The COVID-19 pandemic has turned almost every industry upside down, forcing many companies to close their doors or delay operations. However, some are using this as an opportunity to pivot. Companies like Lovepop, Pepper and Uber are changing the way they do business to meet the shifting demands of a socially distant public and an overburdened healthcare system.
The construction industry is being forced to change too. With much of the country on lockdown, developers and owners cannot visit their sites in person, so they have to monitor projects virtually. OnSiteIQ, a platform that allows users to see their project sites online with virtual walkthroughs, has seen a 40 percent spike in user engagement because of this.
“You can look at it as a kind of Zoom for construction sites,” the company’s CEO and co-founder Ardalan Khosrowpour told Built In. “We’ve built a network of data collectors all over the United States and their job is to go to the job sites and record everything in 360 degrees, submit the video to our platform and our software automatically maps that and creates this Google Street View-like experience for our clients. So every stakeholder across the project can log in and walk the site from any location.”
Founded in NYC in 2017, OnSiteIQ was originally created to be a source of transparency and accountability for construction sites. In addition to its virtual walkthroughs, the company analyzes data and creates reports tracking metrics like risk assessment and scheduling that are meant to keep all of a site’s stakeholders informed.
Now, the platform is more about accessibility. Khosrowpour says clients are asking to add additional stakeholders to the platform so more people have virtual access to the platform. In fact, he says the number of new users signing up for OnSiteIQ increased by about 200 percent last month.
In keeping with their focus on accountability, he says the company will soon be releasing a feature that can measure social distancing on a site. Essentially, the tool will measure “hot zones” on a given site where workers are not staying six feet apart to help clients better adhere to the new safety protocols amid the pandemic.
Khosrowpour says it is unlikely the construction industry will go back to the way it was, even when the pandemic eventually dies off. So, platforms like OnSiteIQ will be even more important going forward.
“Everyone’s talking about a new normal. We believe there will be a new normal for construction as well,” Khosrowpour said. “I think it’s very unfortunate what’s happening. Construction projects are very dynamic, you can’t replace human interactions with a visual data capture system. But, given the circumstances, I’m really, really happy that we can help our clients get through these difficult times and at least be a tool in their toolbox to help them with their business continuity plan.”
