfront pricing can be steep.
“I’m hearing from people who are rebuilding that those costs are coming in 25 grand, 30 grand more,” Ben said.
The issue isn’t the technology. It’s execution. Many contractors don’t yet know how to design all-electric homes efficiently, including eliminating gas infrastructure altogether. Until that knowledge gap closes, costs stay higher than they need to be.
Landscape, fire risk, and competing priorities
Homes get most of the attention, but landscape matters just as much. Fire safety guidelines often call for bare zones around homes, especially within the first 5 feet.
“We can’t have no vegetation in entire areas of the city,” Ben said. Urban communities already face heat, biodiversity loss, and water challenges. The better path is smarter design, using native oaks, grasses, and shrubs that reduce fire risk while restoring ecosystems. “That’s the future,” Ben said. “And we could do that now.”
Insurance and labor pressures
Insurance may be the toughest challenge of all. Even when owners rebuild to the highest code standards, coverage isn’t guaranteed.
“You could rebuild your home, follow all the rules, and you still may not be insurable,” Ben explained. Insurers often assess risk at the community level, not the property level.
Layer on labor shortages and rising costs, and rebuilding becomes even harder. Without changes in how insurance, workforce, and education come together, these challenges will continue to slow recovery when communities need momentum most.
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
As a construction project manager, a key part of your role is navigating change throughout the project. The ability to effectively handle shifts and curveballs is especially critical because project changes are, for the most part, inevitable.
Even the best-laid construction plans can shift, depending on what reality looks like in the field. And with ongoing material shortages and labor constraints, those changes can carry a higher risk than ever before.
The best project managers recognize this, and they know how to anticipate and absorb change without letting it derail budgets, schedules, or team trust.
Our recent webinar, From Chaos to Calm: Navigating Change in Construction Project Management, sheds light on practical steps you can take to manage project changes and how Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) can help.
Want to see how leading teams are turning constant change into a competitive advantage? Watch the full webinar on demand.
We mentioned this above, but it’s worth repeating: project changes are inevitable.
This is true across industries, but in construction, change is uniquely difficult to manage because projects are built in the real, physical world. There’s no undo button in the field. Unlike digital projects, which can typically be rolled back, construction projects require actual physical labor and materials.
Plus, there are various trades on site together, and when each trade’s work relies on another, a single change can ripple across schedules, scopes, and costs.
Then there are the ghosts of changes past. This is when past changes and decisions come back to haunt you in the form of a dispute.
One of the best ways to manage project changes effectively is to treat them as a holistic, connected workflow rather than a series of isolated change orders. When you connect the different components involved (people, information, approvals, etc), you can reduce blind spots and prevent small issues from snowballing.
You should also design for traceability. Make sure every decision has context (who/what/why) and is captured in your documentation. In doing so, you make decisions easy to find and defend in case of audits or disputes
Finally, standardize how teams log, route, and resolve changes. Standardization helps teams move faster and promotes consistency so everyone knows what to do, where to log changes, and how decisions get resolved.
ACC brings all of this together by giving project teams a shared system to manage change as it happens, not after the fact. Instead of managing RFIs, submittals, correspondence, costs, and schedules across disconnected tools, ACC connects them in one place.When a change starts in the field, teams can document it immediately, attach supporting context, and route it through the right approvals without jumping between systems.
Issues identified can be easily marked and documented and escalated into an RFI. And if needed, can be used to initiate change orders. Potential change orders tie back to scope, cost, and schedule impacts. Communications are documented and actions tracked in an activity log, so there’s an audit trail along the way.
Stakeholders need to communicate in order to discuss changes and move the project forward. But when communication is scattered across different channels (email, phone, in-person conversations), details fall through the cracks and information becomes harder to track.
Decisions slow down, context is lost, and backup goes missing. These issues cause inefficiencies, and people spend time chasing answers instead of moving work forward.
Instead of using multiple methods and tools to communicate, move everything into a central, permissioned channel that’s tied back to the work. Not only does this keep everyone on the same page, it also makes it easy to link messages to relevant project information like files, issues, RFIs, and submittals.
Communication doesn’t happen in isolated email threads or phone calls. It should always tie back to the work happening on the project.
This way of working is far more efficient. Plus, it allows teams to have an audit trail for accountability and dispute resolution.
How does project comms come to life in Autodesk Construction Cloud? ACC’s Correspondence tools give teams a single place to document decisions and keep messages connected to the right project records.
Create and classify messages in one place, then generate downstream items (e.g., RFIs) directly from that thread. No retyping. No hunting for screenshots and email chains. You can also attach references, including emails, specs, photos, and issues, so approvers get the full context behind the decision they’re being asked to make.
Complex review chains, vague requests, and incomplete backup cause RFIs to stall, which then delays field progress. Teams end up going back and forth just to clarify what’s being asked. Meanwhile, crews wait.
Rather than starting RFIs from scratch, generate them from actual conversations to preserve context. You can also speed up decisions by including suggested answers, annotated files, locations, and known cost or schedule impacts.
Because ACC keeps communication tied to the work, connecting RFIs to messages happens naturally. You can create an RFI right from the Correspondence tool, and in the process, auto-link all related context. It’s also easy to route it to the right party with clear due dates.
Additionally, you can co-review the RFI with external stakeholders via email without losing the audit trail.
Changes are easier to deal with when you see them coming. You can do this in construction projects by capturing potential change orders (PCOs) early, and then connecting them to contracts, cost items, and the master schedule.
This process makes risk visible before it turns into a problem, ultimately protecting margins and keeping projects on track.
To stay ahead of risk, log PCOs the moment risk happens. You can initiate a PCO from other items like RFIs, submittals, and correspondence, creating a direct link for context. You should also aggregate all cost lines (GC, subs, suppliers) and attach the evidence (quotes, emails, photos), so approvals don’t stall due to missing information.
Also, be sure to update the schedule impact with reason codes and link it back to the PCO.
Cost Management and Schedule in ACC come together to help teams manage change. Since your cost and schedule workflows don't live in separate silos, you can deal with change orders early.
When a change comes up, you can open a potential change order directly from an RFI, submittal, or correspondence. That way, the change starts with context, and you’re not chasing emails or trying to piece the story together.
Schedule impacts follow the same path. Teams can record delays, document the reason behind them, and link those delays to the same change that’s driving the cost impact. Instead of tracking schedule slips in one place and dollars in another, everything stays connected.
If you’re a project manager who’s had to gather monthly reports for execs, you know how chaotic the process can be.
Finding and organizing project data can be time-consuming, and it gets even harder when you’re constantly getting pulled into day-to-day fire drills. You start a report, something urgent pops up, and when you come back, you’re trying to remember where you left off.
Instead of spreadsheets that you need to update manually, use connected dashboards and reports that are built from PCO logs, budgets, RFIs, and schedules. For best results, leverage project templates and permissions to standardize setup across small and large projects.
Plan for closeout on day one by making sure as-builts and O&Ms are exported with the decisions, changes, and references already linked.
The Reports, Templates, and Closeout tools in Autodesk Construction Cloud take the scramble out of reporting and turn it into a repeatable process.
Using templates, teams can spin up projects quickly with consistent folder structures, naming conventions, and approval workflows.
From there, real-time reports pull directly from live project data, showing outstanding changes, approval status, and forecast impacts without manual updates. Leaders get visibility into risk as it develops, not weeks later.
When it’s time to close out a project, ACC makes it easy to export complete as-built packages that include RFIs, submittals, files, and activity logs. Everything stays connected, searchable, and ready for turnover or future reference.
PENTA shows us a great example of how to navigate change in a high-stakes project. As the GC for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, PENTA was responsible for delivering the race track, along with the pit building, grandstands, and supporting infrastructure.
It was a high-pressure project involving about 500 people. And with less than one year of construction, there was no margin for delays or missteps.
The project moved fast, and change was constant. Midway through construction, the team introduced a major shift by adding an underground tunnel after part of the pit building was already complete. PENTA had to pivot immediately. Design teams updated documents. Trade partners regrouped. Schedule and material impacts were assessed in real time.
Using Autodesk Construction Cloud, PENTA kept information flowing and teams aligned. They could review design changes side by side, assess schedule impacts, and view material availability without slowing the project. Because documentation stayed current and accessible, the team could make informed decisions in real time instead of reacting after the fact.
With accurate, up-to-date documentation and connected workflows, PENTA stayed focused on what mattered most: keeping the project moving and delivering on time.
Successful project managers don’t avoid change. They manage it better by staying organized, planning ahead, and ensuring that teams, messages, context, and decisions are always connected. Want to see these workflows in action? Watch the on-demand webinar From Chaos to Calm: Navigating Change in Construction Project Management.
Estimators have always been a crucial part of the construction process, and today, their role isn’t just expanding — it’s evolving.
Estimators today are navigating one of the most demanding roles in construction. Between tight deadlines, constant price fluctuations, and increasingly complex workflows, estimators are expected to deliver accurate answers quickly and with very little margin for error.
The expectations placed on construction estimating teams have never been higher: tighter collaboration, higher data fluency, and more influence over design and project outcomes.
These days, if you’re an estimator, you’re not just taking costs; you’re also becoming one of the most strategic advisors on the project.
The role of the estimator is evolving because the construction industry and market are changing fast. Owners and internal teams have higher expectations, and technology is reshaping how work gets planned, priced, and delivered. And if you layer in issues like fluctuating costs, labor shortages, and tighter bid windows, the pressure is higher than ever.
Traditional estimating workflows that involve manual takeoffs, spreadsheets, and disconnected tools can’t keep up with today’s complexity.
As a result, teams increasingly rely on estimators not just to calculate costs, but to help shape decisions that determine whether a project moves forward at all. Modern estimators are stepping into a more integrated role across design, preconstruction, and operations. Not only that, but their role has a direct impact on risk, scope, and profitability.
For a long time, estimators were traditionally responsible for calculating the total costs of a project before the work began. And while that is still very much true today, that is not the only thing estimators are expected to do.
These days, estimators aren’t just calculators — they’re a hub of insight. They need to be able to advise on cost risk, schedule implications, constructability, and procurement strategies. They can also work alongside PMs, VDC, executives, and owners to influence design iterations, guide material choices, and align on scope.
As such, the estimator’s role now extends well beyond bid day and into the decisions that shape how a project is planned and delivered.
So, what do estimators need to thrive and succeed in today’s construction landscape? Some of the growing expectations include:
Estimators need to be tech-savvy enough to jump between 2D PDFs and 3D models within a single connected workflow. Fluency in data and analytics is also a must. This means being able to use dashboards and visualization tools to spot trends, track changes, and share insights with the broader team.
Estimators must go beyond line-item pricing and use historical cost data to guide early decisions. The ability to recognize patterns and compare similar projects will come in handy, as they’re expected to flag risk and provide more informed guidance during preconstruction.
Strong collaboration skills are needed in various roles, but they’re especially important for today’s estimators. They work closely with design teams, VDC, project managers, and owners to align budget and scope early. That means translating numbers into clear tradeoffs and helping teams understand how design decisions affect the bottom line. Strong communication keeps everyone moving in the same direction.
With prices shifting and bid timelines tightening, estimators need to adjust quickly. They might need to respond to last-minute changes, updated drawings, and evolving scopes while still maintaining accuracy. The ability to stay organized, recalibrate assumptions, and keep projects moving forward is now a core part of the role.
Another force driving change in estimating right now? Artificial intelligence in construction.
With AI capabilities becoming more embedded in the tools teams use, estimators can level up their workflows. Some of the benefits the estimators will start to see in the near future include:
Notice how none of the above points suggest AI is here to replace estimators. That's the bigger story here. AI is not replacing estimators. Rather, it strengthens their ability to focus on strategy, judgment, and collaboration.
The next era of estimating will blur the lines between design and preconstruction. AI-driven tools are already making it possible to see real-time cost feedback as designs evolve, which gives estimators a stronger voice earlier in the process. Instead of reacting to finished drawings, they can weigh in while ideas are still being shaped.
As platforms bring together estimating, takeoff, bid management, and prequalification data, insights become more connected and far more useful. Estimators will help teams compare design alternatives, evaluate sustainability tradeoffs, and understand schedule impacts before decisions are locked in.
Generative design, real-time cost modeling, and agent-based tools will shorten the path from concept to pricing and open the door to smarter, faster collaboration between estimators, architects, and engineers.
Have you tried Autodesk Estimate? Learn more.
We’ve all heard the saying that it’s better to show and not just tell. This is becoming increasingly evident in estimating. Owners today expect clear, visual communication to understand where their money is going and what their options look like. This can come in the form of dashboards, graphs, 3D-linked cost views, and scenario comparisons.
Using visuals to convey cost drivers, risk exposure, and tradeoffs strengthens trust with owners and makes estimates far more digestible. Beyond that, visualization accelerates alignment across stakeholders, aiding decision-making and reducing misinterpretation.
All of that ultimately leads to faster approvals and fewer surprises, which keeps projects moving forward with more confidence and less friction.
In order to stay competitive and protect margins, contractors must invest in the right mix of technology, talent, and process. Here are the investments to prioritize now and in the near future.
The role of the estimator is changing, and contractors who recognize that shift will have an edge.
Now, gaining that edge isn't just about equipping your teams with new tools (though that's part of it). Beyond that, you must also rethink how estimators fit into the broader project lifecycle.
If you want estimating to drive smarter decisions and stronger margins, start with a few practical moves:
The estimator of the future isn’t defined by how fast they can count quantities. They’re defined by how well they interpret data, influence design, guide teams, and use technology to drive smarter decisions. Contractors who invest in modern estimating tools, AI-driven insights, and visualization will position their teams to win more work, reduce risk, and move into the next era of preconstruction with confidence.
Invest today, starting with the Autodesk Preconstruction Bundle.
Across construction teams today, many planning workflows are still only somewhat digital. Schedules and lookaheads often live in Excel or other disconnected tools, requiring duplicate entry and manual updates that slow teams down and introduce risk.
Thankfully Autodesk Build has been helping building teams close that gap by connecting long‑term schedule strategy with short‑term field execution, all within Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC).
But we often get asked about the difference between Schedules and Workplans. Let’s explore the critical differences between these capabilities and learn how to leverage them effectively for your projects.
Learn more in our on-demand webinar: Build with Confidence: Smarter Short-Term Planning with Workplan
In Autodesk Build, the Schedule represents the project’s strategic, long‑term plan. This is your CPM‑based master timeline—the backbone of the job. Built in specialist tools such as Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, or Asta Powerproject, the schedule captures project logic, dependencies, milestones, and the critical path. Schedules are often long and prone to change, so sharing them out with project teams and keeping project teams updated on changes can be difficult when they are built in these siloed scheduling tools.
Once published to ACC, the schedule becomes a read‑only single source of truth for the entire team to refer to and comment on. That read‑only posture is intentional. By protecting the baseline, teams can run reliable forecasts, perform change analysis, and make informed, strategic decisions without undermining schedule integrity.
Projects change, and any changes made to the master schedule can be easily shared by reuploading the latest schedule version, with version history documented.
The schedule focuses on the what and when at scale:
What it does not attempt to capture is equally important as what it does. Schedules are deliberately high level when it comes to resources. For instance, you dont use the schedule to assign tasks or track daily commitments. Instead, it provides the authoritative plan that feeds downstream execution.
That downstream execution happens in Workplans. Workplans in Autodesk Build are the tactical layer that converts schedule intent into reliable, short‑term delivery. They’re designed for weekly workplanning and multi‑week lookahead which define what the team will actually commit to in the near term.
Workplans can be directly connected to the master schedule to preserve end‑to‑end traceability, or created standalone when trade‑led coordination is needed. Either way, they’re collaborative, field‑ready, and execution focused.
With Workplans, teams can:
This trade‑level ownership removes ambiguity at handoffs and makes daily execution visible and measurable across the project team.
One of the most powerful aspects of Workplans is formal commitment tracking. When assignees commit to plan dates, those promises are locked for measurement. If a committed task needs to be replanned, a reason must be recorded. This creates an auditable trail that turns planning conversations into actionable data.
Workplans also bring constraints and blockers directly into the workflow. To keep planning proactive versus reactive, teams can capture roadblocks with photos or files, assign accountability, escalate issues to RFIs when needed, and track them through resolution.
All of this feeds a continuous improvement loop. Metrics like Percent Plan Complete (PPC), task status rollups, and root cause analysis help teams understand performance, coach behaviors, reduce rework, and improve predictability each week.
In simple terms:
Together, they connect strategy to execution, digitize planning workflows, and operationalize the master schedule into predictable delivery — all within one tool.
Learn more in our on-demand webinar: Build with Confidence: Smarter Short-Term Planning with Workplan
Construction projects involve multiple phases, stakeholders, and moving parts, which is why it’s so important to have documentation around when and how a contractor is paid throughout a project. Contractor payment schedules play a critical role here, as they outline the timing, structure, and conditions for each payment so everyone knows what to expect.
In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about contractor payment schedules, including how they work, why they matter, and best practices for managing them.
Table of contents:
A contractor payment schedule is a written plan that outlines when and how payments will be made throughout a construction project. It typically ties payments to specific milestones, percentages of completion, or set time intervals. A clear payment schedule helps manage cash flow, reduce misunderstandings, and keep the project moving forward without financial surprises.
Construction projects involve both upfront payments and ongoing costs. A contractor payment schedule helps teams manage all of that by outlining exactly when payments are due, how much will be paid, and what must be completed before funds are released.
Consider the following:
Construction runs on cash flow. Materials need to be ordered, crews need to be paid, and equipment needs to stay on site. A structured payment schedule ensures contractors receive funds at predictable intervals tied to progress. That consistency helps avoid slowdowns caused by cash shortages and keeps work moving without unnecessary financial stress.
Payment disagreements often stem from unclear terms. When a schedule clearly defines milestones, amounts, and approval requirements, there’s less room for confusion. Everyone understands what triggers payment and what documentation is required. Clear agreements upfront reduce finger-pointing later and make it easier to resolve issues quickly if questions come up.
Without structure, costs can spiral. A payment schedule ties spending to actual progress, making it easier to track how much of the budget has been committed and how much remains. This visibility helps owners and contractors spot overruns early and adjust before small issues turn into major financial problems.
With a good contractor payment schedule, teams know what they need to deliver to get paid, and owners know when to expect construction invoices. That clarity builds trust and keeps communication focused on results rather than chasing paperwork or wondering when money will change hands.
Predictable payments support predictable progress. When funds are released in alignment with milestones, teams can plan labor, materials, and timelines with greater confidence. The result is fewer surprises, smoother coordination, and a project that stays closer to its original schedule and financial plan.
A strong payment schedule does more than list due dates. It clearly defines how money moves, what triggers payment, and how changes are handled.
Payment structure (timing and method) – Define whether payments follow a milestone, percentage of completion, or time-based model. Clarify how funds will be delivered, such as ACH, check, or wire. When timing and method are spelled out, there’s less guesswork and fewer delays tied to logistics.
Milestones or criteria tied to payments – Tie each payment to specific, measurable outcomes. This could include completing foundation work, passing inspections, or reaching a defined percentage of progress.
Documentation requirements – Outline what must be submitted before payment is approved. This may include invoices, lien waivers, inspection reports, or updated progress schedules.
Retainage details – If retainage applies, specify the percentage withheld and when it will be released. Note whether partial retainage can be reduced at certain milestones. Transparency around retainage prevents confusion at project closeout.
Payment terms – State the number of days for payment after invoice approval, such as net 15 or net 30. Clarify any late payment penalties or interest terms. Defined terms help manage expectations and protect both parties.
Change order process – Explain how scope changes affect payment. Document how change orders are priced, approved, and added to the schedule. A clear process ensures extra work gets paid for without disrupting the broader payment plan.
Schedule of values (when applicable) – For larger projects, include a detailed breakdown of costs by line item. The schedule of values helps track progress against the budget and supports accurate progress billing throughout the project.
Approval workflow – Identify who reviews and approves payment applications. Map out the steps from submission to release of funds. A defined workflow reduces bottlenecks and keeps payments aligned with project timelines.
Unlike standard invoices, construction payment schedules are tied to progress, performance, and formal approvals, not just services rendered. Construction payment schedules are more complex due to: gener
| Construction payment schedules | General invoicing | |
| Basis for payment | Tied to project milestones, progress, inspections, and formal approvals | Based on goods delivered or services rendered |
| Project timeline | Structured around long, phased timelines that may span months or years | Typically short-term or one-time billing cycles |
| Stakeholders involved | Involves owners, GCs, subcontractors, lenders, and inspectors | Usually between two parties: vendor and client |
| Approval process | Often requires inspections, sign-offs, and compliance checks before payment | Limited approval process; invoice review is usually sufficient |
| Retainage | A percentage may be withheld until substantial or final completion | Retainage is rarely used |
| Documentation | Requires lien waivers, progress reports, schedules, and compliance documents | Generally requires only an invoice and basic supporting details |
| Progress tracking | Payments depend on verified completion percentages or deliverables | Payment is not typically tied to ongoing performance tracking |
Not all projects are built the same, and payment structures should reflect that. Here are the most common contractor payment schedule types.
With this model, payment is issued only after the full scope of work is completed. It is simple and easy to understand, but it places the financial burden on the contractor until the job wraps up. This approach works best for small, clearly defined projects where timelines are short and the risk of scope changes is low.
A portion of the total contract value is paid upfront, with the remaining balance due at completion. The deposit helps contractors cover initial materials and labor costs, while the final payment ensures the project is finished as agreed. This structure is common in residential construction and smaller commercial projects.
Payments are tied to clearly defined stages, such as completing the foundation, framing, or rough-ins. Each milestone triggers a scheduled payment. This structure creates transparency, keeps projects accountable, and allows both parties to track progress in a straightforward way.
Progress payments are based on the percentage of work completed. Contractors typically submit documentation through a Schedule of Values or standardized forms. This approach supports steady cash flow and works well for long-term or complex projects where work unfolds in phases over time.
Under a retainage structure, a small percentage of each payment, usually 5 to 10 percent, is withheld until substantial or final completion. This protects the client by providing an incentive to finish the project properly. Contractors need to plan carefully, as retained funds can impact short-term cash flow.
Time-based payments compensate contractors based on hours worked over a set billing cycle, such as weekly or monthly. Materials may be billed separately. This model works well for projects with evolving scopes or time and materials contracts where flexibility is important.
Even the best payment schedule can run into friction if expectations are not clearly managed from the start.
Milestones can become gray areas if completion criteria are vague. One party may believe the work is done, while the other sees unfinished details. Without clearly defined standards or inspection checkpoints, disagreements can stall payment and strain working relationships.
If the scope lacks detail, it becomes difficult to tie payments to specific outcomes. Broad descriptions like “site prep complete” leave room for interpretation. Clear, measurable deliverables reduce confusion and make it easier to validate when payment is earned.
Construction payments often require supporting paperwork. When lien waivers, receipts, or progress reports are missing or delayed, payments get held up. Administrative gaps can slow down cash flow, even if the physical work is complete.
While retainage protects project owners, it can create pressure for contractors. With a portion of each payment withheld, contractors must cover labor and material costs without full compensation until closeout. Poor planning around retainage can create financial strain late in the project.
Payment applications often pass through multiple reviewers. If one approver is unavailable or slow to respond, funds may be delayed. Without a defined workflow and clear timelines, approval cycles can drag out longer than expected.
Unplanned changes can disrupt even the most organized payment schedule. When scope expands without formal change orders, payment timing and amounts no longer align with actual work. Clear change management processes help keep the schedule and budget on track.
A strong payment schedule does not happen by accident. It takes structure, clarity, and ongoing oversight.
Tie payments to specific, verifiable outcomes. Instead of vague milestones, define clear benchmarks such as passing inspection, completing framing, or reaching a set percentage of work. Measurable criteria reduce ambiguity and make it easier for everyone to agree when payment is earned.
Keep detailed records from day one. Store signed change orders, labor reports, material receipts, and inspection results in one place. Good documentation protects both parties and speeds up payment approvals when questions arise.
Use consistent templates for payment schedules, invoices, and supporting documents. Standardization reduces errors, saves time, and ensures every project follows a predictable structure. It also makes it easier to onboard new team members and subcontractors.
Manual tracking can slow things down. Construction management and accounting tools help automate progress tracking, document collection, and approval workflows. Digital systems provide real-time visibility into what has been billed, approved, and paid.
Discuss payment expectations early and revisit them regularly. Share updates on progress, flag potential delays, and confirm when milestones are approaching. Clear communication builds trust and prevents payment surprises.
Projects rarely go exactly as planned. If timelines shift or scope changes, revisit the payment schedule. Updating it to reflect current conditions helps keep cash flow aligned with reality and reduces friction later in the project.
When payment expectations are clear from the start, projects run smoother and relationships stay stronger.
A defined payment schedule creates consistency. Contractors can forecast incoming revenue, plan payroll, and purchase materials with confidence. Owners also gain visibility into when funds will be required. Predictable cash flow reduces financial stress and helps keep the project moving without unexpected slowdowns.
Clear milestones and payment terms leave less room for misunderstanding. When everyone knows what triggers payment and what documentation is required, disagreements decrease. That clarity helps prevent stalled approvals and keeps the project timeline intact.
Transparency builds credibility. When payments are issued according to a documented plan, trust grows between owners, contractors, and subcontractors. Reliable payment practices strengthen long-term working relationships and make future collaboration easier.
Structured schedules streamline billing and approvals. Teams spend less time chasing paperwork or clarifying payment terms. With standardized processes in place, finance and project managers can focus on execution rather than resolving avoidable payment issues.
Aligned payments support aligned progress. When funds flow in step with completed work, teams can maintain momentum and avoid costly disruptions. Over time, disciplined payment practices contribute to stronger margins and more stable operations.
The right payment structure depends on your project’s risk profile, timeline, and financial realities. Consider factors like:
GCPay is a cloud-based platform built specifically for construction payment management. It automates pay applications between general contractors and subcontractors, helping teams create, review, and approve applications faster.
The platform also streamlines lien waiver exchange, compliance document collection, and retainage tracking. With ERP and accounting integrations, GCPay reduces manual data entry and improves accuracy. Teams gain visibility through dashboards and reporting, while electronic payment tools help get subcontractors paid faster and with fewer administrative bottlenecks.
Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) connects financial management, project workflows, and documentation in one centralized platform. Teams can manage budgets, track costs, oversee change orders, and monitor payment applications alongside daily project activity.
Because financial data links directly to field progress and documentation, everyone works from the same source of truth. This reduces silos between accounting and operations, improves forecasting accuracy, and keeps payment schedules aligned with real-time project performance. By centralizing contracts, compliance documents, and approvals, ACC helps contractors stay organized and financially in control.
The right tool should simplify payments, not create more work for your team.
Make sure the software connects directly to your existing ERP or accounting platform. Seamless integration reduces duplicate data entry and minimizes errors. When financial data flows automatically between systems, your team saves time and maintains accurate records.
Payment tools should be easy to use for everyone, from project managers in the field to accountants in the office. Look for intuitive dashboards, clear navigation, and mobile accessibility. If the system feels complicated, adoption will suffer.
Strong onboarding makes a big difference. Ask about implementation timelines, live training sessions, and ongoing support resources. A vendor that invests in customer education helps your team get value from the software faster.
Do not rely on marketing alone. Request a live demo or trial access so your team can see how the platform handles real workflows. Testing the system helps you evaluate usability, reporting, and approval processes before committing.
Construction billing is complex. Confirm the platform can manage retainage calculations, progress billing, lien waivers, and compliance documentation. The more industry-specific functionality it offers, the fewer manual workarounds you will need.
Choose software that can grow with your business. Whether you take on larger projects, expand into new markets, or add more subcontractors, your system should handle increased volume without requiring a full replacement later.
A solid contractor payment schedule is essential for keeping your project financially healthy and on track. With the right structure, documentation habits, and software support, you can reduce disputes, maintain steady cash flow, and foster stronger client relationships.
Switching construction management platforms isn’t something that teams can do on a whim. You’re not just buying new software (which can be a massive financial investment), but you're also budgeting for migration costs, carving out time for training, and figuring out how to keep live projects moving throughout the process.
If not done right, switching platforms can be challenging. But if you have the right platform and migration plan, the effort and investment will pay off.
Case in point: Cleveland Construction, a national general contractor serving markets like K-12, multifamily, hospitality, and historic adaptive reuse.
Cleveland Construction started looking at Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) after evaluating the costs of Procore, their software at the time. The firm ultimately made the switch not only because the cost model no longer made sense, but because they saw an opportunity to modernize how their teams worked.
In our recent webinar, From Procore to ACC: Cleveland Construction’s Blueprint for a Seamless Transition, leaders from Cleveland Construction and its implementation partner, IMAGINiT, shared their step‑by‑step migration process, the business drivers behind the change, and the unexpected wins they achieved with ACC.
Clear communication and transparency are some of the key pillars of successful change management. This is particularly important if you’re swapping a major part of your tech stack, like your construction management platform.
Since multiple teams are impacted by the platform change, you need to set the context and build buy-in early.
This is exactly what Cleveland Construction did.
“The biggest thing we did right out of the gate was explaining to everybody why we were looking at ACC and why it made sense from a financial standpoint,” said Elliot Christiansen, Sr. Vice President of Operations at Cleveland Construction.
In addition to explaining the “why” behind the switch, Elliot also involved users and stakeholders in a number of software demonstrations and got their input.
Teams were brought in after the selection process to use ACC in a hands-on, practical way.
“We got them involved in creating forms and making sure that the daily job report was the way the superintendents wanted it. We also made sure that the approval workflows were a way that would work for our project management staff,” recalled Elliot.
All of that was easy to do with ACC thanks to the platform’s modular structure that enabled teams to align new workflows with the company’s existing operational needs.
All in all, Elliot says that involving teams beyond the executive level helped make the transition smoother.
Don’t just treat the migration process as the means to swap your software; rather, view it as an opportunity to level up your processes.
Many teams migrate by trying to recreate their old system inside a new one. Cleveland Construction used this transition as a strategic opportunity to modernize workflows, eliminate legacy friction, and standardize processes company‑wide.
Elliot and the team didn’t approach migration as a one-to-one rebuild. They treated it as a chance to step back and ask harder questions about how work actually gets done.
According to Elliot, this is an approach that he would’ve doubled down on, knowing now how beneficial it was to implement those changes as the firm migrated to ACC.
“I would have spent more time thinking about what in the company I would change, when it came to how we do things,” he explained. “Do we need to change some of our workflows? Do we need to change some of our sign-off thresholds? This is a great opportunity to do those types of things.”
One excellent example of this mindset in practice is how Cleveland reworked its approval workflows. Instead of routing internal approvals through DocuSign, Cleveland now handles those workflows directly in ACC.
“Even internal approvals were done in a DocuSign envelope,” Elliot said. “So we were paying for it every time, even if it got rejected.”
With ACC, internal approvals happen in-platform, and only finalized items move to DocuSign for external signatures. The same thinking applied to subcontract generation. Templates now auto-generate from the cost tool, route for signature, and save back automatically. “It probably reduced our contract admins’ workload by 75%,” Elliot noted.
Switching platforms can be daunting. The good news is that you don’t have to do it on your own. Find a partner that can support with transitioning your workflows, leveling up your processes, and keeping the rollout on track.
For Cleveland Construction, that provider was IMAGINiT Technologies, an Autodesk Platinum Partner that helps firms implement technology solutions and maximize their ROI.
Vince Daniele, IMAGINiT's Construction Solutions Team Manager, says the key is to treat implementation as a structured, phased process that starts with deep discovery. “We meet with different teams and really understand how they’re using their current platform,” Vince explained. From there, IMAGINiT typically configures a foundational ACC project template and train a core group of admins using real workflows.
What made Cleveland’s rollout faster was using live data. IMAGINiT migrated an active Procore project into ACC so teams could train in an environment that already felt familiar. “They weren’t just seeing a new tool,” Vince said. “They were seeing their own RFIs, sheets, and logs.”
After go-live, IMAGINiT stayed involved with mentoring and fine-tuning. The result was a smooth transition completed in just three to six months.
If your construction management platform doesn’t work for the field, it won’t get used consistently, no matter how powerful it is.
Cleveland kept field teams in mind throughout the entire process. In addition to having superintendents in the loop from the get-go, they built mobile‑first experiences with easy forms, fewer clicks, and in‑context automation.
All that effort paid off, with ACC being quickly adopted in the field.
ACC was well received by Cleveland Construction’s field teams, which was one of the biggest surprises of the rollout. “That’s actually where I thought I’d get the most pushback,” Elliot said.
Daily reporting was a major concern early on. “Procore has a very good daily log tool,” Elliot said. “But by spending time with Vince and his team to really get this right in the forms tool, I think we actually have a better setup in Autodesk than we had before.” Cleveland rebuilt daily reports using ACC Forms and Issues, turning them into structured, field-friendly workflows instead of free-text logs.
Superintendents now answer simple yes-or-no questions, like whether a job was delayed by weather. If the answer is no, they move on. If it’s yes, ACC requires them to create an Issue before they can close the report. That Issue pulls from a predefined template, with dropdowns instead of typing, and automatically notifies the right people. The same logic applies to deliveries, inspections, and other delays.
“We combined multiple forms our teams used to fill out into one,” Elliot explained. “It made it easier for everyone.”
Field teams also responded well to ACC’s mobile experience. The system tags photos, captures GPS location, and behaves much the same way teams were used to. Sheets and markups worked as expected, and the mobile app let teams choose which projects to sync so devices didn’t get overloaded. “If you’re working on multiple projects, you’re not eating up all the memory on your device,” Elliot added.
Even scheduling landed well. “The schedule tool has been very well received,” he noted, especially since updates can now happen directly from the field.
Upgrading your construction management platform doesn’t just benefit your internal teams; it can also remove friction from how you work with external partners.
In the case of Cleveland Construction, ACC helped enhance collaboration between the firm’s teams and the external architects they worked with.
"It wasn't necessarily something that I thought about when we were evaluating it originally, but as a byproduct of switching, we do have a much easier time coordinating RFIs and submittals with our architecture partners. We always used to get a lot of pushback forcing Procore on them,” remarked Elliot.
With ACC, Cleveland was able to meet its partners where they already work. “Now we’re giving them access to ACC,” Elliot explained. “Most of them already have an account, so we can bridge folders together.”
That flexibility opened the door to deeper integration. Using IMAGINiT’s Pulse integration platform, Cleveland now syncs submittals between its ACC environment and an owner’s ACC system. Submittals move automatically into the owner’s workflow, route through architect review, and return with statuses like approved, approved as noted, or revise and resubmit. “That was never something we could have accomplished in Procore,” Elliot said. “They never worked together that well.”
Trade partners benefited too. According to Elliot:
“We're starting to notice that a lot of the subcontractor trades have used ACC quite a bit and are pretty familiar with it. Some even have their own accounts, and it's easy to share files back and forth.”
Asking people to adopt a new platform is a big ask, so identifying, communicating, and celebrating wins—big and small—can build momentum.
Early proof that the switch is working gives teams more confidence, especially when those wins show up in their day-to-day work.
Some of the biggest wins that ACC helped Cleveland Construction achieve include:
Beyond that, Elliot also called out incremental wins, like saving 30 seconds at a time throughout the day.
Projects now start with hundreds of files already loaded instead of being manually uploaded. And because ACC uses flyout windows rather than full-page reloads, teams stay in their flow. “It sounds like a small detail,” Elliot said, “but if you’re saving 30 seconds a hundred times a day, it adds up. It’s a little thing, but it goes a long way for a project team.”
Switching platforms doesn’t have to mean disruption. Cleveland Construction’s experience shows us that when you involve stakeholders early and engage the right implementation partner, migration can become a catalyst for better workflows and stronger collaboration.
Watch the on-demand webinar to see how Cleveland Construction planned, executed, and scaled their move to Autodesk Construction Cloud.
In this episode of Digital Builder, host Eric Thomas sits down with Michael Baim, Vice President of Venue Infrastructure at the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Allison Scott, Director of Sustainability Growth and Engagement at Autodesk, to explore what it takes to deliver the LA28 Games with fewer than 1,000 days to go. As Los Angeles prepares to host the Olympic Games for a third time, and one of the most ambitious Olympic and Paralympic Games in modern history, Michael and Alli’s conversation highlights the scale, complexity, and collaboration behind LA28’s no-new-permanent venues plan, their ambitious commitment to build LA28’s footprint by adapting existing or building temporary infrastructure.
Michael and Allison discuss how Autodesk’s Design and Make platform, including Autodesk Construction Cloud, will help teams coordinate logistics, data, and planning across an unprecedented program. They also touch on balancing historic venue preservation with modern upgrades, the long-term community legacy LA28 aims to create, and opportunities for contractors, designers, and builders to get involved in bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games to life.
We discuss:
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
At the heart of the Netherlands’ railway network, a critical junction in Zuidwestboog Meteren is undergoing a massive transformation. The project – part of a broader programme to enable high-frequency rail traffic – focuses on a complex intersection where the Betuweroute, a dedicated freight line from Rotterdam Harbour to the German border, meets the passenger lines connecting Utrecht and Den Bosch.
For Van Hattum en Blankevoort, the concrete contractor division of VolkerWessels, the task is as high-stakes as it is technically demanding. “We’re responsible for construction works underneath the rail line itself,” explains Pieter Prins, BIM Manager at Van Hattum en Blankevoort. “That includes soil work, concrete foundations, and bridges – all covering nearly 3km of track.”
Along that line is the impressive Pergola construction, a bridge extending almost 200 metres designed to let freight and passenger trains cross paths safely. “The Dutch infrastructure market has a separate challenge,” explains Pieter. “We’ve got a massive volume of work and significant grey-out – a lot of knowledge held by experienced people is expected to be lost on short notice. That’s why it’s essential to collect information centrally, contribute widely, and recruit where we can.”
“Autodesk Construction Cloud is already central to our work. It represents a major step forward.” - Pieter Prins BIM Manager, Van Hattum en Blankevoort
The ProRail programme in Zuidwestboog Meteren focuses on improving capacity at a key crossing, with nearly three kilometres of work in a tight area where phasing and live infrastructure shape the plan. Van Hattum en Blankevoort’s scope sits beneath the track, which makes coordination especially unforgiving: small mismatches between disciplines can become large fixes once construction sequencing is underway.
To manage the immense data and collaboration requirements of the Meteren project, VolkerWessels transitioned to Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC). Since they had previously used BIM 360, the move to ACC was a natural evolution that let the team centralise every facet of the design and construction process. By using a suite of integrated tools – including Revit, Civil 3D, and Navisworks – all funnelling into ACC, VolkerWessels created a unified common data environment for the project.
“In the past, remarks would get lost in email,” says Pieter. “With ACC, none of the comments are lost during the review processes. It connects everything together.” This transparency is crucial not only to ensure accurate feedback on the Meteren project, but also to archive and collate mission-critical knowledge for use in the future.
One of the project’s most innovative aspects is its integration of Autodesk Workshop XR. Using Meta Quest 3 VR glasses, the project teams conduct virtual safety walks of the construction site before a single cubic metre of concrete is poured. By pulling coordination models into a virtual environment, engineers and site managers can walk through the proposed phasing of the project, allowing them to interact with the design and identify potential gaps or safety hazards at an early stage, even before physical implementation.
“It’s a good way of working and a low-barrier way of exploring Workshop XR,” notes Pieter. “Setting up VR experiences like this really helps us a lot. We address issues through the issue module, which interacts directly with ACC for tracking and registration – so everything is completely integrated.”
The shift to a centralised, cloud–based workflow has yielded measurable improvements in both communication and speed. According to Pieter Prins and Peter Kanninga (Director Integral Projects), ACC has been vital in achieving Van Hattum en Blankevoort’s goals.
“We’re always looking for innovative solutions that boost collaboration, cut failure costs, and increase productivity,” says Pieter. “Digital workflows have already halved our physical review rounds, taking the average down from four to just two. Real-time access through the Autodesk Desktop Connector and Revit Cloud Worksharing has also slashed wait times for retrieving and syncing models by 30-40%. Most importantly, by integrating Model Coordination and clash detection in ACC, we’ve resolved 75% of clashes before physical construction even starts”.
Beyond these high-level wins, VolkerWessels uses standardised templates and instructions, letting them onboard new team members and external contributors in just 30 minutes. Design leaders also use model coordination to search for clashes themselves, solving interfaces at their desks before they enter the final design phase. The team uses the “Bridge” module in ACC to exchange models and data with third party providers, such as those designing the overhead power cables.
The project’s set for a phased implementation through 2027-2028, involving redirecting highways and the Betuweroute freight line. Meteren’s ongoing success is supported by a strong partnership between VolkerWessels and Autodesk, using a specialised coaching programme to master new developments like Dynamo for Revit and Civil 3D. By replacing fixed assumptions with a data–driven simulation of the site, VolkerWessels is ensuring a smoother rollout and a more resilient rail network for the Netherlands.
“Autodesk Construction Cloud is already central to our work,” says Pieter. “It’s being deployed on all scales of project – it represents a major step forward.”
By transitioning to a unified common data environment, VolkerWessels is able to bridge the gap between complex engineering disciplines and real-world implementation. The integration of Autodesk Construction Cloud allows the team to resolve 75% of clashes before construction begins, halving physical review rounds and ensuring that critical institutional knowledge is preserved for the future of Dutch infrastructure.
As the world moves toward more complex challenges, human-centered design becomes more important than ever. Whether we’re rebuilding after natural disasters or designing healthcare facilities, the built environment plays a critical role in how people heal, connect, and move forward.
But what exactly is human-centered design, and what does it look like in practice?
We answered this question and a whole lot more during this special episode of the Digital Builder podcast filmed live at the Autodesk Technology Center in Boston. This conversation is part of the launch of our new Make It Heal film series starring New England Patriots quarterback Joshua Dobbs. The event also kicked off the 2026 Design & Make It Real program, an initiative that empowers students to develop digital skills, explore careers in architecture, engineering, construction, and operations, and design solutions that help communities recover and thrive.
In this episode of Digital Builder, I’m joined by New England Patriots quarterback and aerospace engineer, Joshua Dobbs, and Gerard Georges, Director of Architecture at Build Health International.
We dig into the concept of human-centered design and explore everything from designing with empathy and purpose to the role that technology plays in improving collaboration.
We discuss:
As the term clearly illustrates, human-centered design starts with people. It goes beyond plans or blueprints, and instead puts the humans (i.e., the people designing buildings and those using them) at the heart of the build.
“Human-centered design is really around making an environment, a culture, a community that inspires and supports the basic human person. We all want to engage with each other. So, we need to think about spaces that support that engagement,” remarks Gerard.
He highlights the importance of designing environments that encourage connection and healing. That could be through biophilic design, access to natural light and views, or creating buildings that can withstand changing climate conditions.
In addition, Gerard stresses that it’s crucial to think beyond the immediate end user; builders should also consider how spaces will serve future generations.
Josh weighs in with his observations on the design side. For him, human-centered design shows up in how diverse perspectives and problem-solving approaches come together to improve outcomes.
“I also think about the designers. I think it's cool just seeing the different backgrounds of the designers and their thought process, their problem-solving skills, their creativity—and seeing how it comes to life.”
He continues, “That's what's been so unique about learning about the Autodesk software, and how it’s able to make things come to life quickly. You're able to see multiple iterations of the solution to a problem. You're able to see how it fits in different places and different environments. And I think being able to have multiple choices and then being able to go through the data and decipher what the best solution for the problem is really cool.”
Human-centered design really comes to life when a project serves the community in a meaningful way.
Gerard explains that such projects stem from teams having a shared commitment and collaborative approach.
“We really strive ourselves on the idea of collaboration, communication, and shared outcomes. So, as long as we all come to the table with that mindset, we really have a great roadmap to move forward with our projects.”
“So how do we do that? We have user or stakeholder engagement sessions where we really try to understand priorities, needs, and goals. And then we think about how we influence the notions of sustainability and resiliency in each project that we work on.”
Josh agrees and notes that one way people can build that shared understanding is by seeing the work take shape before it hits the job site.
“I think just people coming together is extremely important. One thing that stood out was the VR session, where you're able to walk through the process of what it looks like to build something. It's very similar to what we do on the field, where we go through various walkthroughs before the games. When you're in that moment, you're able to see things come to life the right way.”
Lessons around teamwork are most visible in sports because success depends on people with very different backgrounds working toward a single outcome.
With that in mind, Josh points out that the same dynamic shows up on construction and design teams. Everyone brings their own experiences to the table, and that diversity is what makes teams stronger.
“I think the biggest thing is that everyone has their own unique background that got them to wherever they are,” Josh says. “In our complex in Foxborough, everyone comes from different places. I come from Atlanta, Drake [Maye] comes from North Carolina, Stefon Diggs comes from Maryland, and so on. But it’s all the work we’ve put in, and all the past experiences we’ve gone through that allow us to come together, apply what we know, and ultimately win on Sunday.”
Another lesson that’s highly visible in sports? The ability to perform in high-pressure situations.
Here, Josh says that teams can turn that pressure into excitement by being well-prepared for anything.
“It comes down to your preparation. For us, the season starts in April, when we go through our off-season activities and go through fundamentals, while getting the flow of the plays. Then you go through the beginning of the season where you're put in different situations, and you have a chance to go out and perform.”
He continues, “I think in every single industry it is the same. It's the habits that you've created studying; it's the habits you've created working with other people. It's those reps that you build up over time.”
“And so, at the end of the day, because of that preparation, if you do it the right way, you don't really feel the pressure. You're just excited to perform and achieve your goal at the end.”
For Gerard, staying composed comes down to trusting the process and staying flexible when conditions change.
“We have to be flexible, malleable enough to say, ‘Okay, can we get to this goal? But maybe we're taking a different path, maybe we're introducing a different system or a different partner to end up getting to this process.’”
“So, dealing with stress is really thinking about the risks you might face. Then determining how to address those risks and determine the strengths of your team to be able meet your goals. So, there's always this inner chaos that happens, but having a measured approach is always beneficial for me personally as well as for the team.”
Great teams, whether on the football field, office, or job site, become even better when there’s strong leadership behind them. And to be a strong leader, you need to show up for the people around you.
As Josh puts it, “You have to be a great teammate first, and how you learn and get to know the people around you. And then, after that, it's about making sure you're doing the work first. I think a lot of leaders like to lead from the front and drag people behind, or they like to tell people what to do instead of leading by example and doing the work, putting in the time and effort that their other coworkers or teammates are doing.”
He continues, “And so it's all about being consistent and being a great teammate. And I think if you do that, then when you're in your leadership role, you're able to pour into your teammates and collectively accomplish a goal.
As for Gerard, he sees empathy as the foundation of effective leadership.
“Empathy is really the word that comes to mind as a leader. A good leader leads by example, I believe. The way to do that is to understand the needs of your teammates, your community, as well as the stakeholders that you're working for.”
“Once you understand what their goals and their needs are, you make space for them to contribute. And I think that makes them feel like they have power. It gives them agency. So by leading by example and then leading with an empathetic thought, you're allowing others to flourish, and they support you.”
Digital Builder is hosted by me, Eric Thomas. Remember, new episodes of Digital Builder go live every week. Listen to the Digital Builder Podcast on:
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Construction estimating requires precision, consistency, and collaboration across your entire team. One of the most powerful features in Autodesk Estimate is the centralized cost library, a tool designed to transform how your organization manages pricing data and creates estimates.
The centralized cost library is a customizable, account-level repository that consolidates all of your pricing information in one accessible location. This shared resource ensures that everyone on your team works from the same accurate data, eliminating discrepancies and reducing errors in your estimates.
The cost library allows you to organize and maintain all essential pricing components:
By housing all this information in a single location, you eliminate the confusion that comes from scattered spreadsheets, outdated price lists, and inconsistent data sources.
Beyond individual cost items, the centralized library enables you to build custom crews by combining labor and equipment resources. This feature is particularly valuable for standardizing how your team approaches common cost groupings.
When you create crews, you can:
The centralized cost library delivers three critical benefits that directly impact your bottom line.
The centralized cost library represents more than just a database. It's a strategic asset that standardizes your estimating process and creates a foundation for continuous improvement. As your team uses the library across multiple projects, you build institutional knowledge and refine your pricing based on real-world results.
For construction companies looking to scale their operations while maintaining quality and accuracy, the centralized cost library in Autodesk Estimate provides the infrastructure needed to support growth without sacrificing precision.
Want to dive deeper? Check out our on-demand webinar, Cloud-Based Estimating Starts Here: Meet Autodesk Estimate.
Any construction pro would agree that preconstruction is an important phase in the project lifecycle. After all, this is when teams make key decisions around things like budgets, schedules, and labor.
But as construction becomes increasingly complex (think: larger projects, labor shortages, and sustainability commitments), there’s a strong case to be made that preconstruction is more than a “step” or “phase” of the project.
Beyond being just a procedural step, we believe that precon is also a strategic advantage.
And the teams that recognize this are the ones that consistently win more work and protect profit.
In construction, last-minute planning and decision-making aren’t just inefficient; they’re also risky and expensive.
Construction projects become more complex as they progress, which means fewer options and greater consequences. When decisions are made late in the game, they can trigger rework, change orders, or delays that ripple across the entire project.
The old mindset of fixing issues once construction is underway no longer holds up. There’s simply less room for error.
To stay competitive and protect margins, owners and builders need a predictable, data-informed foundation that reduces uncertainty and supports better decision-making. The only way to achieve that is to start early and address risk and alignment before the project kicks off on the jobsite.
Planning ahead and making critical decisions early in the project leads to clearer expectations, fewer downstream surprises, and a smoother project overall. All of these things make life easier for owners, GCs, and subcontractors
Owners who prioritize early planning gain better cost certainty and reduce unexpected expenses and delays that kill their bottom line. Meanwhile, GCs that actively collaborate with design partners early on can reduce conflict, accelerate buyout, and avoid change orders.
The right practices also benefit subcontractors. When preconstruction is coordinated and scopes are clear, they get more accurate scopes and fewer rebids, so they don’t have to waste time pricing with incomplete data or shifting information
To effectively plan ahead, you need the right tools. Equip your team with a platform that can facilitate your preconstruction processes, from takeoff and estimating to document management, bid coordination, and scope development.
For best results, choose a platform that centralizes workflows and connects to downstream project phases, so decisions made in preconstruction don’t get lost or recreated later.
Specifically, you want to have workflows that are:
All of the above are critical because preconstruction sets the tone for the entire project lifecycle. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned or detailed your plans are; if your tools, teams, and processes are fragmented, you will still encounter inefficiencies, misalignment, and errors.
When teams get preconstruction right, they work more efficiently and reduce avoidable risk.
Here are a few examples of how strong preconstruction practices pay off:
So far, we’ve discussed why and how preconstruction can give you a competitive advantage. With that, here are the steps you can take to turn preconstruction into a core strength, not just a phase of work.
Map current workflows to spot duplicate work and risky handoffs. Look for areas where people need to re-enter data or where details aren’t documented. These gaps often signal where delays, errors, and rework originate later in the project.
Consolidate tools into a connected platform to unify estimating, takeoff, bid management, and documents. This is a tall order, as most teams rely on a patchwork of disconnected tools built up over time. Fortunately, Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) brings those workflows together in one connected environment.
Standardize templates, forms, meetings, and assumptions so teams aren’t reinventing the wheel on every project. Consistency creates clarity and makes it easier to compare performance across projects, so can you gather and implement learnings.
Set up frameworks for how data is created, updated, and shared, along with naming and version conventions that everyone follows. That way, teams always know which information to trust and where to find it.
You need your team’s input when designing workflows and setting expectations. That’s why it’s important to build cross-functional collaboration into preconstruction routines. One example is to have weekly design-precon syncs to surface risks early and align decisions.
Define a short list of KPIs that reflect preconstruction performance, not just outcomes. Track estimate cycle time, win rate, variance to baseline, and change-order volume to help teams measure progress, identify gaps, and improve consistently.
Train teams using clear, consistent communication standards so everyone understands expectations, tools, and workflows. Good training reduces friction, increases adoption, and helps teams work confidently without relying on tribal knowledge.
Transforming your preconstruction practices doesn’t happen overnight, but that doesn’t mean you and your teams won’t experience wins right away. If you’re looking for momentum, here are some things you can quickly implement:
The construction landscape is rapidly changing, and projects are more complex than before. Companies that want to thrive in today’s environment must change how they view preconstruction.
It’s no longer just a step or box to check. When done right, preconstruction can pave the way for better collaboration, lower project risk, and a healthier bottom line.
Want to centralize, streamline, and de-risk preconstruction? Explore the Autodesk Preconstruction Bundle—your connected solution for estimating, takeoff, bid management, qualification, and documentation.
As a construction owner, your everyday list of to-do's boils down to two things: increase profit and reduce risk. This is why it pays to improve visibility and collaboration with construction teams through technology. You get to be more hands-on with progress transparency while empowering project teams to work smarter.
In engineering and construction, around 95% of all data goes unused, which often creates disconnects. By integrating this otherwise “lost” data into multi-team workflows (if not your own), you can finish projects on schedule, under budget, with higher quality, and have peace of mind that that progress is auditable across the entire project lifecycle.
Autodesk has hundreds of integrations for every phase of construction. While there are plenty more to explore, this list pulls together some of the most popular integrations for owners.
Integration categories:
To effectively manage the bottom line, owners need to keep track of resources throughout a project. Capital planning and asset tracking tools help automate and connect this crucial data enabling owners to improve oversight with all systems connected into one.
Aurigo Primus Plan is an AI‑powered capital planning solution that helps facility owners maximize ROI on multiyear CapEx by prioritizing the right projects, modeling cashflows, and managing risks and costs. Integrated with Autodesk Build, it seamlessly connects strategic planning with real‑time field execution to bring actual project data back into upstream decisions for continuous visibility, accurate forecasting, and smarter portfolio management. The alignment between planning and execution empowers owners to make confident, data‑driven decisions that support more resilient, sustainable infrastructure.
Eptura is an intelligent work-tech platform that connects people, places, and assets in one integrated system. It empowers organizations to manage facilities, equipment, and real estate at scale. Its comprehensive capabilities give teams full visibility into assets and inventory, automate preventive and reactive maintenance, streamline regulatory compliance with mobile inspections, and centralize work order management for seamless collaboration. With powerful analytics, BIM-integrated data through Archibus extensions, and secure, scalable cloud hosting on Microsoft Azure, Eptura helps organizations optimize performance, enhance operational efficiency, and make data‑driven decisions across every aspect of the built environment.
Geometrid provides project stakeholders with complete visibility across construction supply chains, which enables them to identify and mitigate risks before they escalate. Owners, developers, and contractors get live updates within an interactive BIM context for tracking deliverables, monitoring, and reporting progress across project stages. By adding the Geometrid Partner Card, teams can improve supply chain management across projects and easily share their live insights with stakeholders directly in Autodesk Build.
Join brings owners, contractors, and design teams into a single management platform for preconstruction and design. For owners, Join provides a clear line of sight into cost, risk, schedule impacts, and trade-offs, so projects move forward without surprises. Owners and project teams can also leverage Join Benchmarking to quickly generate conceptual estimates grounded in historical project data. With the Join Partner Card integration, project teams can access Join directly within Autodesk Build Insights dashboard.
PODIUM is the first AI-powered SaaS platform to unify outcome-based design, supply-chain intelligence, and automation - fast-tracking fully buildable developments from concept to construction. Purpose-built for modular typologies such as data center and multi-family residential, PODIUM enables rapid feasibility and schematic-level design by translating performance targets - capacity, power density, efficiency, cost, schedule, and sustainability - directly into coordinated, buildable solutions.
With the PODIUM Extension in Autodesk Forma, designers can instantly bring Podium automated buildings, complete with generated structural and MEP systems into the Forma ecosystem for further analysis. The PODIUM Revit and AutoCAD plugins create an intelligent, real-time bridge between PODIUM scenarios and native BIM models, enabling one-click loss-less transfer of information to both desktop design environments. And with connectivity to ACC, regular file exchange can also happen between Podium and your ACC Project.
VAPAR integrates AI‑powered CCTV defect detection directly into Autodesk Info360 Asset, transforming traditionally slow, manual pipe inspection workflows into fast, automated, and data‑intelligent processes. VAPAR automatically detects and codes defects from CCTV footage and the results sync directly into Info360 Asset for risk scoring and prioritization. This enables reliable pre‑ and post‑repair comparisons and helps utilities and councils standardize inspection data, accelerate proactive maintenance planning, and strengthen asset‑based investment decisions. The result is up to 80% less manual review time, improved accuracy through AI‑driven condition insights and trend analysis, and a faster, more confident pace of engineering and renewal decision‑making.
Design planning with laser scanning allows teams to create more accurate models of the existing conditions and to leverage scan-to-BIM workflows. Try these integrations for transforming and managing laser scan data.
IPX is a scan‑to‑BIM platform and API that enables AECO teams, laser‑scanning professionals, and owners to capture and visualize existing conditions with millimeter‑level accuracy by combining high‑resolution 3D scanning with precise 3D modeling. Through its SCANIT service, teams can rapidly deploy scanning pros to site and receive point clouds, 2D floor plans, and BIM‑ready models, while BIMIT transforms point clouds into Revit‑native BIM, CAD drawings, RCPs, IFC models, and verified point clouds. With instant quoting, transparent scheduling, and a seamless integration for Autodesk Construction Cloud, IPX streamlines documentation, eliminates data duplication, and centralizes coordination.
Capture, process, and deliver data from onsite construction sites using FARO Laser Scanners, SCENE Software and WebShare Cloud, a cloud-based hosting platform that provides real-time access for all project stakeholders. WebShare Cloud supports 3D reality data of any size to be viewed, stored, shared, and evaluated for better project management and BIM workflow via the internet.
Matterport uses reality capture to create dimensionally accurate digital twins that support design, construction, and operations across the full project life cycle. Using its LiDAR-based Pro3 camera, supported 360 cameras, and E57 point clouds, teams capture and manage reliable spatial data for existing conditions, design validation, construction progress, and record documentation, helping reduce rework and site visits. Matterport exports BIM and CAD files directly into Autodesk Build and Autodesk Docs, where teams can reference immersive site views alongside project files. Stakeholders can create and track RFIs with visual, location-based context from the digital twin, improving clarity during construction and supporting more reliable handover for operations.
Bridging the gap between the physical and digital world, NavVis provides an all-in-one reality capture solution that captures and visualizes environments during construction and operational phases. Connecting the mapped as-built environment in NavVis IVION with the NavVis IVION Add-In for Autodesk Revit or with Autodesk Build Issues, users can coordinate, compare, and update BIM models across the project team.
Integrations for design planning may help you imagine what a project will look like before or while it’s built to better collaborate with designers and resolve issues before they get discovered in construction. These integrations keep you on track while creating a highly collaborative environment.
GAMMA AR imports and overlays 3D Models managed in Autodesk Build or Autodesk Docs on the construction site using Augmented Reality. By overlaying 3D Models on the jobsite, GAMMA AR prevents errors, reduces rework, and shortens the time spent on documentation and follow up resulting in savings of up to 10% of total construction costs.
Sitelink is a 3D construction collaboration platform that enables project teams to view large 3D models at 1:1 scale on site, in Augmented Reality. Now, teams can import and visualize 3D models managed in Autodesk Build or Autodesk Docs into Sitelink.
vSite is the operational control software for subsurface utility projects, connecting contractors and owners for water, sewer, storm, and power line work. Built to eliminate the 2–3% margin loss, vSite turns Autodesk Construction Cloud models and drawings into field-ready workflows on live sites: crews use construction-grade AR to visualize buried utilities before excavation, then capture installed quantities, time, equipment, and materials in the same flow. The data is automatically structured and mapped to cost codes, producing geo-tagged, audit-ready records that export to payroll and ERP, supporting defensible change orders, fewer disputes, and faster approvals and pay cycles.
Use reality capture integrations to take 360° and time-lapse photos. The imagery will allow you to reference the site history throughout all phases of construction, including a final look when construction is complete. Want to see your ductwork without opening up a wall? Use these integrations.
Cupix is a leading reality capture platform built for BIM, used by thousands of builders, owners, and developers worldwide to accurately document and track progress. By transforming 360° video into 3D point clouds, teams can identify discrepancies between designs and as-builts; remotely collaborate on as-built conditions; and avoid disputes with a single source of visual truth. Leveraging AI, computer vision, and advanced geometry, Cupix gives teams the accurate spatial data they need to make informed decisions at every stage of their projects. Plus, Cupix integrates seamlessly with Autodesk Construction Cloud, so teams can make faster decisions based on site conditions.
DroneDeploy is a leading enterprise-grade site reality platform. The software converts jobsites, structures, and assets into easy-to-understand digital representations, generating valuable insights for construction teams. Through mapping, 3D modeling, analysis, and reporting, DroneDeploy provides a detailed and accurate digital replica of any site (interior or exterior buildings and earthworks), enabling project teams to take action, save time, and lower unforeseen costs. High-resolution aerial maps and 360 images from DroneDeploy can be exported to Autodesk Build or Autodesk Docs.
EarthCam is a leader in visual intelligence for construction, helping teams turn live cameras, photos, and video into actionable insight. EarthCam seamlessly integrates webcam, 360° imagery, and time-lapse content into Autodesk Construction Cloud, enabling richer context across project workflows. AI-powered object detection and safety analytics enhance issues, RFIs, and reports within Autodesk Build. By accurately aligning real-time visuals with Navisworks models, EarthCam delivers a shared visual record that improves collaboration, accountability, and decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
Evercam changes how the world sees construction by unifying fixed position cameras, drone, and 360 capture in one platform so you can see exactly what's happening on site. Turn your visual data into real information you can use to make faster, better decisions to improve safety and productivity on your job site. Images and recordings from Evercam can be exported to specific folders within Autodesk Build or Autodesk Docs.
Herolapse uses reflex cameras to make high-quality construction timelapses, sending them to the cloud for easy access and sharing. Architects, engineers, project managers, and contractors can enable instant access to Herolapse's photos directly within Autodesk Build or Autodesk Docs. Furthermore, project stakeholders can embed camera feeds directly into their Autodesk Build Insights dashboard by adding the Herolapse Partner Card.
The OpenSpace Visual Intelligence Platform gives owners a clear, time-stamped visual history of jobsites throughout construction. Using Spatial AI, OpenSpace automatically maps 360° and smartphone images to project plans. Create and update ACC Issues directly in OpenSpace, with two-way sync keeping status, due dates, and descriptions aligned. Attach visual context and locations to RFIs and Issues automatically in Autodesk Build. View models and 360° photos side by side. OpenSpace integrations help you reduce risk and make confident decisions for on-track, on-budget projects. See a recent interview with the OpenSpace founders on the Digital Builder podcast for how reality capture has evolved and how OpenSpace can help.
These leading reality capture solutions are easy to enable and tightly integrate into Autodesk Construction Cloud. Find their integrations in the App Gallery and enable them across projects with a couple of simple clicks to sync photos and videos into Autodesk applications to reference during collaboration and for archival. Users can add these Partner Cards to a project dashboard to see jobsite imagery in the context of a project. With these tools in combination, owners can reduce costs and improve the safety of the construction site.
Good documentation matters and should be carefully managed from day one. This is especially important in the final stretch before the operations team takes over. These integration partners help with documentation management during every phase of a project, including migration of documents come time for handover.
Why use separate systems when 360Sync can automatically update document, drawing, photo, RFI, and Submittal libraries from wherever new files are uploaded or altered? 360 Sync integrates Autodesk Build and Autodesk Docs, with platforms such as Viewpoint 4 Projects, BlueBeam Studio Projects, Asite, Citrix Files, Box, Dropbox, Egnyte, ShareFile, and Google Drive.
We also recognize that not all companies have the engineering resources or time to build custom integrations. This is where Autodesk Construction Cloud Connect (ACC Connect) comes in. ACC Connect – a robust, no-code platform that keeps your apps and data connected – helps you tailor integrations to your business and workflow needs, keeping your teams and projects connected and moving forward.
With ACC Connect, project stakeholders can rest assured that their data is accurate and up to date. And since the information stays in sync, teams know that they can get the documents and information they need in the application they use most.
Cloudsfer is a cloud-based migration and backup service supporting more than 30 storage providers, including Autodesk. It enables organizations to securely back up and migrate data from on-premises systems, SharePoint, servers, and ECM platforms, as well as cloud sources such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Egnyte - directly into Autodesk.
Designed for a true set-and-forget experience, Cloudsfer provides automated cloud backup, project archiving, and reliable recovery, ensuring business-critical data is continuously protected without ongoing manual effort. The platform is ISO 27001 certified, uses SSL-encrypted data transfers, and is built to meet the strict security and compliance requirements of large enterprises worldwide.
Glider's handover platform, known as EDocuments, streamlines the entire construction handover documentation process by providing a collaborative document‑production platform designed for data compliance, data assurance and BIM‑centric workflows. The platform automates the creation of digital handover deliverables, such as operation and maintenance manuals, by enabling configurable, rules‑based file transfers between Autodesk Construction Cloud, Autodesk Build and Autodesk Docs. The integration extracts data directly from 3D models, cross‑checks attributes against required specifications and imports curated documentation from ACC into EDocuments to ensure accuracy and consistency. Overall, the EDocuments platform helps project teams reduce costs, eliminate manual document handling and deliver complete and compliant handover packages.
ProjectReady’s solutions connect project teams and information across platforms (ACC, Procore, SharePoint, Egnyte)—automatically keeping owners in sync, with the same information across stakeholders and with a fully traceable audit trail. With ProjectReady WorkBridge, owners automatically bridge content and workflows across platforms with no manual effort. With ProjectReady Central, owners can enable Microsoft 365 Cloud Backup for ACC to reduce risk while centralizing governance and automating project setup. These solutions let teams work in the systems they know best, eliminate costly manual reconciliation, and ensure owners have accurate, auditable project data across the full lifecycle.
Using integrations that keep your teams connected helps overcome many of the greatest challenges of working on large projects. Building better partnerships with contractors, reducing rework, and unifying project management are just some of the benefits of finding the right integrations for your needs.
Great communication gets even better with centralized data. You’ll run your business and projects with much fewer hiccups. With Autodesk’s Construction Ecosystem and Platform, you can leverage different integrations to connect data across your tech stack and streamline collaboration with all stakeholders. A good construction platform helps you configure integrations your way while allowing you to develop your own (with our help) to make sure the job gets done.
We all know the importance of making data-driven decisions, and it’s something we talk about all the time here at Autodesk.
But we also know that making the right decisions—even when you have all the data—isn’t easy. Construction projects generate a massive amount of documents and information. From issues and RFIs to schedules and safety inspections, there’s a lot to sift through.
In fact, Autodesk's State of Design & Make: Construction Spotlight report shows that teams spend an average of 13 hours per week looking for the right data.
That’s a lot of hours, and it’s time that most people would rather spend actually building, not hunting for answers.
The good news is we have just the tool to help you harness the power of your data and turn it into action.
Autodesk Assistant is an AI-powered assistant built into Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) that helps teams quickly find answers and understand what’s happening across their projects without digging through endless files or dashboards.
A game-changer for design and construction workflows, Autodesk Assistant simplifies how you interact with your data so answers are always within reach.
Traditional approaches to project data often rely on manual searches, static dashboards, or time-consuming reports. Autodesk Assistant changes this experience by serving as an intelligent chatbot partner for every project. It’s always available and ready to help.
Autodesk Assistant is designed for speed and simplicity, and you can engage with it in everyday language. Just ask a question, and it quickly surfaces tailored answers and insights.
Autodesk Assistant offers several benefits:
When it comes to AI assistants in construction, the better your prompts, the better your results. Clear, well-structured prompts help you zero in on the insights you need and take action faster.
With Autodesk Assistant, you can be specific about what you’re looking for and define details like date ranges, trades, issue status, locations, or project phases. You can also request that information be organized in a particular format, like a dashboard or bulleted list.
Even better, you can save your favorite prompts and reuse them to create a repeatable way to ask the right questions and get consistent answers across projects and teams. And if writing prompts feels intimidating, you’re not on your own. Autodesk Assistant includes a prompt library with a wide range of ready-to-use examples you can explore, adapt, and experiment with—so you can get value quickly without starting from scratch. The assistant is also context-aware and will suggest relevant prompts based on where it’s opened from.
To show how Autodesk Assistant is making a real difference, let’s look at some actual prompts customers are using today to unlock valuable insights from their project data.
These examples show how customers are using Autodesk Assistant to cut through complexity and get answers they can actually act on.
Autodesk has a robust Issues tool that lets you track items such as punch list items, safety concerns, design errors, and more. But if you’re dealing with multiple projects, viewing and prioritizing issues can get overwhelming
This is where you can use Autodesk Assistant. The prompts below show how teams can surface risks and prioritize work without digging through every issue log.
Whether it's getting more clarity on design intent or seeking approval for project materials, RFIs and submittals can easily become bottlenecks if they’re not closely tracked and actioned on. Here’s how Autodesk Assistant can help you get a better handle on them.
You can also prompt your Autodesk AI Assistant to surface schedule milestones and risks, so you and your team can keep projects on track.
Stay on top of quality control by asking Autodesk Assistant to analyze your project data and flag any potential quality risks. That way, you can address issues early and avoid future rework.
Having a cohesive and buildable model before construction begins hinges on strong design coordination. With multiple disciplines contributing to the model, there's a risk that things will fall out of sync. Try using the following prompts to spot conflicts early and keep teams aligned.
Change is inevitable on construction projects, but you can stay on top of them. Autodesk Assistant helps teams track change orders, revisions, and updates to have better control over scope and budget.
You can also use Autodesk Assistant to monitor compliance status and identify potential safety risks.
Autodesk Assistant makes your project data work for you. No more digging through reports or manually analyzing data. With Autodesk Assistant, you can ask questions in plain language (just like with a regular assistant) and you’ll get clear, instant answers that put your data to good use.
Explore Autodesk Assistant and see how it can turn project data into decisions you can trust.
