Dive Brief:
- JE Dunn’s new preconstruction tool, Align, won the Fast Company 2024 Innovation by Design award in the large business category in July, the company revealed on August 12.
- The Kansas City, Missouri-based builder created Align in partnership with hometown tech and consulting firm Crema. The goal of the tool is to help potential partners budget better and simplify the estimating process.
- Align leverages data from more than 1,400 JE Dunn projects, with which users can set an accurate cost baseline, according to the company. Some of the data points include estimated costs per square foot and total project costs, paired with imagery from completed jobs. It delivers estimates within a 1% margin of error, according to Fast Company.
Dive Insight:
With the tool, users can tackle the logistical issues of cost estimation, and envision what’s physically possible, per the firm.
It lets users create their own buildings with different elements and forecasts the cost based on completed projects, a process the magazine compared to the Papa John’s pizza builder app. Instead of toppings, however, customers can choose from a menu of architectural styles, amenities and building facades, all within a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface.
Align has been in use for about a year on one in five JE Dunn projects, Fast Company reported. Builds include high-rise residential projects, retail properties and higher education work.
“Instead of having challenging conversations where we have to overcome design and budget issues, we spend our time on refining projects to be more efficient or adding more sustainability,” Jason Hickam, JE Dunn’s national preconstruction and estimating director, told Fast Company.
“It allows our clients and design teams to establish a realistic foundational budget that reflects their project goals and delivers certainty of results tied to historical costs and visual representations as well as live estimate updates,” Hickman added in a JE Dunn news release.
Though construction has a reputation for being an industry that’s slow to adopt technology, contractors and tech firms are making strides to close that gap. Earlier this year, eight construction-adjacent firms were among Fast Company’s list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024.”
