ARC Document Solution’s 2015 North American Construction Survey Reveals AEC Professionals’ Perspective on Projects, Technology, Communication and Other General Industry Trends
WALNUT CREEK, CA – June 30, 2015 – ARC Document Solutions, Inc., (NYSE: ARC) (“ARC”), a leading document solutions provider for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, today announced the results of its 2015 Construction Trends Survey gathered from more than 1,000 AEC professionals. The survey aimed to reveal current attitudes among AEC professionals on a variety of North American construction priorities, trends and technologies.
When asked to rate the importance of projects types in North America, an overwhelming majority of respondents chose projects that benefit the public good and ensure future prosperity over private projects or achieving individual or company success. At 83%, the overwhelming majority chose “Rebuilding Aging Infrastructure” as the most important priority, followed by “Building Clean Power Plants” (51%) and “Expansion of Projects Aimed at Securing Water” (48%). 0% felt that reclaiming the world’s tallest building status was at all important.
The Top Five Most Important Priorities in North American Construction
- Rebuilding Aging Infrastructure (83%)
- Building Clean Power Plants (51%)
- Expansion of Projects Aimed at Securing Water (48%)
- Expanding on rail transit in cities (28%)
- Building High Speed Regional Rail (21%)
When asked to choose what is most likely to influence the practice of architecture and construction most in the coming years, AEC professionals see technology as the overriding issue (72%), followed by collaboration (45%), two issues that increasingly go hand-in-hand as demonstrated by the industry’s growing use of three-dimensional building information modeling (BIM), integrated project delivery (IPD) techniques, and document management and file sharing applications. Similar to industry issues like collaboration, however, demographic and environmental conditions each recorded more than 40% of respondents’ choices as having primary impacts on the way we design and build in the future. Only 31% believed new building materials are likely to make a big impact:
What will have the biggest impact in North American architecture and construction?
Changing Industry:
- Technology (72%)
- Collaboration (45%)
- New Building Materials (31%)
Global Events:
- Rising Population and Housing Needs (45%)
- Global Warming/Energy Efficiency (41%)
In terms of rating trends in the construction industry itself, 93% of AEC professionals believe increases in productivity and decreases in cost are most dependent on new technology tools. They rank universal online access, communication tools, and the ability to track budget in real-time as the top three capabilities that increase productivity and reduce project cost:
What are the Most Important Capabilities to Increasing Productivity and Reducing Cost?
- Communication tools to keep project team on track (79%)
- Online access for all project participants (69%)
- Tracking budget in real-time (62%)
- Intelligent scheduling needs and mobile access to project management lifecycle on any device (tied at 59%)
- Centralizing all projects in one place (45%)
Consistent with their responses regarding the importance of their communication capabilities, nearly 50% of all respondents indicated that leading cause of project delays were the use incorrect or faulty drawings or specifications. Considering that the survey also revealed that 1 in 4 (24.14%) AEC professionals personally print 200-499 documents a week, managing documents and information with or without technology is a clear contributor to both successes and obstacles in AEC industry practices.
Additional Information
Not surprisingly, humanitarian projects were considered the most important to finish on time, while the importance of completing infrastructure and new energy projects mirrored the priorities demonstrated in earlier questions.
AEC professionals ranked New York City as the #1 city in North America for architecture, beating out the perennial favorite Chicago, which came in at #2. West Coast cities San Francisco and Seattle round out the top four. In terms of exhibiting the best design by project type, AEC professionals ranked museums as the #1 (66%) type of building that inspired the best and most creative designs, followed by places of worship (41%). Sports complexes and business building rounded out the top four, followed by schools and hospitals.
“The results of the survey demonstrate that AEC professionals have their priorities squarely on the most important issues facing our society today, and they are increasingly turning to communication and collaboration technology to address them,” said Evan Casey, National Director of Business Development at ARC. “It’s gratifying to know ARC’s development of cloud tools like SKYSITE™ and other construction document and information management tools directly answer these needs.”
About SKYSITE™
SKYSITE, is a cloud-based solution specifically designed for the AEC industry, eliminating the need for paper documents and increasing effective communication and collaboration. SKYSITE creates a single central repository of information in a cloud that can be accessed by any project member, anytime from any mobile device or desktop, significantly increasing productivity and efficiency.
To learn more about SKYSITE, please visit: https://www.skysite.com/.
Survey Methodology
The ARC Document Solutions’ 2015 Construction Trends Survey was distributed among 1280 AEC industry professionals, using an email invitation and an online survey. Respondents came from enterprises as large as 1,000 people or more, as well as small boutique firms of ten people or less.
About ARC Document Solutions (NYSE: ARC):
ARC Document Solutions is a publicly traded company (NYSE:ARC) and the leader in document and information management in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.
The company helps more than 90,000 customers reduce costs and increase efficiency in the use of their documents, improve document access and control, and offers a wide variety of ways to print, produce, and store documents. ARC provides its solutions onsite in more than 8,000 of its customers’ offices, offsite in service centers around the world, and digitally in the form of proprietary software and web applications. For more information please visit www.e-arc.com.
SKYSITE and ARC DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ARC Document Solutions and/or its subsidiaries.
Media Contact:
Kerman Kasad
PRforARC@bospar.com
1(778)-928-6670
