Unveiling Oracle Engineering and Construction’s Innovation Lab

by Chad Hollingsworth

On August 23, I traveled to Chicago for the preview of Oracle Engineering and Construction’s
Innovation Lab, an exciting, first-of-its-kind facility that brings the worksite of tomorrow to
life.

As I first wrote in my 2017 Year in Review, over the last 12 to 18 months, the construction industry
has worked to shed its low-tech image. Construction faces a unique mix of challenges and
opportunities, and growing backlogs amid a skilled-labor shortage means that organizations
are learning to do the same — or more — with fewer resources. Increasingly, contractors are
turning to technology to automate manual processes, improve safety, and boost overall
productivity.

As technology at the jobsite spreads, and more solutions hit the market, it’s become vitally
important for systems to communicate and integrate with each other. Employees in the field
and the back office don’t have the time to switch between different platforms to access the
data they need. Today, it’s not just about the data that is available, but delivering the relevant
data to the right people at the right time. Organizations like Oracle are leading that charge
through partnerships and integrations with Triax’s Spot-r platform, for example, that pushes
real-time worker time and attendance information into Oracle Prime, providing customers the
information they want where they want it.

This summer, Oracle has taken it a step further with its Innovation Lab, an interactive mock
jobsite that showcases cutting-edge partner technologies, such as wearable devices, drones,
autonomous vehicles, and visualization technologies. Oracle’s facility blends the digital with the
physical — the experimental with the practical — to demonstrate the power of various
technologies. Experiencing these solutions in action is critical to driving adoption, and for Triax’s
portion, visitors to the lab will receive automatic fall notifications and unauthorized equipment
operator alerts, experiencing the enhanced, remote visibility technology can provide for
themselves. There is no substitute for seeing how a system performs in the real world,
especially in the physical, dynamic construction environment with various equipment, tools,
and trades onsite at any point in time.

The Innovation Lab is an important step towards growing the construction tech ecosystem, and
it’s rewarding to see industry partnerships come to fruition in such a tangible and meaningful
way. Whether it’s contractors and solutions providers or industry partners, it’s essential that we
work together to bring intelligent, innovative technology and data to the industry. Hopefully,
this is just the beginning of integrated, real-world experiences that show that the worksite of
tomorrow is being built today.