The Propcast: How To Reduce Risk & Plan, Bid & Build More Efficiently Through The Use Of Technology?

How To Reduce Risk & Plan, Bid & Build More Efficiently Through The Use Of Technology?

Feb 21, 2023

In the second episode of Season 11 of the Propcast, host Louisa Dickins is joined by René Morkos, the Founder and CEO of ALICE Technologies, the world’s first construction optioneering platform and Shane Richardson, President of Lagrange, a management consulting firm providing project controls and program management services.

Episode Highlights:

The founding story behind ALICE Technologies and the problems it was designed to solve
The difference between the two products, ‘Alice Pre-Construction’ and ‘Alice Manage’ and their capabilities
How Rene and Shane met and how they started working together
How to use data to make better informed decisions
The hesitancies the construction industry have around technology
The issues they face and potential missed opportunities if they are brought in part way through a project, rather than the beginning
Early innovators in the space and their impact on implementation and integration
The biggest changes they have seen within the industry and what they predict over the next 20 years
The importance of finding the right tool when trying to digitalise data to increase productivity
Where they believe the skill gaps currently are in construction tech
ALICE’s sustainability pledge

Resources:

Key Takeaways:

What resources do you need to build to perform those tasks? That's the kind of information you give the system, and then the system generates 6 million different ways of building the project for you. - Rene
I noticed that was one of the things that wasn't being leveraged; how can we use this data to make better informed decisions? -Shane
A lot of times you're already 20 plus percent complete with a project, and there's a certain point where you can always minimise risk, minimise costs on a project, but as you progress on a project, the further you progress, you lose out on that opportunity. - Shane
What's happening in construction today is what happened to manufacturing in the seventies and eighties. It's really becoming digitised. It's becoming integrated across the supply chain. - Rene
I think that's one of the reasons why construction projects were plagued with delays, for decades and decades. It's because how do we fix that problem of being able to translate accurate data in its schedule, maintain it, and so ALICE takes care of that. - Shane
The way that I perceive it is that one of the major skill gaps is that construction is getting converted into algorithmic terms. And so that's something that's relatively new. - Rene
McKinsey article: over the last 20 years the industry as a whole has only only increased 1% in productivity. And the construction spending is about 13% of the world's GDP. And so you think about that, it's over 1.3 trillion in opportunity to try to leverage. - Shane

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and search consultancy with operations across North America, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast ‘The Propcast’ where she hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join her in conversation about innovation.

About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.