Tuesday, August 22, 2023
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Visit Oracle’s Industry Lab
In partnership with Oracle, AGC has organized a visit to Oracle’s Industry Lab in Deerfield, IL, just a quick trip from downtown Chicago.
This 30,000-square foot facility provides a job-site simulated environment to develop new ideas and create solutions leveraging technology from Oracle and more than 42 industry partners. This visit will be specific to Engineering and Construction and exclusive to registered conference attendees. Learn More.
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
IT Boot Camps – Part 1
Additional $99 fee to attend this year’s boot camps.
Take a deep dive into what drives a successful BIM/VDC practice while staying above the weeds with the expert guidance of Yates Construction’s Greg Smith. In this three-hour boot camp we will go over how to plan and implement VDC across an organization, applying digital workflows to construction projects, and discuss IT considerations for VDC.
Presented by Greg Smith, Yates Construction
Construction firms and their IT direction are a perennial conversation. How do we lead tech? Who leads? Construction firms have far more reliance on good IT. Topics to deal with abound. How does today’s CIO, working with senior management, determine what to prioritize, how to staff, how to effectively deploy. What is the role of business in IT initiatives and how to create an effective partnership. Alignment of IT with the business is more important than ever. This boot camp will cover the concepts of IT Governance at a foundational level and then build into more intermediate and advanced topics from there. This will include:
- The Business/IT Partnership matrix
- IT decision making
- Measuring and reporting progress
- Developing and communicating an IT strategy
- How to manage innovation
- Role of a PMO
- Structure of today’s IT department
- Managing shadow IT intentionally
If you are trying to decide how IT fits in your organization and how to become a tech forward organization, this intensive workshop is for you.
Presented by: Christian Burger, Burger Consulting Group
3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Networking Break with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
IT Boot Camps – Part 2
Additional $99 fee to attend this year’s boot camps.
Take a deep dive into what drives a successful BIM/VDC practice while staying above the weeds with the expert guidance of Yates Construction’s Greg Smith. In this three-hour boot camp we will go over how to plan and implement VDC across an organization, applying digital workflows to construction projects, and discuss IT considerations for VDC.
Presented by Greg Smith, Yates Construction
Additional $99 fee to attend this year’s boot camps.
Construction firms and their IT direction are a perennial conversation. How do we lead tech? Who leads? Construction firms have far more reliance on good IT. Topics to deal with abound. How does today’s CIO, working with senior management, determine what to prioritize, how to staff, how to effectively deploy. What is the role of business in IT initiatives and how to create an effective partnership. Alignment of IT with the business is more important than ever. This boot camp will cover the concepts of IT Governance at a foundational level and then build into more intermediate and advanced topics from there. This will include:
- The Business/IT Partnership matrix
- IT decision making
- Measuring and reporting progress
- Developing and communicating an IT strategy
- How to manage innovation
- Role of a PMO
- Structure of today’s IT department
- Managing shadow IT intentionally
If you are trying to decide how IT fits in your organization and how to become a tech forward organization, this intensive workshop is for you.
Presented by: Christian Burger, Burger Consulting Group
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Welcome Reception
Sponsored By:
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
8:00 AM – 8:45 AM
Breakfast for All Attendees
Sponsored By:
8:45 AM – 9:00 AM
Kickoff Remarks
9:00 AM – 9:15 AM
Address from AGC Senior Vice President Thomas L. Brown
10:15 AM – 10:30 AM
Tech Demo #1
Sponsored By:
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM
Networking Break with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Breakout Sessions
In this session, Director of Scheduling and Analytics, Patrick Hennessy, and Data and Software Engineer, Ben Pecson, will walk the audience through how Harkins Builders has built and maintained data pipelines entirely in the cloud to extract data from APIs of software products and load it into a data lake and ultimately a data warehouse for actionable advanced reporting, automation, and modeling. Patrick and Ben will walk the audience through the process, the challenges, the programming languages and platforms used, and the end results to demonstrate how every construction company should be leveraging their data to take their efficiency to the next level and the journey required to get from data silos, to a data centric organization.
Presented by: Patrick Hennessy & Ben Pecson, Harkins Builders
Ready to join us again on a wild ride through Miller-Davis Company’s digital transformation journey? In this exciting session, we’ll be sharing the latest updates as we continue to shake up the way we do business and interact within the construction industry.
Over the past year, we’ve made some incredible progress, from reimagining our preconstruction department to embracing the power of cloud infrastructure. We’ve even implemented a brand-new prequalification system and hosted some amazing team-building sessions that have brought our team closer than ever before.
But that’s not all – we’ve also learned some valuable, and hard, lessons along the way. We’ll be sharing our ups and downs while developing our strategies for making better innovation decisions. You won’t want to miss this incredible opportunity to learn from our implementation experiences, as Warren Buffet said, “It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.” Therefore, come and learn from ours!
Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a digital newcomer, you’ll come away inspired and energized to take your own digital transformation to the next level.
Presented by: Ariel Castillo & Jack Abate, Miller-Davis
This session will feature an update of recent trends in attacks, including updates of real life hacks from clients in the industry – sharing stories and lessons learned along the way. In addition, we will conduct a live hacking demonstration to illustrate the ease of many common attack techniques.
Presented by: Joseph Oleksak & Scott Petree, Plante Moran
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Lunch
Sponsored By:
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
General Session | A Tale of Two Projects: How Gaylor Electric is Leveraging Analytics to Eliminate Fade
As the VP of Business Intelligence at Gaylor Electric, my mission is to empower our users to measurement-focused accountability by uncovering and communicating the stories in our data through intuitive visuals to eliminate emotion from the decision making process.
In this presentation, I will illustrate some of the stories that we have found in our data that have empowered our teams to make significant changes. A large portion of the presentation will be around our Labor Curve which tells the story of a project. I will also dive into some of our historical results and how I have converted these lagging indicators into leading Indicators.
Presented by: Jack Hineman, Gaylor Electric
2:00 PM – 2:15 PM
Tech Demo #2
Sponsored By:
2:15 PM – 2:45 PM
Coffee & Cookie Social with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Breakout Sessions
Data Track
The construction industry has a reputation for being inefficient and costly, and many teams are resistant to change. However, by implementing Lean practices, teams can significantly increase efficiency, improve communication, and reduce waste.
In this presentation, we will share our experience using elements from the Scrum framework with enterprise-wide data analytics to highlight process and productivity issues that the Boldt Production System acts to counter. We will provide a case study example of the Shrine project, where we were able to save two months of schedule time and engage the team based on dashboard data to enable easier and better project delivery.
In addition, we will address the common challenge of how to implement Lean practices even when it seems too late. The session will provide practical knowledge and tools to help attendees overcome resistance to change and successfully implement Lean practices in their own projects, ultimately leading to improved outcomes and a more efficient construction industry. We will cover topics such as how to read data from Power BI dashboards, listen to project teams report out, and make decisions to get involved. Our one-month Sprint cycle using Scrum training will be emphasized, as well as how to conduct a deeper dive into metrics that require closer attention.
Attendees will learn how to bridge the gap between the current state and the desired future state of a construction industry that is open to change and focused on continuous improvement.
Whether you are in the planning, design, construction, or maintenance phase of a project, this presentation will provide valuable insights and practical strategies for successfully implementing Lean practices in your organization with data.
Presented by: Felipe Engineer-Manriquez, Registered Scrum Trainer, MBA
This session will bring forward various 3rd party reach and statistics of the shocking waste associated with passively managing technology. This isn’t about processes for selecting tech, or increasing adoption. This is the business case for formalizing technology management as a part of business operations buch like accounting/finance, legal/risk, HR, and Operations.
The statistics will show that on average for the lower half of construction companies there is upwards of $375,000 per year to save simply by staying on top of the tech inventory, contracts, etc. For the upper half of the industry, this savings opportunity is in the millions. Don’t take our word for it, let’s go through the statistics and case studies both in construction and in other industries.
This presentation does not promote technology brands or products. It does not promote particular consulting or advisory firms. The numbers and the logic speak for themselves, and it is startling.
This session will include Jay Snyder, as the lead speaker, Shabe Deville – CEO of TriArc construction to copresent as a contractor in the lower half of the industry, and Rob Leutheuser – VP at Christman to copresent as a contractor in the upper half of the industry.
The presentation will be guided by a slide deck to further illustrate the points and support various methods that the audience consumes information.
Presented by: Jay Snyder, Big Blue Innovations; Shane Deville, TriArc Construction; Rob Leutheuser, Christman
Security Track
This session will be a panel of Cybersecurity professionals in the construction industry who have helped stand up and improve cybersecurity programs at their organizations. We will cover topics that help the audience understand where the program was when they started and where they are now and the key steps to getting there.
The session will be interactive with the audience while ensuring there are key actionable takeaways for every level of cybersecurity program.
Presented by: Rob Spencer & Tylar Alfred, CAMP Construction; Anthony Castano, SpawGlass
3:45 PM – 4:15 PM
Networking Break with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
4:15 PM – 5:30 PM
General Session | Inexpensive Solutions to Common IT Challenges
Grab a drink (beer & wine available) and join us for this fast-paced and fun open discussion on the best and most inexpensive solutions to your common IT challenges.
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Networking Reception
Sponsored By:
Thursday, August 24, 2023
7:30 AM – 8:00 AM
Breakfast for All Attendees
Sponsored By:
8:00 AM – 8:45 AM
General Session | Confessions of a CIA Spy – The Art of Human Hacking
Security Track
Most successful data breaches are initiated by human hacking. Threat actors carefully select, assess, and manipulate key employees within a target organization who in turn become the “insider threat.” Advanced social engineering techniques are employed to effectively circumvent the policies, procedures and technological controls put in place to safeguard proprietary information, client data and sensitive personnel records.
For over 20 years of his career with the Central Intelligence Agency, Peter developed expertise in the identification, assessment, and manipulation of insiders to breach the security of target organizations in pursuit of high-value foreign intelligence. He now shares his insight to help protect organizations and employees against external threats.
The audience will leave with:
– Why humans are so susceptible to human hacking
– An understanding of threat actors and their objectives
– How threat actors use social media platforms to identitfy and assess employees as potential insider candidates
– How insider motivations and vulnerabilities are leveraged into the design and execution of advanced social engineering techniques including Spear Phishing, Smithing, Vishing and Face-to-Face approaches
– The evolution and impact of Deepfake techology in human hacking schemes
– Three key actionable tips to prevent falling victim to human hacking.
Presented by: Peter G. Warmka, Counterintelligence Institute
8:45 AM – 9:00 AM
Tech Demo #3
Sponsored By:
9:00 AM – 9:20 AM
Networking Break with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
9:20 AM – 10:05 AM
Breakout Sessions
Today’s contractors are steeped in data, often provided through different systems and by different data providers. IT leaders have sought to connect data through custom API integrations but those take time to maintain since they’re not automated. That reality is changing thanks to new solutions that provide automatic integrations between commonly used applications and data sources. The result is an interconnected workflow that enables information sharing both within and across organizations so that project teams can use the right information to make the right decisions at the right time.
BIM/VDC Track
This session will illustrate the similarities between these two products from a CM/GC point of view and will have case studies to support the subject matter. There will be a list of pros and cons for both with the session not leaning toward either product, but more toward making the audience aware of the features and how they are utilized in the two firms that are presenting. The objective is to arm the audience with enough information to walk away with a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each product and which would be more beneficial for their companies.
Presented by: Donnie Bogle-Boesinger, Findorff; Usamah Hayes, CSM Group
This session will feature information about HITT’s process for vetting, validating and qualifying technology products for pilot and deployment across our organization. Attendees will leave feeling encouraged to build their own tech validation process so they can get the most of their tech partnership.
Presented by: Karl Sorensen, HITT Contracting, Inc.
10:05 AM – 10:10 AM
Transition Break
10:05 AM – 10:55 AM
General Session | Leaning Into Construction Chaos
In this interactive session, Charlie Dunn, Project Story Teller DPR Construction, will introduce you to the chaos facing construction project teams. As you prepare for the preeminent IT Conference for construction, you must connect with the project teams we support. Through workshop-style exercises, storytelling, and audience participation you will learn about the influence of Lean practices and innovation transforming construction.
Presented by: Charlie Dunn, DPR Construction
10:55 AM – 11:10 AM
Tech Demo #4
Sponsored By:
11:10 AM – 11:30 AM
Networking Break with Sponsors
Sponsored By:
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Breakout Sessions
Data Track
As technology has evolved, stakeholders in the design and construction industry are provided with a plethora of tools at their disposal to capture, transfer, and validate project data; however, interoperability between applications as well as collaboration amongst stakeholders continue to be barriers for many in obtaining efficient workflows. Project teams and their technology infrastructure are stressed as stakeholders and their support systems seek to realize the potential embedded in data. Data is often trapped within an application or reaches a dead-end with one stakeholder or another. This result is more waste in the industry and this causes other project stakeholders to struggle to get the information they need or to simply recreate that data.
This panel will explore three key perspectives on data capture, transfer, and validation across applications and amongst stakeholders. We’ll discuss a designer’s, contractor’s, and owner’s perspective through the lens of challenges, opportunities, and solutions. What has each stakeholder representative done to overcome challenges, identify new opportunities, and deploy solutions? How have they been able to collaborate with each other and their own technology departments to maximize the value of quality data. We’ll also discuss initiatives that are occurring on the international and national level to help promote open data standards that decouple the data from the application, highlighting the updates to the National BIM Standards and the new U.S. National BIM Program and how they aim to drive the rapid development and adoption of next-gen standards.
Presented by: Johnny Fortune, National Institute of Building Sciences; Alex Belkofer, McCarthy Building Companies; Steve Hutsell, US Army Corps of Engineers; Paul Audsley, NBBJ Design
Reality Capture has emerged as one of the most valuable technologies for documenting and communicating project progress, project quality, and assessing as-built conditions throughout a structure’s lifecycle. However, the reality capture landscape includes a number of solutions, all of which consist of different resolutions, speed, cost, and visual deliverables – enough variation to fatigue even the most innovative of AEC/O firms.
To help streamline the selection and implementation process of this valuable technology, we brought together an experienced panel with the most popular reality capture solutions within a simulated construction environment at the Oracle Industry Lab in Chicago, Illinois. There, we conducted experiments to help answer the very important question, “How do you choose which reality capture tool, process, and team is right for the job?”
Our experienced panel reviewed the various solutions, comparing the capture, post-capture and processing phases, to assess the reality capture data, repeatability, effectiveness, and efficiency across various use case scenarios. During the capture process, we recorded data such as process to capture, time to capture, level of skill required to capture, and more. Post-capture and -processing, we compared levels of resolution, quality of visuals, ease of use, and cost of capture, as well as the types of deliverables, achieving a similar virtual and measurable walkthrough experience from the input reality data, merged against 2D design and 3D BIM.
Join our panel to see our answers to the question “What is the right reality capture tool, process, and team for the job?” We will recap the experiment, including a presentation of the use-case scenarios, followed by a panel discussion of best practices around team, process, and tool for reality capture.
Presented by: Jennifer Suerth, LEED AP, Pepper Construction; Tomislav Zigo, Clayco; Dr. Mani Golparvar, Reconstruct; Jack Dunn, Skydio; Dan Prochazka, Reconstruct; Frank Malangone, Oracle
When it comes to construction projects, having access to the right tools and resources can make or break success. This was certainly the case for Pepper Construction, who made a bold move to leverage their existing tool, SharePoint, to manage project documents and data. Unfortunately, this decision created more roadblocks than solutions, leading them to eventually abandon the platform and invest in an alternative solution. This presentation takes a closer look at how SharePoint failed to meet Pepper Construction’s objectives.
Presented by: Kevin Soohoo, Egnyte
12:15 PM – 1:00 PM
Lunch
Sponsored By:
1:00 PM – 1:45 PM
General Session | Bridging the Gap – Becoming More Than Just a Tech Leader
Managing/PM Track
This session is intended to help the audience understand the importance of being more than just a technologist leading a team of IT professionals. Businesses are looking for high level leaders that understand and can solve core business problems and drive efficiency, not just someone to fix printers, set up iPads and install software.
They will walk away with solid concepts on how to market IT to the organization, how to gain influence across the organization, how to drive effective change, and how to develop a business mindset all of which lead to getting a true “seat at the table”
Presented by: Rob Spencer, CAMP Construction
1:45 AM – 1:50 PM
Transition Break
1:50 PM – 2:30 PM
Breakout Sessions
Unlocking the Metaverse: Blockchain, AI, Digital Twins and their Effect on the Construction Industry
BIM/VDC Track
Metaverse is the next evolution of the Internet while Blockchain is emerging as the next generation of data and financial management. How do these technology innovations affect you, your company and our industry? Join us for a discovery of how Building Information Models (BIM) and Digital Twins are becoming a key element of the metaverse and how Blockchain technologies like Smart Contracts and NFTs along with emerging technologies like AI and Chatbots that reside in the metaverse, are creating new workflows, challenges, and value propositions for our industry.
You will learn how to cut through the jargon and implement sound strategies and approaches to meet the requirements of these new generational innovations. A live metaverse demo will be shown that will highlight construction processes and outcomes of the digital built environment. We look forward to having you join us on this incredible journey into the next generation of technology and its effect on the built environment.
Presented by: Paul Doherty, The Digit Group; Hugh Seaton, The Link
2:35 PM – 2:50 PM
Conference Summary & Takeaways