August 9, 2010

UDA Technologies unveils iPhone apps for construction

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

No one working in the construction sector would venture on to a jobsite without their hard hat and steel-toe boots and you can add another essential piece of equipment to that list — the smart phone.

While BlackBerries have long been favoured as the ultimate tool belt attachment and tool to check email from head office, suppliers and even colleagues on large sites where getting from one end to the other is problematic, the mobile phone is starting to pick up more responsibilities as the industry shifts to a digital model and away from paper.

As part of that migration there’s also a new kid on the site, the popular Apple iPhone. With its sleek design and touch screen, it seems almost too elegant and fragile for the dusty, dangerous environs of a construction site.

“It probably is but it has a big cache,” says Michael Stevens, president of UDA Technologies of Alabama which last month released three applications for the iPhone which marry with it’s main product, ConstructionSuite software solution.

“We’ve seen the BlackBerries on the sites for a while and more lately the iPhone and it wasn’t that hard to port over the application for it so we did.”

The mobile applications tap into UDA’s construction suite software with estimating and costs, scheduling and time management, QuickBooks integration, contracts and proposals. These fold into ConstructionOnline, a parallel service that puts all the documents and materials online in the “cloud” where authorized users can pull down exactly what they need via their own PC, a mobile phone or at a client’s office.

The three downloads are free. OnSite Photo works with the camera on the iPhone to instantly upload and share pictures so the crew, management or client are instantly updated. Similarly there’s OnSite Video which allows up to 10-minute videos to be shared and OnSite Files, which gives the field crew access to UDA’s core product, ConstructionOnline.

While iPhone apps are new, UDA also has applications for the BlackBerry and is planning to add programs for the other operating systems used on mobile smart phones, such as Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile 7.

The trend toward digital is nothing new, says Stevens, but it’s rapidly gaining traction and that’s what makes it such an exciting time for software makers like his company.

“You’ve got a lot of younger guys coming into the construction business and they want these tools,” he says.

While laptops are a common sight at sites these days, especially those like the Panasonic Toughbook, designed to take the rough and tumble of the construction business, until recently mobile phones had neither the horsepower nor the widespread usage to make designing application for them feasible.

“At one point we were looking at whether we could work with someone to develop a $500 machine, a Netbook (low power, light and ultras mall and portable machines which connect to the Web) which would work onsite,” says Stevens, noting that the mobile phone jumped to the top of the list with the hoopla around the iPhone.

While the iPhone may not be ideally designed for construction sites — or even the BlackBerry for that matter — they can be protected in rugged cases which are fairly cheap and easy to find.

What’s more exciting, says Stevens, is that with the onboard computing power they can be tasked to a variety of chores and may connect with other devices as add-ons to create functionality.

The iPhone, for example, already has apps for level and compass orientation and it may not be a stretch to attach a laser to it to compute distance or rough check stake lines.

More intriguing yet is developing an app for the iPad which would integrate with the online ConstructionSuite. With the iPad’s larger screen and ease of navigation, field crews could drill through documents quickly to find specs or check drawings.

“In some ways we’re going in the opposite direction of where we started,” says Stevens. “With the desktop system, the goal was to have everything available but those are massive files. With the mobile you only pull down what you want. The files are smaller and it’s much faster to find what you’re looking for.”

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