Unlocking Success with Design-Build: Maximizing Efficiency and Satisfaction in ICT Projects

What if you could save a customer millions on their next ICT project while ensuring seamless integration and customer satisfaction? Our latest episode takes you through the transformative world of the design-build model, featuring insights from Eric at Power Design. Learn how this approach provides a seamless experience by offering a single point of contact throughout the entire project lifecycle, minimizing miscommunications and costly errors. From multi-dwelling units to high-end residential projects, Eric's expertise shines a light on how a comprehensive project delivery system can turn complex requirements into successful deployments.

Explore the numerous advantages of design-build contracts that go beyond just saving money. We discuss the essential roles and responsibilities within a design-build team for low voltage projects, emphasizing the importance of precise contract language and clear project meetings. Discover how building long-term relationships with clients through reliable and cohesive network installations can lead to repeated business opportunities. Hear real-world success stories, such as a project that integrated over 600 conference rooms nationwide, saving millions in construction costs, and another that enhanced project efficiency in South Florida.

Advancements in technology are reshaping the construction and design industries, and our episode dives into how integrating tools like Revit and AI maximizes efficiency and optimizes costs. Uncover the benefits of real-time coordination between trades, avoiding on-site mistakes, and aligning with industry standards. Whether you're a seasoned professional or transitioning from a low voltage installer to a business owner, this episode offers valuable insights into leveraging design-build models and cutting-edge technology to achieve project success and long-term client satisfaction. Tune in to unlock the secrets of a more efficient, effective, and profitable ICT project management approach.

Chapters

• 0:00 Benefits of Design-Build in Cabling
• 14:35 Advantages of Design-Build Contracts
• 25:55 Mitigating Risks in Design-Build Contracts
• 31:34 Success Stories in Design-Build Projects
• 40:42 Maximizing Value With Integrated Technologies
• 46:58 Maximizing Efficiency Through Revit and AI

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. We're talking design build today. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, project foreman, project managers, estimators, it personnel, even customers. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind giving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Thursday night, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, linkedin, youtube, everywhere where you get to ask your favorite RCDD. You know it's me, don't try to pretend like I'm not your favorite. Your favorite RCDD questions on installation, certification, design, project management, estimation. I even do career path questions, but I can hear you now.

Speaker 1: 1:22

But, chuck, I'm dropping my drug at 6 pm on Thursday. I don't want to crash and get into an accident. That's okay. I record them and you can watch them when it's safe to do so, and finally, while this show is free and will always remain free, if you find value in this content, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours, of course, and we're always looking for corporate sponsorships. So in our crazy world of information communication technologies, there's lots of terms and things that you'll hear bantered about, and one of the things you'll hear people talk about is design-build, design-build. What's a design-build model? What is?

Speaker 1: 2:04

that. So I reached out to a peer of mine who's literally maybe 40 miles that way, right where he's actually not too far from me, you know to come on the show and talk to him. Talk to us about it Now. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation today, eric. Welcome to the let's Talk K-Wing podcast. How are you doing, my friend?

Speaker 3: 2:24

Hey, chuck, thanks for having me Glad to be here. Appreciate the time.

Speaker 1: 2:27

My pleasure, man. So for the audience members who may not know you, tell us who are you, who do you work for, and let's build some street credibility.

Speaker 3: 2:46

Yeah, sure Thanks, Chuck. You might obviously introduce me right. I work for a company called Power Design. We're a national multi-trade design build contractor based out of st pete with projects around the country. We are a full mechanical, electrical, plumbing and technology design build contractor that really focuses primarily um in the technology side, um on our um kind of the MDU space right. Most of our projects are residential in nature, not your single-family homes necessarily, but primarily our project types here are hotels and condos and student housing and apartments and that type of project and apartments in that type of project. So in those types of projects or products you can imagine there's a lot of technology in those spaces and they all ride on a similar structure. So my team here, my design team here, is primarily responsible for designing all of those scopes, all of those technology disciplines, from life safety through some of the sort of nice-to-have things right like audio-video and lighting controls and all of that.

Speaker 1: 3:53

So you threw out an acronym out there and I always make sure that I always define acronyms, because people who know me know I'm the acronym challenge king on LinkedIn MDU yes. Multiple Dwelling Unit yes, so that means apartment buildings, townhouses, hotels, anything other than a traditional single-family kind of home. So for those people who didn't know what it meant, there you go. That's what it means. So what is the design-build model and how does it differ from a traditional project delivery system for low voltage?

Speaker 3: 4:28

So if you think about the various types of contracts that are out there, maybe the most common is what we sort of refer to as plans and specs, where there's a consultant who's been hired by the owner to produce a set of documents that are then bid on by a number of bidders, awarded a project, and then the integrator, the contractor, goes and does the installation per those contract documents that were created by those consultants.

Speaker 3: 5:00

Maybe it was a single consultant, maybe there were multiple disciplines that got together and created these sets of documents, but the contractor in that case really isn't responsible for the overall design. They're responsible to procure the material, install it per the documents, service it as warranty requires, and that's it. On the other end of that spectrum, you have a contractor who is responsible for all of it, from full design effort all the way through to the warranty and support process. There's no sort of relying on everybody else to make sure that the design is correct. There's no relying on somebody else to make sure all the parts and pieces are identified. There's no relying on somebody else to make sure that interoperability has been considered.

Speaker 3: 5:45

So a design-build contractor owns it all.

Speaker 1: 5:49

I would think a design-build contractor, looking at it from a customer's perspective, right, if I'm hiring a design-build contractor, I would probably feel more self-assured that my network. At the end of the day, when I pay, a lot of people don't realize how much it costs to actually put in instructor cabling. It can cost quite a bit. I'm going to get a good return on my investment if I had a single point of contact from the design phase through the installation phase, through the closeout phase.

Speaker 3: 6:20

Well, that's exactly right. You know, when you consider from the customer's perspective and that I tend to lead with that mindset all the time is what you know, how is my customer looking at this? You know maybe off topic, but I think it was Ray Kroc said something like you know, if you take care of the customer, the business will take care of itself, and that's sort of my mindset all the time when I think about these things from their perspective. If I'm a customer and I want to if I've got all these options out there.

Speaker 3: 6:48

Design build is sort of my least risk because I've put all of my faith in that contractor to make sure that everything I need is completely covered. There's no going back to, hey, listen, your consultant missed this, or hey, this wasn't in the plan, or hey, this spec was five years out of date. All of those things lead to additional costs, delays, problems, inefficiencies, and the point of design build is to reduce or eliminate those added costs. So as a contractor, I'm now taking on a little bit of risk. We'll talk about ways to mitigate those things.

Speaker 3: 7:38

But one of the great things about it is not only am I taking on a little bit of risk, but I'm taking on a lot of opportunity that I might not have had before. If I'm just one of a number of people bidding on a job and it's sort of a level playing field I've got to get real competitive and I've got to find ways to compete there. As a design-build contractor when I have tight relationships with my customers, I've built trust with them over time and they know that I'm not there to hurt them, right, that I'm protecting their interest because I'm protecting mine. It's a great working relationship. It's so much better than your typical plans and specs type project.

Speaker 1: 8:20

One thing I really hated as an estimator was I hated going to bid meetings where they invited you know 45 low voltage contractors. All of your competitors are there. Right, it's like the only way you can win that kind of job is you have to miss something in the bid.

Speaker 3: 8:38

Yeah, well, that's exactly right, and you have to kind of go into those types of bids knowing that you're going to make it up and change orders. There used to be a meme years ago floating around there was a picture of a large boat. The name on the back of the boat was change order and the dinghy was original contractor, and that's been sort of this ongoing joke for years, and the sad part is how much of that is actually true. And you know, my approach, or our approach with our customer base, is to talk about it straight up. Here's the situation. Here's why you want to be design built. You want somebody who's going to protect your interests, not just from the design phase but all the way through to warranty. You want somebody who's going to be there throughout the whole process, and that's what design-build brings. That's one of many things that design-build brings from a customer's perspective. There is sort of a spectrum there, though, right, we've talked about the two ends and there is sort of a spectrum.

Speaker 3: 9:41

And there's something that's been happening a lot lately in the kind of the overall construction business and more than just in the ICT, and that is that there's this sort of off ramp that contractors and customers can agree to ahead of time. Customers can agree to ahead of time. It says hey, listen, there's going to come a point where we may have to say that we either have to put the project on hold or maybe we have to go in a different direction. So a lot of times we'll work with them to come up with a full design build package but really only award the design up front. We're still working a thousand percent as if it's a full design bill, but you get to the end of that design. I've completed the permit set. Everything's good to go. The very next step would be procurement and installation. But that's sort of the off ramp point and that's a hybrid that a lot of customers that are in a condition where they need that, that that's worked out for them.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Yeah, and what I would recommend because I've been in that position before from a contractor's perspective. If you're doing a design build and you're getting the feeling that the customer is going to want to separate the design from the build for whatever reason I can come up with 20 reasons off the top of my head but for whatever reason they decide, they want to separate them. If this is not a customer that you have a good, established working relationship with, you might want to make sure that you protect your design somehow. Ie, you know, say, hey, this design's free if, provided, we get the word of the work. If we don't get a word of work, then the cost for this design is X, y, z value. Because I've had issues before where we've done designs for customers and then six months down the road they didn't even invite us to the bid. They put it out the bid and somebody else got a word. We're like wait a minute, hello, we designed it.

Speaker 3: 11:41

We call that speculative work, where we might know we might be doing on spec, doing something on spec, or sort of investing into the project on spec, expecting that we're going to win but knowing that it isn't guaranteed, and so we will work something out with a customer up front that says, hey, listen, if that's the condition we're in, let's work through what that looks like and talk about honestly and openly about what the end of that is. What we cannot do is even small companies right and I'm not pretending Power Design is some small company, but a lot of people watching this might be in a condition where they can't really afford to do that, Can't afford to just spend weeks of time on a design only to never hear from the project again, Right.

Speaker 3: 12:29

So and not that we can- afford that either right, don't get me wrong, but you do have to protect your interests there and you do have to put something in place and you have to sort of identify upfront what your risks are and find ways to mitigate them. And the number one way is open, honest communication with the customer that says hey, listen, you're asking me to basically lay out all the funds out there. You wanted me to fund this project for you and in order to do that, here's the things I need. Here are the assurances and the guarantees and here's our off ramp and here's how much it's going to cost. If you choose to do something else, that's certainly one way to do it so you recommend that we communicate with the customer.

Speaker 1: 13:12

What do you think we're in the communications industry?

Speaker 3: 13:14

listen. I know it sounds wild, but it actually works it works.

Speaker 3: 13:20

It works when you communicate uh, as long as you're good at it, like, If you're not so good at it, maybe not right. You know they talk about practice makes perfect. It's not true Perfect practice makes perfect and sometimes you have to, you know, be good at something to be successful with it. And sometimes bad communication is more hurtful than anything else. So know what your risks are all the time right. Always be mitigating that and from a self-improvement perspective, if you know you're not great or you're sort of starting to figure out, hey, listen, sometimes I'm getting out the reaction I wanted. That's something we're way off topic. But listen, communication with your customer in a design build is the absolute number one key to success and it is also the absolute number one key to failure.

Speaker 1: 14:12

You know, that's why I have a list of 147 pro tips on my website and that's why communications is not pro tip number one, it's actually pro tip number two. Pro tip number one on my list is document, document, document, because it's better to document a poor conversation than to have a good conversation and have something go wrong later on. Yeah, for sure. And now a message from our sponsor.

Speaker 4: 14:37

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Speaker 1: 15:22

Can you describe the typical roles and responsibilities that a design build team might have for a low voltage project?

Speaker 3: 15:28

Yeah, you know, the roles really aren't any different than in a plants and specs job. You still have designers and bib techs, and you have project managers and field staff, and you have installers and you have service Like. All of those roles are still there. The responsibility is where things vary. I now become responsible for everything. I now own design from day one through warranty completion. I don't just own the installation of somebody else's design. From a role's perspective, it really is the same. You're still producing documentation, you're still communicating with your customer, you're still performing all of the functions that are required for a successful project. But now I am pre-construction. I now have total responsibility.

Speaker 1: 16:22

We talked about one of the benefits already of a design build company. You know the one point of contact all the way through the project. What are some other key benefits from a customer's perspective why they should choose a design build contractor?

Speaker 3: 16:36

You know there's a. There's a whole saying out there about having one throat to choke. I prefer to think of it as one back to pat. That know, when, when, from a customer's perspective, they're not having to hunt people down, they don't have to go. Now, wait a minute. My, um, my av guy was was this person and my, my structured cabling person? Was this person? Who's the lady controls? And none of that. You. You avoid all of that and ultimately, ultimately, you avoid this. You avoid the. Well, your consultant documented it this way and I did this. And then the consultant shows up and says well, no, you're a consultant and a contractor interpreted the exact same phrase, exactly the opposite way. All hands down. This happens to everyone, everywhere, and this there is none of that.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, exactly, and that's why I always tell people words have meanings. Choose your words carefully, exactly, right, and I learned that from being an estimator, because you know if you misinterpret, I'll give you a simple, easy one Should versus shall. Yeah, that could be a difference between you making money on a project or you going into red on a project. Yeah, just because of you know interpreting one word wrong. And that's the most common one. There's lots of other ones too.

Speaker 3: 18:08

We don't want to become lawyers, right, that's the last thing. As small business owners or as designers, or as you know, the last thing we want to do is become lawyers. But you sort of have to at some point. You have to understand the language that you're speaking with your customer and understand that if worse comes to worst and we all hope it never does you're standing in that courtroom and the judge starts asking questions How's that person going to interpret those words? You don't want to get there. Trust me, if you think about that in advance and think about from your customer's perspective as you're writing your contract, things tend to fix themselves.

Speaker 1: 18:54

That's why I'm such a stickler. Our industry we have multiple names for multiple things. Right, the MDF, the IDF, the IDF versus the TR. That actually changed a couple of times. It used to be IDFs, idf versus the TR. You know some people that actually changed a couple times. It used to be IDFs independent distribution frame Then it went to TC, telecom closet and for a few years and then it changed to telecom room. And the thing is, when you talk to five different people, you'll hear everybody using the different acronyms and different words and that's why I tell people it's critical that you use the most current version and you make sure that the person you're talking to, if somebody else uses the other one, that you clarify it to make sure that you're both talking about the same thing.

Speaker 3: 19:37

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And when you get involved in these project meetings with all of the different disciplines and trades and the architect is there a lot of times some of these architects in these project meetings with all of the different disciplines and trades and the architect is there a lot of times. You know some of these architects they're just not keeping up with anything and so they'll use phraseology that maybe is out of date and might mean something wholly different today, or might mean something wholly different to the interior designer than it does to the technical designer. So you have this break and you do have to stop and say time out. This is what that means to me, what does that mean to you? And get that clarified up front so that you just avoid that confusion in the future.

Speaker 1: 20:21

And get it documented. Get it documented, too, as well.

Speaker 3: 20:24

That's exactly right. We talked about, sort of from the customer's perspective, some of the benefits as a business owner, as a contractor. The benefits of design-build are, I think, bigger than from the perspective of the customer. I'm now no longer in a competitive situation and I got myself there by building trust. So I'm not going to go breaking that trust by, you know, driving costs up, necessarily. But now I've worked my way and gotten into a position where I'm now a trusted partner with this customer. I'm now a trusted partner on a design team with other trades who may also need your services.

Speaker 3: 21:11

I can't begin to tell you how many times architects have pulled us into projects and we have been awarded design projects that are in parts of the country we don't build. So these became just design-only projects for us. They're in the dozens. Just in the past year, just from working with architects who said man, you guys really understand your stuff. You keep your customers' interests protected. You protect our interests too. Let's pull you into these projects. And now you suddenly have exposure to so much more. And that's just from. You go from being just another trade on the job site to an integrated partner in that project. You now have so much more exposure and so much more opportunity as a contractor than you would have as just another trade.

Speaker 1: 22:02

It's a mutually beneficial relationship, whether it's the low voltage contractor the customer, or low voltage contractor the electrical contractor. It's a mutually beneficial relationship whether it's the low-voltage contractor the customer or the low-voltage contractor the electrical contractor. It's a mutually beneficial relationship and the minute it quits being beneficial there's going to be problems. And if you have that good working relationship, like you said, your profit margins aren't as tight because they perceive you as being better than than the average low-voltage contractor. And there are customers out there willing to pay extra for a better contractor just so they don't have the headaches.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Absolutely Not. Everybody is a low-bid customer. Yes, for sure, there's customers out there that only are concerned with the cost. Get it Totally understand that those are out there and there's opportunity in that too. But you know, for us our preferred customer is not necessarily the person who's just looking to drive their cost down. They're looking for a quality product with quality partners and and looking to build a project that everybody can be proud of at the end.

Speaker 1: 23:06

You know, I you know and looking to build a project that everybody can be proud of. At the end you know, because I deal in a lot of low-voltage social media platforms and different groups and stuff, and I hear this quite often Somebody will post a picture of their work and other low-voltage techs will critique it and quite often one of the things you'll hear them say is you know, well, why didn't you put up a piece of plywood? Or why didn't you use horizontal wire managers? And usually the response is well, the customer didn't want to pay for it. Okay, there's two avenues you can take there. The first avenue is educate the customer and let them understand why that's an important thing to have.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Whether it's horizontal wire management or plywood or fire the customer, you don't have to work for. Every customer comes to you and says we'll do work for you. I used to work for Hingles McCoy many, many, many years ago and we had a very large, nationally well-known company, one of the largest companies in the United States that we were doing work for across the United States, and we eventually just said, yeah, we're done no more, because they would just nickel and dime everything If the customer doesn't realize. It's a mutually beneficial relationship and you don't realize it's a mutually beneficial relationship. It's time to move on.

Speaker 3: 24:16

It's time to move on and listen. I will tell you. Customers will respect you for saying, hey, listen, this isn't working. This is mutually not working out. I'm losing money. You don't want me to lose money. You're not getting the product that I think you should be getting and none of us can really be proud of this. Going forward, let's finish what we've got. We're going to give you the best that we can and then let's maybe reconsider other projects in the future.

Speaker 3: 24:46

There's absolutely adult, professional ways to go about that. It's not the easiest thing in the world to say no to a customer. It's really, really hard, but sometimes it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 1: 24:57

But you know what the customer you know. If you go to the customer and you explain to them and they might go oh well, we've never considered that, yeah, and then they might change their mind. So that's oh well, we've never considered that, and then they might change their mind. So again, that's where that whole communications word comes into play Communicate, communicate, communicate. So what kind of challenges might a team might face when they're adopting the design-build model, and how can those be mitigated?

Speaker 3: 25:33

So your biggest challenge, I think, is going to be the potential financial risk and mitigating that. You have to start to look at it and say, okay, where are some things where I could really get in trouble here? Start identifying those red flags or those risks you know the key risks and put things in place. What are some of those things? If you go back and compare this to a traditional contract, where, if all I did was bid on somebody else's design, what's the first thing I'm going to do when I run into a problem? I'm going to point at the customer and say, well, the documentation you gave me was missing X, y and Z. So you're gonna have to pay me to do that X, y and Z. Well, I can't do that anymore. So there's a financial risk here that if I'm the one who missed the X, y, z, I own it.

Speaker 3: 26:17

I told the customer I'm giving him a complete and total turnkey package. But if I missed it and it's not turnkey anymore, it's on me to figure out. That's a huge risk. So how do you mitigate that? Be thorough, be complete, be accurate, be on your game. Make sure that everything you do to your point is documented thoroughly. Make sure that your drawings are absolutely right. Do people make mistakes?

Speaker 1: 26:44

Absolutely Make sure you're current with the best practices, the codes, the standards, Exactly right. Not only be current with what's in them, but know what the nomenclature is for them. And I'll tell you why. And I don't want to talk bad about architects, but they're not low-voltage experts, so a lot of times they will copy and paste verbiage from a previous document and paste it in a new thing and they're referencing a standard that might be two versions old.

Speaker 3: 27:14

Absolutely. And worse than that, sometimes they get into life safety things where they're referencing codes in the wrong part of the country, where you can't do that. I can do this over in this part of the country, but I can't do this here. If you're the kind of person who just takes blocks of information and reuses it over and over again and calls it a new project, you're opening yourself up to a lot of risk. You need to make sure that you are validating that every part of your design is absolutely thorough. You do not want to get yourself in a situation where you're the one who you have to point to to say well, the designer, that's me, I missed some stuff, so I gotta pay for it. You want to avoid that, because not only is it costing you profitability on the job, but it's costing you credibility with your customer, because if you think they don't know it they absolutely do.

Speaker 3: 28:08

You cannot get yourself in a situation where you're unprofitable and you've lost credibility. You're not getting job number two out of that If you're a football nerd like I am. There's something Brady used to say all the time what's your favorite ring? And his answer was always the next one. Right, and I sort of had that mentality with projects with my customers. I want that next job with them. I love the job we have and we're going to make sure we get the best thing out the door, but the next one with that same customer is just as important. It's going to be my new favorite and it's the reason why we rarely have one-job customers. Rarely and I do mean rarely I can think of maybe one customer in the last 10-plus years that we only did one project with.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Because once you get a good working relationship with a customer like that and they keep coming back to you, you're not sitting in that bid meeting with 45 other people and again there's more profit in that. There absolutely is. There's opportunity in that bid meeting with 45 other people and again there's more profit in that. There absolutely is. There's opportunity in that, right? Oh yeah, absolutely, and there's value there and that's what you're really charging for, right? You're not charging for, you know, the cable and the jacks and the team. You're really charging the customer for the value. You got to find what it is that they value and that's what they're really paying for, cause you know you can, you can always find a contractor. That that'll just. You know they'll put in a you know a category five E cable for you know $110, but they're not going to be doing any design work for you. They're not going. They may not even be around when that cat five E cable doesn't work, right.

Speaker 3: 29:48

That's exactly right and that's the low bid customer they have to be concerned with. They couldn't care less. If you're going to be a run leader, that's not their problem. They'll find somebody who is.

Speaker 1: 29:58

And there are customers out there that will bank on that. They will know that that architect copied a standard from a couple revisions ago. They're just going to let it fly because they don't really care about the contractor. They're going to let it fly because they don't really care about the contract. They're going to say bid it and then when you bid it, okay, you're locked in now. Oh, but wait a minute. It referred to an old. You already signed the contract. You got to do it, you know.

Speaker 3: 30:23

You told me, based on this contract, that you were going to install a code compliant you know, project regardless of, you know, mistakes or omissions.

Speaker 1: 30:31

Well, yeah, again, that's the kind of customer you don't want, because they don't value that relationship. They just really don't want that. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 30:43

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Speaker 1: 31:34

Can you share a success story or case study where your design build model significantly benefited a low voltage project? Yeah, you know there's a bunch.

Speaker 3: 31:44

I'll go back a number of years way, I think, before the progressive design-build concept existed. We came across a customer back in the late 90s, early 2000s, who the only thing they did was plans and specs. We approached them with a design-build model. They were a little uncomfortable with it, so we sort of invented on the fly this well, here's your total design build price, but we're just going to hold you responsible for the design part now, We'll do the build part later. We developed that relationship with them and ultimately, over the course of I think about four years, we ended up deploying somewhere a little north of 600 conference rooms in three different places across the country. And their reporting to us is that our feedback to them during the design process and helping them to come up with standards and helping to define new physical spaces that they hadn't thought of before, saved them millions and millions of dollars just in construction costs alone, when they previously were were treating these things as entirely separate spaces and we said why let's talk about combining them right? The technology money that they saved is is unreal too, but the construction money they saved is millions and millions and millions of dollars On top of the process savings when their people were not having to hunt down bids from every qualified contractor they could find in the phone book. They were able to kind of develop this relationship with us and the expediency and how quickly and how efficiently we were able to deploy these massive conference rooms all over the country with standards that were sort of invented during the design process that are used today. By the way, fast forward, all these years, that customer is still deploying those same standards today. In my book that's a huge success story. Right.

Speaker 3: 33:58

More recently, and within PDI at Power Design, we recently finished a project in South Florida that was huge, Somewhere close to 2 million square feet, a couple of 50-some-odd-story story towers full of extremely expensive, very high-end resi condos with some absolutely wild amenity spaces. Right, the only trade in the entire project that was designed built was technology. Everything else was a more traditional model. By the end of the project, what started out as about a nine or so million dollar technology package ended up being about 23, 24 million somewhere in that ballpark, and not one single dollar of that was contractor driven change. Every single change from start to finish, was customer driven change.

Speaker 3: 34:49

Every single change from start to finish was customer driven change and ultimately that wasn't the goal, right, the goal was no changes. We're not. This is it. This is what we're doing, this is what we're gonna deploy. And as we got into it and the relationship with them we would, you know, they trusted us to have those conversations with them about expanding some ideas and some concepts and coming up with different things that nobody had really thought of three or four years ago at the start of the project. When that, three or four years into the project now this is an idea they want to start looking at, they trusted us to deploy that and protect their interests at the same time, right At the end of it. It sounds like this huge number and the customers have estimated with us that they think they probably saved somewhere in the four and a half to $5 million based on our processes that we used throughout that to avoid delays, avoid the bidding process, avoid the risk that comes with having to manage five, six, seven different contractors or different disciplines throughout that lifespan.

Speaker 1: 36:00

Great points, absolutely great points. You know, a large portion of my audience are people who are they've been low voltage installers or technicians and now they're venturing out on their own. They got their own little operation. It might be just them, or one or two other people right, starting off with business brand new. What skills or knowledge would you recommend they focus on or developing to maybe shift to a design build?

Speaker 3: 36:23

So you, you, we started out talking about communication right and absolutely key. Number one is the ability to communicate and communicate well and not just talk about the technology. But you've got to understand their business right and get to know your customer and get to know their business. Understand how the decisions that you make about the products that are being used, about the topology of the design, how that affects their business, how does it affect their resale value. Understanding things like hey, if I convince you to use a product line or a technology that requires ongoing recurring fees, how does that affect your ability to resell that building? If that building's core functionality is based on having to continue to pay this manufacturer for these licenses every year or every month, what does that do to the resale value of that building? Does my customer care about resale value or do they keep the building? Understanding that and being willing to have those conversations Customers care about the technology.

Speaker 3: 37:36

Much to the dismay of a lot of people, they actually do care about the tech. What they don't care about is the weedy details that we care about, the stuff that gets us excited. They just don't care. Right, the newest, coolest way to crimp a category cable, they just don't care Pass-through traditional keystone patch panel or traditional flat patch panel.

Speaker 3: 37:59

If I never again get into an argument about pass-through, I'll be perfectly fine.

Speaker 1: 38:04

I don't understand why people argue with that. Pass-through connectors are a great connector as long as you're using I've had, I've had simply rj45 on the show we talked about it I've had. An engineer from a manufacturing show we've talked about says as long as you maintain your crimper, it's, it's a viable connection. I understand why. Why older installers frown upon them? Because you know they, they you know taught how to do the old way, the traditional style ones, and I get that because that's what we drive our comfort from these new, young whippersnappers. It's so easy. I used to walk uphill both ways in the snow to go to school. I get those arguments. It's a viable way of doing stuff and we argue over some of the stupidest things sometimes, no doubt.

Speaker 3: 38:50

Look 10 years ago. If you were to talk about how many electric cars are on the street today, all the gas engine guys would lose their minds. What are you doing? You're crazy. That stuff doesn't work right. It's once you love a thing, it's hard to let that thing go, or it's hard to imagine that there's a better version of it.

Speaker 1: 39:11

Absolutely. And here's the thing, though, if you approach it with an open mind. An open mind, be willing to listen to other person's point of view. I'm not necessarily saying agree with it, but just listen to it. Oh, I mean listen to hear, not listen to respond, you know, listen to hear it. You'd be surprised how much it will broaden your own perspective on stuff. Just listen to other people and trying to see from their point of view.

Speaker 1: 39:36

As an instructor, I see this all the time. I would have a student come up and test questions. You would think they're simple to write. I've written many test questions before and I've had people come up who have taken my test and they answer it wrong. And when they explain their thought process I'm like I can see how you got there, you know. But you have to have that. You have to have that open mind. You know last week's show I had Bob Hertling on the show. He was the subject matter expert, team lead for the 15th edition of the TDMM and we talked about all the new things in the TDMM, like fault-managed power systems, single-pair Ethernet all new stuff coming into our industry. So what role does this new technology have in influencing the design-build model for the low-voltage?

Speaker 3: 40:29

Well, I think, as one of the things you and I have talked about a little bit, when you've been in this business a minute and back in, let's say, the 90s, there was a a huge push towards this idea of convergence and it's a word I learned to hate. If I never saw the word conversions again, I'd have been perfectly fine. But truly, what has happened over time is that all of these subsystems that we call technology, across the building, the scope of a building, all of these subsystems, the technology that's used to make those things work, have really started to look like the same thing. The topology of AV today doesn't look anything like it did. No, it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 41:07

It does not even look the same.

Speaker 3: 41:09

Security doesn't look anything like it did five years ago. All of these scopes have wildly changed. Being able to take advantage of that fact will drive a customer to you to say listen, I understand all of how these scopes work, I understand the interconnectivity, I understand what works and what doesn't, and I can save you, mr Customer, mrs Customer, money by saying listen, let's have a shared infrastructure. For example, there's no reason that these all have to be separate standalone risers up a building. Why in the world are we still doing that? Standalone risers up a building? Why in the world are we still doing that?

Speaker 3: 41:54

There's a lot of opportunity as the technology continues to sort of do this right, it becomes sort of the same core thing. We take advantage of that and we go to our customer instead of waiting for the customer to go to consultants who may or may not be on board with the idea, who aren't necessarily interested in trying to find the most cost-effective way for the customer to get it done. But as a contractor trying to win the award I am I'm interested in making sure that customer finds the most cost-effective way to get BAS, lighting controls, av, wi-fi and everything sort of on the same network Wi-Fi and everything sort of on the same network, right.

Speaker 3: 42:42

You know, on top of that, we were talking a few minutes ago about what are some of the skills that you need to learn. There's the technology part of that we just talked about. There's also understanding the business part, the skill set of understanding how the business flows and how these projects flow and being able to produce that level of documentation that your customer expects to be able to take all of these subsystems and make them one. That skill set and that knowledge and trying to drive that merge will open up huge opportunities and your customer starts to see and understand and recognize the value that you're bringing to them. So they start to see the value of a design build because they're no longer seeing that value from three different consultants, none of them working together, none of them providing the same thing and none of them really working toward a lower cost solution. So that's to me, when you start looking at that, then you also have to start looking at the business process and start looking at things like smart analytics and understanding the step-by-step process right, and looking at what all the other trades are doing. And how do I integrate into that trade If my interior designer and the architect and my landscape guy who I have to.

Speaker 3: 43:59

I have to integrate with all of those things mechanical, plumbing, electrical I have to understand all of it. If they're all in Revit and I'm over here and you know whatever right Sketch up or something else, I'm in trouble. I'm now left behind. I got to get caught up and I've got to get into the world that they're in. Stop sending PDFs to people of napkin cadded up. Look, autocad was great, but it is nothing anymore.

Speaker 1: 44:29

No, it's not Revit's the way to go now we're near dead. Not Revit's the way to go now we're near dead.

Speaker 3: 44:32

Yeah, revit's the way to go, but you have to recognize that and you have to see it and understand. Well, how do I impact the project with that technology? How do I say to my customer hey, everybody else is on Revit, but y'all are just going to have to bend to me sending you PDFs because I use Vizia or whatever it is. You've got to get on board with what the entire construction industry is using so that you can support that project and you can drive your customer to seeing the value in design build and seeing the value in you as their design build partner.

Speaker 1: 45:13

Yeah, I did a show about a year ago. A guy approached me about wanting to do a show about Revit and you know I've been doing training now for like 13 years, so I'd never really dealt with Revit. I was like Revit, huh, what's that? And then when he explained it to me, he actually showed me. I was like dude, where was this stuff when I was an estimator? And so we did a show about that and I get asked questions. This is probably the most common question I get about Revit and maybe you might be able to answer when would somebody get training on how to use Revit?

Speaker 3: 45:54

So there are some local colleges across the country who teach Revit classes and you walk out the door with a certification that you know this product and you know how to use this tool for just about every application. What's great about these courses is that they cover everything from architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, technology, 3d, how to build a wheel with it right they cover sort of everything. And so, while that's great, it doesn't really help. How do I now integrate that into? How do I make wire diagrams in Revit? It's not the easiest thing in the world to do. In fact, it's not easier than AutoCAD. Revit it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. In fact, it's not easier than AutoCAD. But how I show those devices in the field, how I show those devices in the project, right in the building, where they go, some of the automation that can happen they'll teach you that stuff, and that's the key thing is getting your head wrapped around how Revit works and then taking it and applying it in the way that works best for you. That's what we've done.

Speaker 3: 46:58

This company has darn near abandoned AutoCAD. It's not complete, that's hard to do, but the entire technology team has just about abandoned AutoCAD electrical, mechanical, plumbing. We're all out of it. There's still some pieces that we had invested in AutoCAD, some automation that we had to homebrew to make it work. So we still do it. But the automation that's built almost treat it as a, dare I say, ai environment where I can start just identifying some key things and it starts doing the backend processes for me and building some documentation for me that I no longer have to drop in a thing and draw a line and identify the thing and then do it again, and then do it again, and do it again, and do it again 800 times. It's doing that for me. Um, pretty, pretty powerful stuff. And step one is go find that local class that'll do it right I never even thought about how ai would benefit that process.

Speaker 1: 48:08

You know, there's there's a fellow content creator. He's a network guy, network engineer guy, so his content is really more about equipment, stuff like that. And him and I talk about AI all the time and one of the things you hear from people in our industry is well, ai is never going to pull a cable, ai is never going to terminate a test of cable. Okay, I got it. I agree with that. But to the estimator who's coming up with a bill of materials, to the designer, like you just said, is doing the Revit and not having to do that repetitive motion for 800 times, ai is going to make them more efficient.

Speaker 1: 48:48

And for those who don't know what Revit is, think of AutoCAD, but in 3D. So like if you, let's say, and the HVAC contractor sends a Revit file, the GC sends a file, the electrical sends a file, we send file. So if you have to pull up a room like a telecom room, you can actually look and see oh wait a minute, my ladder rack is. It's going to be interfering, it's going to be the same level or hitting with the lights which you may not easily catch that if you're looking at a set of prints you know Exactly right.

Speaker 3: 49:13

And that coordination we talked before about being able to coordinate with all these other trades that real-time live coordination where you can hop on the phone with a mechanical guy and say, hey, look where you have this going through the wall. Did you not see that I have four two-inch pipe running up the wall there? Oh man, totally missed that. Let's fix it right. Hey, let's work through some issues. Let's get on the phone with electrical and see if we can't, in real time, move things around within the room to make our stuff work and be code compliant. Revit is maybe the most powerful tool that has come to the design part of this business in maybe my career the efficiency that it brings, the ability to find mistakes. We do these things called clash detections right that you just talked about, and avoid that. Previously, the only way to avoid it was to have the sprinkler pipe hung in the ceiling and then I'd start to go and go. Uh-oh, I can't drill a hole in that thing.

Speaker 1: 50:19

It's easier to make a change when it's a line on a piece of paper as opposed to actually a wall in the field that's exactly right.

Speaker 3: 50:26

And so for us, it has proven to be wildly powerful for us to be able to increase efficiencies in the field, increase our communication with our customer, increase our communication and coordination with all the other trades to avoid problems on site. And avoiding problems on site is, after all, what we're trying to do right. It's efficiency, it's profitability, it's your reputation in the field, with your customer, with the other trades on site, trying to build to that next project, that next ring, if you will, that we want to go get that next job.

Speaker 3: 51:02

We're not going to do that, if you're out there going, hey man your stuff's in my way and I got to move it all and you're hacking away somebody's sprinkler pipe. Not a good plan.

Speaker 1: 51:10

Work smarter, not harder, Always, Eric. What a fantastic show, my friend. When I talked to the guy I can't remember the guy's name now because I've slept since then, Probably Mike, yeah and he said and I can't you know, because he approached me if I knew anybody in the area who might be looking for a job for you guys or something, one of our recruiters.

Speaker 1: 51:34

And we got to talking and I was like, dude, I need to get you guys on the show. And he says I know just the person. He nailed it. He nailed it, man. Absolutely Glad to have you on the show, eric.

Speaker 3: 51:45

I really appreciate the time and look forward to it Again, maybe in the future we've got lots to talk about, for sure.

Speaker 1: 51:52

I'm always looking for content. If you come up with a subject that you think that we need to talk about, reach out to me. You got my email address now.

Speaker 3: 52:02

Anything but pass-through connectors.

Speaker 1: 52:05

I'll even talk about pass-through connectors too. I'm out In the content creation world. Unfortunately, connectors too I mean because there's this in the content creation world, unfortunately, the. The quickest way to get a lot of downloads, views, impressions is to talk about something controversial, and I try not to do that, but there's, there's a large segment out there that they want to do it one way and it's out there. It just is. It is what it is.

Speaker 3: 52:33

It's the Mac versus IBM platform conversation from the 90s.

Speaker 1: 52:37

Remember those commercials? I used to love those commercials and you know who's mimicking it now Trend networks. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're mimicking those commercials now and I think it's think brilliant marketing strategy, brilliant marketing strategy.

Speaker 2: 52:55

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.