What To Build: Gaurav Joshi (Special Projects Bay Area, Turner Construction)

Conversation with Gaurav Joshi, Head of Special Projects for the Bay Area at Turner Construction. We chat about Turner’s six step process to get from problem curation to startup pilot testing, the necessity for visualization of construction processes for startups even with multiple in-depth verbal interviews, and why founders need to be aware of differences in how investors vs. end users think about value.

1. Tell us about yourself, where you currently work, and your path on getting there.

I’m the Special Projects Division Manager for Turner Construction for the Bay Area region and a Co-founder and Partner of Turner Labs.

Turner Construction is a North America-based, international construction services company and is a leading builder in diverse market segments. We pride ourselves on making a difference in the lives of our People, Customers and Community. With a staff of 10,000 employees across the USA, the company completes $12 billion of construction on 1,500 projects each year.

Innovation is an ingrained part of our company culture — in fact, Turner got started in 1902 as a technology entrant into the construction market by pioneering the use of steel-reinforced concrete for general building.

2. Tell us about your role and what your mandate is and how this specifically relates to working with startups?

Our division works with clients who have specific needs or who need something that is often outside the regular pace of construction work; the actual work could be anything from corporate interiors to biopharmaceutical facilities. Essentially, our clients present us with a challenge or a set of conditions and we present them with a plan to execute on their needs.

We use a targeted approach to solve construction related challenges and our mandate is to take care of people first and then create processes to ensure consistency and provide reliability.

Turner Labs is like a matchmaking service between technical founders / startups / EIRs with our job sites’ problem statements. The breakdown of startups we work with fall into a three-horizon framework:

a) 70% of startups focus on optimization or reduction of waste / processes

b) 20% of startups focus on adding new revenue streams or ideas to the core business

c) 10% of startups focus on evolving technologies that are still exploratory in nature

In other words, if we are running ten pilots, seven would add immediate value or produce cost savings, two would tap into additional revenue streams, and one would be preparatory for future value.

After we generate, check for duplication, and align with our business priorities the problem statements from our field teams, we match these statements via our external portal to see who might have solutions for us. Right now, our portal can only be accessed by specific startups but we want to open that up to a wider audience in the future.

We also find that a startup will talk to many people in construction, but still walk away not having a deep enough understanding of existing processes because much of the construction process is translated via apprenticeship, stories and retelling of shared experiences. We take our problem statements and visually map out each step of the physical process (i.e., the current state process map) and then coach the startups by showing them how their proposed products/services can augment or change the existing processes.

3. What are some of the interesting types of projects that you’re currently doing with startups?

We’re doing projects with a number of startups right now.

One the robotics side, we are piloting with a robotics layout startup, performing point/insert and wall layout translated from CAD files. When I first started in construction, I was responsible for construction layout, providing offsets and reestablishing benchmarks as a field engineer and it’s really becoming more and more of a dying art. It is exciting working with a potential solution to transform generations of human knowledge/habits into a codified robotic solution.

We are also digitally mapping spaces with a startup that is creating “the google street view” of construction sites — we have rolled out their technology onto multiple projects already and it works great for communications as well. We care about creating transparency so it’s a good tool for us.

In addition, we are working with another robotics solution for interior wall finishing, which is in stealth mode; we were their first pilot, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to share additional details.

4. What number of these projects move into production? By what criteria? One of the challenges we see startups facing is how to move a customer from pilot to production.

We use a six step process to get from problem curation to pilot testing:

1) Problem Curation: develop and collect problem statement from our project sites

2) Solution Scan: leverage our 1,500 projects across the country to minimize duplicate efforts

3) Prioritization/Alignment: rank and sort which statements we tackle based on business impact

4) Problem Solution Fit: partner with external partners and develop a current state map

5) Go/No Go for Pilot: develop hypothesis and potential future state map with a ROI analysis

6) Pilot Testing: get out into the field and test!

The key part for us is the visualization — specifically, the mapping out of the current state process that we’ll apply the technology to and the mapping out of the future state process; the difference between the two processes is the value that’s created. We then pilot to see if we really get a time or cost savings that fits our hypotheses, and, if so, push into the next stage, which is integration into our larger processes, and then implementation.

We try to quantify and measure value so the startups who work with us can take that information and use it to raise rounds or show other potential partners how they add value.

It’s important to have a good understanding of how value is perceived by the investor versus the end user. Sometimes startups come in with certain goals that their investors want them to meet but these goals are not always what’s relevant for the end users. This can be tricky as startups often have pre-conceived ideas that investors have given them about the expectations that must be met in order to fundraise or expand. However, being open to exploring and re-defining value based on the project teams is a big deal for us.

We find that successful startups are the ones who are better at mapping how they change and improve processes. Additionally, startups that can build tactical responses to simple issues to move past initial non-acceptance do well — they have a plan to get past the initial no’s or resistance to technology adoption. For example, we piloted once with a startup that was creating digital time-sheets for construction workers, moving them off of a paper based process. Initial non-acceptance was an existential argument as to whether users would want to access the product via Apple or Android phones. The startup assumed that the mix of Apple and Android users would follow the overall population but, in reality, construction workers are much more likely to use Android devices and this startup’s app wasn’t adapted to that platform. Even though their product was great, they didn’t get any traction until they developed their app for both platforms.

5. What are the major challenges in your industry these days, and specifically ones that you think can be addressed by the right type of AI and or robotics application? Can you give some detailed examples?

We have two big focus areas:

1. We’re highly aware of the changing and aging workforce.

Currently, 40% of the construction work force are between the ages of 45 to 64. Older workers have higher injuries rates as well, due to falls, trips, etc.

We do not believe there is going to be a switch that we can flip on to automate construction. We are going to have an extended period where joint human led building and automation will deliver higher quality end results that are more reliable. We think that this duration is the bigger opportunity, and startups who can understand how to augment human labor with automation can impact the industry.

2. Knowledge transfer from the old to the new workforce

We are looking to minimize inconsistencies in the quality of work as knowledge is being transferred onto the new workforce — anything that can help ensure consistent quality.

We’re a self-insurer so we see the negative impacts of poor quality work, and how that can be harmful to both people and projects.

Studies have shown that poor quality is costing the industry annually more than the combined profits of all companies in this industry.

6. What type of startup would you be most excited to see?

I’m most excited to see working solutions in predictive safety analytics that help influence safety culture and behaviors. The majority of the data for safety consists of lagging indicators as opposed to leading indicators: it’s post-incident. We have to focus on information that will be used to influence and create an environment for preventative measures and behaviors to stick.

I think there is potential in AI technologies to have an impact here; however, while it has been advertised a lot, I have not found a single functional product that packages leading indicators to influence behaviors. Solutions are focused towards exposing and collecting data, which is a start, but there is progress to be made on using the data to understand motivations. Again, this will be key during the period where construction workers will be augmented with technology.

7. What should startups know about your industry before going in? What nuances or details about the industry are not so apparent from someone looking in?

Startups should be asking themselves: Are we functionally improving a process, generating a new revenue stream or a source that is not being captured? Or preparing this industry for something to come? Robust answers to these questions help accelerate our engagements and successful pilot outcomes.

I will also reiterate that it’s important to create visualizations and recordings in our industry when making sense of processes. A lot of times relying on only the verbal capture of information won’t be enough — our industry is building physical objects, so you’ll need to go a few levels deeper in detail to really understand what’s happening; hard visuals make a big difference.

Lastly, there’s a high level of variance by jurisdiction / region in how construction is accepted and inspected. A lot of mistakes are made in not understanding the regional nuances. Something can be built exactly the same in one place but not in another. These codes are also continually modified over time as well.

8. Lastly, any recommended resources / reading (ex. Industry conferences, publications, experts to follow, etc.) for startups looking to build in your space?

A lot of industry conferences are pretty tough for new entrants because they’re bombarded with a ton of information and it can be hard to filter what’s important and what’s not.

For books, I’d recommend:

The Complete Visual Guide to Building a House: It’s mainly illustrations, but an amazing way for people to understand how construction works and how things go together. I still reference and use this all the time.

The Lean Startup: particular focus on the visualization exercises.

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error: Variance and coding, understanding what wrong really means. Useful when thinking about misalignments between what technical founders think is right / wrong and how industry people think about it.