The benefits of cloud connectivity in building construction

作者：Zühal Duran Goeminne

Zühal Duran Goeminne, our Product Engineer, joined us for an insightful chat on Leica iCON cloud services and the great benefits these services bring to any type of building construction project. We hope you also find it interesting!

我们已经看到，基于云的协作和建筑管理使用情况的需求和采用有所增加。您能解释一下为什么这些服务对建筑建筑业很重要吗？

Construction cloud services have brought a significant advancement to the building industry by providing high efficiency and workability from early design to construction. These services are fed by the data that is stored during the building project’s life cycle.

Creating meaningful and reliable data is essential for a building project but can be tedious at the same time. Just think for a minute about the time it takes to create the data that is produced in all your projects and keeping it all up to date. And of course, not to mention informing your field and office teams about the current status of this data. This is not a negligible issue; billions and billions of euros are wasted every year because countless projects, from the simplest construction yard to the most world-famous constructions, end up costing a multitude of the budget originally estimated (source）。此时，基于云的数据管理工具可以减轻对项目数据的控制，从而减轻了管理负担。

However, cloud services also play an important role in having reliable and up-to-date data, while being a constructive and coordinated system that reduces rework, an important cause for delays in construction projects. These services also help identify clashes early enough, which has an impact on lessening the number of reworks onsite, ultimately reducing project cost and time. The right construction management approach really is the key here. Efficient construction project management allows to keep track and streamline project tasks and deliveries. Certainly, cloud services are inseparable parts of construction management. The good thing about these services is that they are ever-growing and future-oriented and take into account the needs of the construction market.

So these services have a great benefit to the Building Construction Industry overall, but let us focus on construction execution where Leica iCON is used for layout, as-built and verification tasks. How does using these services benefit both the users and feedback into the overall project?

Generating accurate digital data is the main and most relevant component for the building project life cycle. There are multiple solutions available in the market to generate digital data that goes to the construction data pool.Leica iCONis tailored towards the building construction industry and offers advanced solutions in layout, as-built, and verification tasks. These tasks are completed and reported in a short time with millimetre accuracy, which project team members rely on. It is also crucial that both the field crews and the office teams can easily access and retrieve the data. Using cloud services facilitates sending e.g. as-built measurements, laid out points, and detected out-of-tolerance areas and reports quickly and safely back and forth between field and office. This cycle can cause some uncertainties amongst team members as to what was the latest, but integrated version tracking system/control eliminates this problem. Of course, this makes project data much more accurate, and helps teams to find out quickly whether the design data is already out of date. Such a mechanism eliminates doubts about what data should be taken to the field for further processing reducing possible mistakes during layout in the construction execution phase.

现在我们理解服务d their benefits better, what supported cloud services does Leica iCON work with, and how easy are they to use?

有许多基于云的数据管理工具可用，这些工​​具逐渐使建筑构建过程从设计，规划，建筑物和操作中更加协作和有效。我们对Leica Icon哲学的一部分是使客户能够以自己的方式使用其首选的服务和数据。这就是为什么我们不仅支持我们自己的云服务Leica Conx，还支持与设计和建筑专业人士的领先解决方案（例如Autodesk Bim360，Procore，Bricsys 24/7和Bluebeam Studio Prime）的合作伙伴。这使Leica图标能够集成到现有流程中，很容易帮助进一步提高项目的效率和生产力。

现场工作人员可以在船上访问云服务，以直接在现场下载最新且最可靠的设计数据。这使他们能够完成布局，建造和验证任务，并在现场完成最大程度地减少潜在错误并减少项目期间不必要的返工。任务完成后，可以将记录的数据，结果和报告简单地上传回云项目。这样，项目经理和设计团队可以轻松地跟踪项目进度，并根据真实的字段数据快速进行必要的设计更新，以进一步最大程度地减少项目以后的任何潜在问题。

The common element between these products is that you need a license for your preferred service. After initial sign-in and authorization, these services allow you to quickly access the projects and data you need to complete tasks and ensure that you deliver the results to keep your project on track.

我们在哪里可以获得有关这些服务的更多信息？

The interfaces we have established with our partners are designed to be easily set between iCON field software and their software, making it trouble-free for our customers to connect and benefit from these partnerships. Under our软件合作伙伴中心，还有有关不同云服务和操作视频的更多信息，可以通过初始步骤为用户提供支持。对于Leica Caintivate用户，可以在文章中找到其他信息：“Keep connected with Leica Captivate cloud services”。如果您应该对我们的图标软件和/或硬件有任何进一步的疑问，请随时contact us.

This is great information! Thank you for your insights, Zuhal.

ZühalDuranGoeminne，产品工程师 @ Leica Geosystems AG