Founded in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, MSUITE is charting a new course for the MEP construction industry as it empowers contractors and modular builders to manage the entire construction lifecycle. MSUITE is a cloud-based management suite of software programs that connect BIM, Fab, and Field teams through easy-to-use and straightforward workflows that automate tedious tasks like tag pulling, dimensioning, and cut list creation in Autodesk Revit, as well as time-sheet creation and scheduling in the shop.
This article highlights seven ways MSUITE’s BIM-to-FAB-to-Field collaboration technology is charting a new course for the MEP construction industry every day.
1. Better Data Leads to Better Decisions
Construction projects have always been riddled with miscommunication, data silos, and costly detailing mistakes. MSUITE seeks to solve these problems with its focus on passively collecting data as users perform their work in the various stages of a project and displaying that data in meaningful ways to help influence better, more strategic decisions when managing projects. The MSUITE team’s vision is to provide an environment for BIM, Fab, and Field managers to manage their projects more cleanly, efficiently, and transparently.
2. Innovation and a Better Way to Build
The construction industry is at a crossroads. MSUITE is working to help solve the systemic issues that plague the industry as it enters a new era. Construction companies worldwide are looking for better ways to build, such as prefabrication. MSUITE aims to assist MEP contractors in reducing labor risk and increasing safety while maintaining quality control, increasing time and cost savings, and reducing environmental impacts. These goals have been widely recognized, but there has never been a technological platform connecting and supporting Design, Fab, and Field teams. This was all changed by the launch of MSUITE, spearheading the revolution to a better way to build more efficiently and cost-effectively.
3. The Power of Having Accurate Data & Predictive Intelligence
Fabrication shops around North America are searching for ways to implement new technologies to improve their processes. MSUITE offers this possibility with its goal to make the shop floor paperless. Whether it is a cut list, a drawing, or a task list, through MSUITE, it is all accessible via mobile app. MSUITE solutions like FabPro are tracking as users’ completed tasks, from start to finish. They measure things like how long the activity took and who did the work, and all in the background data without the user being required to report. The vast amount of data collected gives MSUITE insights to help Shop Managers improve their workflows and reduce data entry.
For example, The Shop Manager may have 20 people in their shop, and on average, they are completing X number of activities per hour. They may want to measure the weight, size, or volume of the items they are manufacturing. MSUITE can help to provide these kinds of insights without manual entry, saving users of all types, hours of effort.
At the click of a button, a BIM designer uploads an advanced work package of fabrication work into the system, MSUITE instantly determines whether the Shop Manager will make their delivery dates and by how many manhours. This is all thanks to the FabPro system, which can make such judgments based on the data it has passively collected. This is a revolutionary advancement because never before has any Fab Shop seen that kind of data without going through the tedious process of manual tracking. Previously, these predictive analytics were not available until well after the significant work was done and typically, not until materials had arrived on the jobsite, when it is too late to make changes.
4. Today’s Difficulties Managing Projects
The nature of construction projects today is faster and more compressed than it has ever been. This means that BIM, Fab, and Field leadership teams are required to spin more plates simultaneously than ever.
With advent of the BIM model and now the “digital twin”, we are virtually constructing buildings before they get built in the real world. This process was new to the entire industry twenty years ago and is still new to many contractors.
Today, key stakeholders on projects must manage the virtual construction process and the actual construction process in parallel and often competing timelines. When managing projects under compressed schedules and handling an ever-increasing scope of work, it becomes unrealistic and unmanageable to use manual tracking methods. Therefore, leadership teams are looking for technology and automation to track what has been completed.
5. Mission and Vision
The path to disruption lies in the challenges that MSUITE’s products are addressing. From producing better data to drive better decisions to automating tedious and non-value-adding tasks, MSUITE is changing the way projects are built. Part of MSUITE’s mission and core values is to ensure integrity and honor are behind its software and services. Years have been invested in getting the software right. MSUITE helps deliver efficiency and better communications solutions for MEP Contractors and Modular builders. Its products address essential factors to control cost and quality in the mechanical contracting industry and enable multiple teams to work together in a seamless workflow. MSUITE’s 4 Core Values include honor, transparency, integrity, and innovation and are intentionally embedded in everything they do for customers and partners.
6. Ease of Use Software
Led by Britton Langdon, MSUITE’s engineering team’s number one challenge is to continually enhance their software with an emphasis on ease of use. This is the most important priority because MSUITE typically works with people who have never used a tablet or computer before and sometimes do not own a cell phone. Adding to that challenge, the data MSUITE collects is incredibly complex. Making that data digestible to the end user is crucial because in order for users to gain any value from the data that is being collected, it must be condensed. The MSUITE engineering team’s work must be able to make the data increasingly more meaningful and actionable.
The biggest challenge today in managing construction manufacturing is the ever changing scope of fabrication. Unlike traditional manufacturing, where companies build a certain number of SKUs, the construction business is constantly prototyping. Each building typically requires its own design process, and because of this, the nature of this industry is always in flux.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of effort and focus put on standardization in construction, which MSUITE works hard to facilitate. One of the biggest challenges for MSUITE is to ensure its product works for all types of MEP contractors and modular builders across North America. While these contractors do similar things, they do them in different ways. This creates an immense amount of complexity in developing an easy-to-use, configurable, and flexible software.
7. Charting a New Course for the MEP Construction Industry
MSUITE stands out among the plethora of other construction technology solutions because it provides a solution that is user friendly even while including complex and actionable data that the MEP construction industry has never seen before. MSUITE provides MEP contractors and modular builders the critical information that allows them to manage projects, turn a more significant and consistent profit, meet a schedule, and meet their budgets. These benefits are not offered by any other construction software.
Charting a new course for the construction industry isn’t easy. It’s taking a construction firm turned technology provider in MSUITE to take MEP contractors and modular builders to new horizons.
