171: ‘From Model to Machine’, with Brian Nickel and Brett Settles

Episode Transcript
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Evan Troxel (00:00):
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(00:46):
Welcome to the TRXL podcast.
I'm Evan Troxel, a little bit ofhousekeeping upfront here before
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(01:32):
And clicking that join button.
Okay.
In this episode, I welcome BrianNickel and Brett Settles of Allied BIM.
Brian is the CEO and founder of AlliedBIM which is a pioneering firm that
develops and delivers cutting edgefabrication tools and solutions for
Autodesk Revit and BIM 360 platforms.

(01:52):
And he is an adjunct professor atMontana State University's College
of Engineering, and Gallatin College.
Brett Settles is the product ownerat Allied BIM and he brings 20 years
of experience implementing, managing,teaching, and using new technology
in geospatial, mining and AEC.
In this episode, we discuss theirlatest work at the intersection

(02:15):
of BIM and fabrication.
We talk about the innovations theAllied BIM team has created that
link design intent directly to themachines on the floor in the shop.
Brian and Brett share their insightson the evolution of BIM technology,
the importance of user-friendlyweb based platforms and the role of
training and VR in remote management.

(02:38):
Today we discuss real-world applicationsand the future of construction automation,
making a compelling case for thetransformative potential of their work.
You'll hear about how Allied BIMis bridging the gap between design
intent and onsite execution, andyou'll learn about their vision
for the future of the criticallink between design and the trades.

(03:00):
This was a fantastic conversationwith Brian and Brett.
And I hope you'll not only findvalue in it for yourself, but that
you'll help add value to our industryby sharing it with your network.
So now without further ado, Ibring you my conversation with
Brian Nickel and Brett Settles.

(03:25):
Today I'm joined by Brianand Brett from Allied BIM.
And I want you guys to actually givean intro to what you've been up to.
We had the chance to connectat Autodesk University.
it was a jam packed schedule.
We squeezed it in just in timeto, but it's incredible what you
guys are working on at Allied BIM.
And I thought it would be a cool storyto tell because I know you've been

(03:47):
working really hard on this direct to
fabrication stuff.
Everything that you've builtis absolutely incredible.
And there's so
much information there.
I don't know how deep we'llend up going today, but, first
welcome to the show, both of you.
It's great to have you here.

Brian Nickel (04:01):
Thank you for having us, Evan.

Brett Settles (04:03):
us.

Well, Brian, maybe you kick us off because we've known
each other the longest and havebeen aware of kind of what's going
on on both sides of our worlds.
And we're not actuallythat far apart anymore.
I moved to Oregon, you're out of Boise
and Montana.
You're kind of splitting time, right?
But maybe you can get a little bitinto that and tell people what you've
been up to for the past few years.

Yeah, um, no, thanks, Evan, for bringing us onto the
show and, uh, definitely knowneach other for quite some time.
Um, my name's Brian Nichol.
I'm the CEO of Allied BIM.
Uh, we started Allied BIM actually basedout of a prefab shop in Bozeman, Montana.
Um, I was a second year architecturestudent studying architecture.
That's kind of where we havesome commonalities is our

(04:42):
architecture backgrounds.
Uh, but what was interesting is justlearning the process and sort of the
pain points in an actual fabricationshop of, you know, what the disconnect
was from model to machine software.
Uh, at the time in 2014, uh, therewas not a lot of applications
that allowed us to easily.

(05:04):
transmit data, uh, to those machines.
And so long story short,we developed Allied BIM.
We raised a substantial amount of capitalfrom Arco Murray Ventures, along with
some other private ventures as well.
And what's really exciting aboutit is we brought Brett Settles on

(05:25):
board, who's our product owner.
And I'll let Brett introducehimself here in a minute as well.
Uh, but we've come together in, just inthis last year and we've really started to
drive the industry on the electrical side.
And we're looking forward to doing thaton mechanical and plumbing as well.
So, uh, really brief background there.
I'll go ahead and letBrett introduce himself.

(05:46):
Yeah.

here at Allied BIM for closing in on a year now.
So started at the verybeginning of the year.
Uh, my background is really kindof dipping in and out of industry.
Uh, when I'm in industry, my historyreally revolves around industrial
engineering and construction management.
So the shop hasn't always been my forte.
It's more about workflows,software, user experiences.

(06:14):
So for me
This whole journey into Allied Vimhas not only been something I feel
like I've been able to help with,but also something that's been
an extremely valuablelearning process for me,
not only for what we're doing,but also for essentially, um,
the way I understand it if I everend up anywhere else in the industry.

(06:35):
So,

I just want to jump in here real quick, Brett, because what
you just said is super intriguing to me.
And I think a lot of times, uh, firms, uh,you know, I'll, I'll come at this from a
kind of an architectural firm perspective.
You're looking to fill a rolewith somebody who has all
the knowledge already, right?
And they're going to be able to bringthat knowledge to the firm and disperse
it amongst the staff of the firm to win

(06:58):
projects, to deliver projects,whatever the role may entail, right?
But what you just said was.
Like, this was not your forte,right, to come in and, and, and,
like, bridge the gap to the shop,right, from software to the shop.
And I find it super interesting, like,number one, like, you saw this as a
really interesting challenge for yourown professional development, and

(07:21):
that Brian, you saw that he could,Do it and that at the same time.
He didn't come with allof that at the get go.
And so a little bit of a detour here.
I, I would love to hear from both of youbecause I, I don't think that that's very
common, like what you just described.
Like a lot of times we're looking forsome, they don't, the resume, or you

(07:43):
know, the job posting always says 10years, 5 years, 7 years of experience,
like doing all of these things.
And what you're saying is like, You weregoing to figure it out here and you were
the right guy to do it, obviously, becauseBrian said you're the right guy to do it,
So talk, talk us through kind ofhow that little piece happened.
And then we'll get back to your,

Uh, I'm actually gonna hit on that 'cause uh, so
Brett, I was actually Brett's thirdcustomer at a company called Visto.
So I, uh, back in 2015, I believeis when I met Brett for the first
time, pro, possibly even 2014.
And we were just a small company and Isaid, Brett, you know, I'd love to use

(08:22):
your software, but it's too expensive.
Right?
And Brett's like, I'm going to comein and we're going to figure this out.
And we figured it out.
And what happened through that experiencewas I actually got to see Brett's
customer service and customer care,um, on a product owner standpoint.
And I got to see what hewas doing with that product.

(08:43):
And I got to see how hewas evolving that product.
and really how he grew Revisto, uh, in,in, from my perspective, just sitting,
non software guy at the time, like, justusing software to build buildings, right?
And that really got my hopes up for theindustry, because I knew that he was
putting that extra level of care in it.

(09:04):
So, he ended up, uh, coming to RealityCapture Network conference about a year
ago, uh, it was not this current one,it was the one last, uh, last year.
And it was in November.
And it was Reality CaptureNetworks done by Matt Bird.
He's a really good friend of mine,really good advocate in the industry.
And Brett came by our booth.
We actually were boothing anallied product at the time.

(09:27):
And I saw him, and uh, andBrett had switched over to a
company called Penta Engineers.
And seeing Brett go from the softwareindustry back to the traditional
role of engineering as CTO, I'mlike, why did you do that, Brett?
Like You're so valuablefor the software side.
Like, have, have you ever consideredlike coming and working for a
software company like Allied?
And he's like, Hmm, I might be interested.

(09:49):
Let's have a conversation.
And Brett, I think that's prettymuch how the conversation went.
And then within 30 days or, or 45days, we had Brett Settles on board and
it, he's done tremendous things justin the last 11 months this year, uh,

well, I'm flattered, of course, and yeah, I mean, I started
off my career in GIS, surveying andcivil, really gravitated towards Revit
and BIM, was really kind of put totask during the housing crisis, selling
software in a very hurt economy, right?
So, low staff, lots ofresponsibility, which greatly

(10:30):
helped my career development.
Um, and then got into industrial, uh, CM.
So I was really working withprefabrication from an engineering point
of view, and then even a construction,uh, management point of view in the field.
In industrial, we're working with largeducks, large kilns, they get shipped on

(10:52):
trucks, they're pre assembled, right?
It's actually pretty common in thatindustry, and, uh, the one thing
that I had never done is seeingwhat happens after I order things
and when they show up on, on site.
And, uh, this job has really not onlylet me kind of get inside of those
doors, uh, but really kind of what Ifeel like is bringing a fresh perspective

(11:18):
on software user experience to agroup of people that are experienced
in the industry that we serve.
Um, and
You know, I'm, I'm learningpretty rapidly right there.
You know, coming in,
I honestly feel like I probablyknow more about software or conduit
vending than I probably should.
Uh, but that's just how it works out.

(11:39):
You know,

Yeah.
Side effect of the job.

exactly.

Brian, maybe you can give us kind of a short story of,
of where Allied BIM has come fromto get where you are now, just to
give people a bigger understandingof what, because Allied BIM, I mean,
obviously you're, you're focused on BIM.
Right.
And so maybe give us an idea of,
of the transition, what, what,where you've been and then
what you're transitioning intocurrently or have been working on.

Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, in 2004, I started, uh,actually at Santiago High School in
Southern California, uh, which wasnot too far from where you were.
I believe you were in Ontario,uh, working for a firm down there.
Um, but what was interestingis we, we learned Revit 6.
0 and I was in Bill Brown's class, uh,was my high school teacher and I loved

(12:29):
Revit the moment that I opened it.
Like, it was just a, agreat, uh, It was fun.
Uh, I grew up a huge video gamer andgot into Revit and I'm like, I'm, I'm
being paid to play video games now.
And, uh, what I didn't realize at the timeuntil I went through architecture school
and ultimately moved to Montana, uh, I'man alum from Montana State University

(12:51):
with a master's of architecture andgoing, going to Montana and what I didn't
understand was the connection of whatwas beyond the traditional blueprints
for architecture and engineering, right?
And so I saw this ad, ironically enough,this was 2014, in a newspaper, okay, and
I, I, I see this little, uh, clip thatsays, Hiring Revit MEP Specialists, and

(13:15):
I'm like, that's interesting, becauseI happen to be in a building systems
class, and I feel really uncomfortablewith building systems right now.
It would be, what better way to learnmechanical electrical plumbing systems
than using Revit, which I love todo, and learning how to model it.
And so, uh, Go in, go in for an interview.
I meet Bob Harvey, who's now my businesspartner and I interviewed with him and

(13:38):
I found out his wife was a professoractually at my college and I initially
declined the job because I didn't want toget, I didn't want to get like a conflict
due to the fact that, you know, I'm inschool and I'm working for your husband
type thing and, uh, he called me backand he goes, I don't care about that.
Come work for me.
Like just, just come work for me.

(13:59):
Bear in mind, I was notheavily in the industry yet.
I was more or less just like a student,you know, doing some architecture jobs,
you know, very, very basic drafting stuff.
And what Bob started to proceed to dowas explain his vision for how a model
should connect to a specialty contractor.
And what was enlightening about it wasthe amount of volume in just supplies,

(14:24):
the amount of volume in materials,the amount of waste in materials.
Uh, the, uh, the general complexityof the projects that they were doing.
And at the time in 2014, when we weremodeling with system families, if you
open up like a Revit MEP system familyfor an ELBO, and you'll, you'll see
that the connectors just don't work.

(14:45):
Like you can't get linear cuts.
It's not a fabrication element.
And so coincidentally enough, uh,and total fate, I think, and, and it
was, it was just sheer coincidence.
2015 they roll out MEPfabrication parts inside of Revit.
And at that moment they had adjustedthese connectors to be able to

(15:07):
actually lego fy your building.
Like you could actually like gocoupling to pipe to coupling and
it knew what the distances werebecause it was spec driven, right?
It was driven off of theactual product specification.
And the light bulb went off right there.
I'm like, this is incredible.
Cause he, my first taskwas, Hey, draw this.

(15:29):
So my guys can build it becauseI have to draw these isometrics
and I have to explain it.
And I've got 40 plumbers and I tellone plumber to do it this way and
this plumber to do it that way.
And they all do it 1500 different ways.
And how do I want, I want to createconsistency for better quality.
And so, um, Kind of speeding thisstory up a little bit, what was

(15:51):
interesting is as the tools beganto evolve, my comprehension of their
specialty trades started to evolve.
And so I was working with masterplumbers and they would explain, okay,
this is how this all goes together.
And I'm, I'm just a dumb oldarchitecture student, right?
Like I'm just designing buildings.
And what they were doing wasthey were teaching me how

(16:12):
to construct the MEP system.
And so as I learned how to dothat, we were able to, um, Bob
came into my office in 2016.
He goes, Hey, I'm thinking aboutbuying this linear positioning system.
I'm like, what the heck is that?
He's like, well, it goes on the back ofa saw and there's some automation on it.
And I was like, that would be amazing.
Cause I can give you the listand then we could go cut it.

(16:36):
Right.
And so, uh, we, long storyshort, we bought that, we got the
equipment in place and we realizedmajor deficiencies with it.
We're like, I got to export an Excel file.
I got to tell Johnny in theback, like, Hey, you know,
you're going to cut this list.
And Johnny doesn't knowhow to operate a computer.
And he's like overwhelmed.
He's like, I'm just going topull a tape measure and cut it.

(16:58):
Um, and so I got to see that and Iwent up to Bob one day in 2017 and I
said, let's develop our own solution.
We tried other gen one solutionson the market at that time.
And I said, You know, let's, let'sbuild our own product, which at the
time I had no idea what I was doing.
I was like, I, we just need to build ourown software to do what you want it to do.

(17:22):
And so we ended up hiringout a development team.
We ended up building out the process andkind of building the initial framework.
Bear in mind, this wasall strictly for Revit.
And so what we ended up doingis in 2019, Forge rolls out.
And I'm like General Akbar from Star Wars.
I'm like, this is a trap.

(17:43):
This is a nightmare.
Like, it's going to ruin my Revit tools.
You know, here, here we go.
Well, I met with Jim Quancey at Autodeskand he goes, Brian, it's not a trap.
It's actually a great product andwe're building it for this purpose.
And we want to learn more about whyyou're building what you're building
and how we can incorporate it into,into this whole APS life cycle.

(18:08):
And so, uh, 2020 pandemic hit.
Um, I ended up kind of goingto Bob and, and we're like,
you know, well is drying up.
We, we got to go present this and pitchthis and let's start going the VC route.
And we start going the VC routeand we ended up raising 2.
25 million in a seed round.

(18:28):
And, uh, that really helped us getthe traction that we needed now.
So we're now, we're, we're doing verywell at Allied and it allowed us to
bring on Brett and we've fully evolvedthe system to be a web based fabrication
workflow platform where now we can takea Revit model from design, whether it's

(18:53):
conceptual all the way through fabricationready, directly out to the machine.

And you have like, no, that's cool.
I, I, I think what one thing I, Ieven want to expand on it because
when you say like, you machineready, like you, you showed me,
and and we're gonna have a linkto a separate video that you're
gonna put up that
shows people what thatactually means because it's
more than just like, file export.
Right.
And so take a second and just talk aboutwhat that actually means, because I think

(19:25):
it actually puts you in the shoes of, orat least it gives you a footing in the
shop when you're actually building thesecutlists and you're, you're working
in this interactive model, but you're
also directly connected to the shopto see the output, which then in four,
I would assume informs kind of both
sides of that equation sothat you get a tighter.

(19:46):
Connection,
not just between the, thetransfer of data, but also the
people who are doing this job.

Yeah, no, uh, what was happening in the beginning was the
communication breakdown of putting itonto a, uh, USB stick, handing it to
them, walking it to the back shop, puttingit into the computer and then fighting
the computer to organize the list.
In fact, not even being ableto pack optimize the materials

(20:14):
accurately to mitigate waste.
It was just cutting stuff.
We, we reached a point where, youknow, a tail end of the stick, they
were nearly chopping their fingersoff on the saw just out of the box.
Right?
And so, Leading and segwaying intowhat you're talking about, Evan, where
we've gone model connected to machine.
Now the design modeler can publishfor fabrication, link the machine to

(20:39):
the actual model that they're goingto be building from and translate
and organize the data in a waythat's safer, more efficient, less
wasteful, and just overall faster.
We're seeing an eight Ximprovement speed over.
what a traditional thumb drive export is.
And let's face it, we all hateexporting and importing data.

(21:01):
It's the worst thing ever, right?
So

oh, sorry, Brian.
Well, one of, one of the things thatI was going to bring up, and I think
it's so important with software, andit's something that I kind of bring
across most of my jobs with me, and it'ssomething I remember really vividly from
doing it, is context switching, right?
This, no matter what job you do,the idea of saying, all right, I've

(21:27):
got this, shut this system down,now open it back up in this system.
It is a very jarring experience,no matter what you're doing, and so
whenever we were tackling, you know,coordination software, we focused on
where is the context switching andhow do we make that smooth handoff?
And I think fabrication and itslink to the BIM world suffers

(21:50):
from that greatly right now.
And the more you smooth thatout, in addition to reduce the
menial tasks that people do,
uh, the more value you get,
right?
So,
um, and there's a lot ofopportunity for that here.
So we're kind of taking thelow hanging fruit first,
and, and then, you know,working our way up that tree.

And you, you talked about kind of this idea of, I'm going to put
context switching even in context because,you talked about workflows earlier, right?
And so the idea, like, in anarchitectural workflow, there's a
lot of context switching, right?
It's like, I'm going from this toolExport, Import into this tool, Export,
Import, like wait, like there's all, allthese different context switching things

(22:35):
that are going on because, you know, when,when I, back, back in the day, right?
It's like we had to wait
for a certain thing.
You had to wait for the thing
to export.
You had to wait for Photoshopto, to, Pre process the image
before it could actuallyprocess the image.
You
remember that in
Photoshop, we had, we had like a progressbar for like what it was, it was thinking
about what it was going to do before

(22:56):
the real progress bar of
actually doing what it wasgoing to do when you applied the
filter or whatever, or preparing to save.
That's what I'm thinking of.
Photoshop used to tell usit was preparing to save.

to save.

Right.
Um, but, but then even rendering,like it used to take hours.
Right.
And so, and so to your
point
about like keeping this workflow in.
Like, I don't know what you would call it.
It's just like this one system,

Like a stream.

keeping it connected,
right?
Like there, there's so manydisconnects from design, even, even
on the receiving side of a specialtycontractor from the design side.
there's a lot of rework,
constant rework that's done, right?
And that's all driven based on, you know,that particular, particular specialty

(23:40):
contractor that's going to put whatevercontent they build into their model.
Um, but the moment that you can startto control that connection between
what has been published versus whatis being produced and, and connect
that back to the models to givethe designer a status of progress.

(24:00):
You can now accelerate that production.
An example of this was WilliamsPlumbing and Heating in Bozeman.
They were doing 10 model assemblyspool drawings, which for those
viewers that are listening, or forthe audience, a spool drawing is
really just a fabrication drawing.
So for somebody to be able to haveinstructions like a Lego sheet to build.

(24:21):
So they'd get 10 assembliesor 10 Lego kits to build.
and what we were able to do by creatingthat connection was accelerate it
on day two to 20, on day three to40, and on day, uh, four, they were
like, okay, we're ready to go 80.
We're going to just do 80.
And that's where we get our 8x productionnumber from, is them accelerating the

(24:43):
number of spool books or spool fabricationdrawings that they can produce.
And, and so it's all aboutthat connection, really.

But then, but then the other kind of side effect of
that, like, how is it possible?
I mean, and I'm just kind of steppingback and from a manufacturing standpoint
for a manufacturer to say,let's go eight times faster and
it's safer like that.
That's just gotta be kind
of a, another level of disconnect.
It's like
how's that
even possible?

Yeah.
And, and that's a reallygood point that you bring up.
They're like, you're so full of shit.
Like there's no way that you're going tobe able to make it 8X faster and safer.
And it's like, no, we actually arecontrolling a work cell, which enables us
to have a less skilled worker operate it.
It actually attracts the less skilledworker to the trades where we have

(25:35):
a massive trade shortage right now.
You know, I ask, I do a poll,I teach at Montana State
University in my Revit class.
Um, I teach the constructionengineering technology students.
I do a poll.
How many people arefamiliar with the trades?
On average, I have about 75to 100 students a semester.
I average about 5 students thateven know what the trades are.

(25:57):
And so, what I do as they gothrough my Revit class is I kind
of explain, you know, here's theoptions that you have to you.
Here's why it's soattractive to check it out.
And with, with that, it's likenow we've made the machine safer.
We're using a machine that's easierto teach somebody than it is to
even pull and read and interpret atape measure to mark with a sharpie.

(26:20):
Because now they can punch inthe dimension that they want and
the system does it on its own.
And it's less hands on.
Um, so in a traditional shop,you've got guys out like skill
sawing or using a chop saw.
That's a lot of manual labor.
With these fully automatic machines,you literally push a foot pedal
and it does it on its own, andthen it advances it on its own.

(26:43):
So now you're not having to pulla tape, set a backstop, pull a
tape, set a backstop, and advance.
I remember from my woodworking classhow frustrating that was, right?
And so, to your point, Evan,it's all about the safety.
the training of the skilled tradelabor, like being enticed to want
to come work in the trades, right?

(27:04):
Because now we've got thisdigitally connected system.
Um, and it's, it's,it's pretty interesting.
Brett, you can probably add alittle more to that as well.

Yeah, absolutely.
Um, you know, I have been connectedin my life with people that have
worked in a more traditionalmanufacturing environment, right?
And, and I've been in those shops,not near as much as I've been in
these sort of contractor AEC shops.
And, you know, there's a couplebig things that you guys bring up.
One is the safety.
In order to use a brake press in someof the shops I've been in, you have

(27:36):
to be standing on a pad and push twobuttons with both your hands, right?
Meaning that you have noextremities available to get stuck.
in the machine, right?
There, it is not possible.
Uh, as to where you make a sitevisit, like what we did last week,
there's nothing wrong with whatwas happening, but the opportunity

(27:57):
for injury is, is higher because ofthe nature of the tools being used.
Skill saw in hand.
You know, dusty floor, um, situationsthat are very common in construction.
And so, what we learned is, is, uh, inthe visit we just made, you can actually

(28:17):
prefabricate your cuts and add two peopleback to the labor crew building and
remove them from the dangerous situation.
Um, and keep that all in, in one workflow,
uh, and so it's really an organizationalvalue proposition that has to
be explained in multiple waysbecause it gives everyone value,

(28:41):
um, not to get too sidetrackedthere, but hopefully that kind of,
uh, helps kind of ourthought process there.

That's super interesting to kind of think about the business
that you're actually affecting, right?
Like, you're not just affecting process.
You're actually affecting the waythat they can conduct their business
from a labor standpoint and wherethose labor units are applied in the
shop versus out on the site, doinginstallation versus that prefabrication.

(29:10):
I think that's really interesting.
And so, like, just building on that,Theme for a minute what tell me like
how those conversations go like you justsaid you had to explain you usually have
to explain It multiple different wayswhat what do you hear is kind of the
objections and the pushbackthroughout that process?
And and that you're kind ofovercoming through that conversation.
I

you know, usually, uh, I have, uh, uh, two conversations
with almost all clients, depending on,and this goes for a lot of different
verticals, GCs, subcontractors, and thetwo conversations are first with the
technical team, what are we trying toachieve from a technical standpoint?

(29:53):
And then the second is thisa buy in from the people that
are actually doing the work.
Um, and those are two verydifferent conversations, right?
The first one is a very advanced, lotsof acronyms being thrown around, lots of
terminology that if you're not in thisindustry, you're not going to understand
what we're talking about, right?

(30:13):
As to where when we go to thefield, Brian and I went to a field
visit last week, and I, you know,we met with the superintendent.
We said, um, you know, justexplain to us, you know, what's
the most important thing to you?
And he said, going fast, speed, you know,safety is always number one concern,
but second to that is speed, right?

(30:35):
Um, yes, he did say safety first.
I reversed it on him, but, uh, you
It was one of those things wherewe thought it was going to be
a very technological process,
and it turned out to be a very simpleone, where he said, all I need are these
certain types of parts marked and cutand labeled and brought out to site.

(30:57):
We will do everything else thatwill accelerate our process.
and
so, does he understand that assemblies arebeing created, files are being processed?
Uh, you know, we're postprocessing PDFs into the parts
that he's getting delivered.
He knows none of that.
All he knows is that he'sgoing to get a package that

(31:20):
tells him where those parts go.
And that was where he waslike, oh, that's nice.

What they want, Evan, is they want the big, fat, red, that was easy
button, and that's what we're trying tobuild in the platform to make it simple
for them to use to where they don't needto necessarily know what's happening
on the, happening on the backend.
They're just getting the lists and thefiles and the organizations so that they
can produce and build the building faster.

Brian and, and, oh, go ahead, Evan,

I was gonna say it makes sense that you want it on the surface
to be simple and you want it to beapproachable and intuitive and, you
know, it feels good and the complexityis below the surface and it's difficult
to build software and processesthat are actually like that, right?
I mean, I'm sure you've gone through a
lot of iterations toactually get to that point.

(32:11):
Like,
what do you
put on the surface?
what
do you hide below the
surface?
So that That overwhelm doesn't happen.

Yeah, what the hardest part was, was realizing that we're,
so when we segued at Harvey's frombuilding it internally for a company
to selling it to other companies, thatwas the most difficult thing for us
to overcome is you build somethinginitially for your operations and it

(32:41):
has purpose for the internal operations.
But how do you blow the lid off of thatand make it accessible to everybody?
And we've successfully donethat because we learned through
trial and error how to do that.
And one of the best parts was oncewe built that web environment, it
became understandable of how it wasall going to tie into where we didn't

(33:03):
have to worry about what parameterswere in the Revit model anymore.
We can now map data through ourplatform to the equipment that
we've built on the back end.
And that's what's reallypowerful about it.
I mean, Brett brought upthe tube bending side.
Uh, the CNC tube benders, I showeda video just a few moments ago.

(33:24):
Um, but the CNC tube bendersare traditionally built
for the aerospace industry.
So like SpaceX, um, NASA, likeJPL, those kinds of companies
typically use this and automotive.
And those companies are batch producingthe same part over and over and
over again for each air, aircraft.

(33:44):
In our world, we're building newbuildings over and over again,
but it's nothing but variation.
No two projects are the same unlessthey're actually the same, right?
And even, even then, I wouldsay 95 percent or more of all
projects are constantly different,done by different people.
And so one of the other battles that we'vebuilt into the layer is we were able to

(34:08):
make this machine handle, and all machinesthat we work with, handle that variation.
with our construction industry.
So now it doesn't matter ifit's building the same part
over and over again, or if you
have 150 million different parts.

Interesting.

What's interesting about that is, is that is also a
requirement of that, and the abilityto act on variation very quickly is a
result of the connection to the model.
If we go back to the beginning of ourconversation, when Brian was talking
about, you know, generating a USB andtaking it to a saw, well, at the point

(34:50):
where that USB is put into your hand,anything on that model that changes.
is is unknown to you,
right?
Um, in this environment,
it doesn't
feel different.
You're still getting a cut list,
but that cut list can be changed basedon decisions made that are out of your

(35:11):
control and further up the process.

Yeah.
I want to go back to that easybutton idea, um, because I think
that a lot of things that fabricationstruggles with is the design
side, not understanding what a modelthat is ready for development is.
fabrication really means.
I've heard this from, on the, on thetimber side, on the, on the, you know,

(35:37):
Greg Howes over at Cut My Timber, he, he'stalked about that a lot, like the, just
the, the, vocabulary of the design sideisn't there, the knowledge on the design
side isn't there, the understanding of howthe tooling works, what the processes are.
And so I'm just wondering, like,when you are bridging the gap,
Between design and fabrication.

(35:57):
Talk about kind of, okay.
So, so you're, you're intentionallykeeping stuff below the surface.
You're bringing stuff up sothat people can see certain
things, but you're really talking about
that from.
The, the operator sideat the moment, right?
You're talking about the fab shop,but from the design side, talk
talk about it from that direction too.
And like
what architects and designteams need to know about the
process that they are, because

(36:19):
I
think they think it's an
easy button.
They actually
assume the easy button alreadyexists and I'm just chucking this
model over the fence and it's all
good.
And that's,
that's not the case, right?

No, it's, it's actually interesting that you bring this up because
my thought process on this has changed somany times over the last couple of years.
I was a really disgruntled architecturestudent coming out of school.
I was disgruntled because my mindset waswe're going to be the master builder.
We're going to know everythingthat goes into the building.
We're master designers, right?

(36:48):
We know how to master plan andmaster layout and, and put together
construction CD sets that wecan convey and get permitted.
And we can, it's, that's going toget bid through the GC and they're
going to go build that project.
And, um, what we've seen and what we'vedone really well with our platform is
once it goes out to the subcontractors,they're the master of their craft in

(37:13):
installing those things.
And that creates a nice separation.
Um, because now in a modeling standpoint,you know, starting with system
families where you're going throughand you're doing spaghetti, right?
Like you're just modeling,you know, generic sizes, doing
your collision detections, justvalidating that things are going
to fit and systems are going to go.

(37:34):
I look at it more kind of like theRussian dolls, like stacking dolls
concept, where it's like, you know,architect gave us, you know, the whole
set, we're going to take that one offand drill in a little bit further.
We're going to drill in alittle bit further to that.
And then eventually, you know,you've, you figure out how they've
all stacked together, right?
And I think, um, what we'veseen and what we've been able to

(37:54):
do is, Revit has regulated andcontrolled that to some degree.
The specialty contractors that are usingRevit didn't have the tools ten years ago
to make a manufactured model, right?
And over the last decade, there'sbeen solutions that have come out and
the industry's really evolved intocreating higher level precision models.

(38:19):
The problem is the time that goesinto build those models, fighting
Revit, and how large those models are.
And so the, the exciting part aboutthe web for us is it no longer even
has to be modeled technically in Revit.
We can actually digitallymanufacture, you know, from a
model that's generated in the web.

(38:41):
And so that, that's kind of excitingbecause if I could take the blueprints
and the, the engineered models that are,call it, you know, um, magnified level
or magnified level of detail, right?
It's not microscopic level, it'sjust magnified a little bit.
We've got enough detail in there.
Um, and then make it microscopicthrough an upload and process it

(39:04):
and generate it and fabricate it.
That's really where this industry'sheaded is, you know, with all this, for
better or worse, adoption of AI, youknow, there is the opportunity for us
to publish, generate, and manufacture.
Right?
So, just kind of, it's, it's changedwhere in our today's, today's,

(39:28):
It's Plan, Design, Send a Model, ReceiveModel, Remodel, Fight Revit, Export,

You forgot to fight Revit in the earlier part too.

I should've put it earlier, Fight Revit.

That's
at

do love Revit.
I do love Revit, but we fight it a lot.

You know,
I talk about this with clients all thetime, and I first recognized it when I
stepped into the construction industry,when I realized that the models that were
being used were generally authored bythe subcontractors and not the designers.
When early in my career, I alwaysthought the subcontractors model

(40:10):
would be an evolution of the designmodel, not A complete rework.
of the design model.
And what we've discovered over theyears, and I'm not talking anything that
anybody doesn't know, Is that there'snow, uh, and I've, I've used this
comment in other parts of the industry.
There's essentially a sub economy of,of, of tools that float in this space

(40:35):
of taking an engineered, uh, detail,an engineering level detail model and
taking it to something that can be built.
Um, that was never addressedin the native software.
And there is now a whole bunch oftools that do that on top of Revit.
But as technology has gone on,now we're questioning of, is

(40:56):
Revit the base, the best place?
And we'll use some baselevel AI talk here, and, and,

Very base.

Preface this, this could absolutely be described
as rule based automation.
If I'm an engineering person, and I say,I want 50 foot of conduit, Right, point
A to point B, from this box to this box.
Everybody in this project knows thatthat's going to have to be chopped

(41:25):
into five 10 foot sticks and couplingsare going to have to be placed there.
Everybody, the engineers, theconstruction workers, the, the, everybody.
But we still have to go intoRevit and say, cut it here.
What coupling do you want?
I want this coupling.
Put it here.

(41:46):
Why?
Right?
Those are all things thatwe all know has to happen.
And, and when we look at like rulebased AI type stuff, those are the
types of things I think that us asan industry should be looking at
is, is that the things that we allknow is going to happen and, and
leave the hard stuff to the people.
Um, and, and so that's why that partof the industry is big in flux is

(42:10):
because there are tools to fit that gap.
But they are very human driven.

One follow up point to that, that you made Brett, that kind of
relating it to the architecture industry.
Do you remember when likeLumion came out for the

I love that.

And, and they're like, they're like, how can
we make rendering sustainable?
Right?
Do you remember when we werespending all of our budget rendering
and then Lumion came along andthen it gave us more budget to
actually focus on the model?
Right?

went from eight tower PCs running a whole weekend to running Lumion
in 15 minutes to achieve the same results.

Exactly.
And, and that's what we want todo for the fabrication industry.
It's that same concept is like, insteadof spending, you know, 90, 000 hours
or whatever it is, you know, a hundredthousand hours, what, whatever it may
be on a project, modeling, modeling,modeling, slicing every coupling,
you know, let's spend more timemanufacturing and getting awarded more

(43:10):
projects so that we can build morebuildings and sell more buildings.
Right.
Right.
You know, these guys that we met withlast week are building massive data
centers all throughout the United States.
And, um, what's exciting to me aboutit is not only is our core principle
of automating the trades to buildmore buildings, but the buildings

(43:32):
that they're building are actuallypowering the system that we're relying
on to build the software as well.
So it's, it's kind of excitingto see that kind of transpire.

It is interesting to me to think about it from the standpoint of
the complaints that I was hearing aboutlike the design team doesn't know enough
to be effective in on the design sidebefore it gets thrown over the fence
and then it magically works itself out.
But the reason it magically works itselfout is because the trades are doing a deep

(44:03):
dive, rebuilding everything from scratchbecause they have the expertise, right?
It totally actually makes sense becauseRevit, Any CAD, any hand drawing, for
that matter, was design intent, right?
Architects think in assemblies,they don't think in components,
for the most part, right?
Floors, Ceilings, walls,we think in categories.

(44:27):
I mean, if you want to thinkabout it that way, right?
And, and uh, and, andit always made sense.
I rem remember when I started offwhen it was on paper and it was like
MEP was single line diagrams, right?
Electric.
It was single line diagrams.
Like there was no way.
All of that information needed toget front loaded onto the designer.
Number one, they didn't know whatthose pieces and parts needed to be,

(44:50):
because we're not component experts.
But number two, like,
a lot of that was
just actually figured out in the field.
There was no Prefab like point on the
timeline.
Right.

the art of the trade.

it was the art of the trade and, and, and you could rely on that.
And that, and that was part of likethe handshake that happened there.
And it was, it wasn't adversarial, right?
It was, it was like a necessarypiece of the puzzle stepped in
when they needed to be there.
And what I'm hearing from you guys islike, that's actually still possible
here because the, like, I shouldn'tas a Revit operator need to know.

(45:27):
that the EMT needs to cutdown into 10 foot sections.
And we need to use this coupling, whichis specified here from this pull down
menu, and I got to pick it and all that.
No, like that's whatsoftware is really good for.
Right.
And, and that to me isactually reassuring.
That we can actually make evensimpler front end design software

(45:50):
that is a joy to use, which everybodyknows the current software is
actually not a joy to use, right?
It's, it's with that, we'vetalked about fighting it, right?
Um, and, and, and we see a lotof potential in that part of the
industry right now with people who aredeveloping some really incredible stuff.
But, but the reason is, is like,that's because our value is not in
doing that deep dive that early.

(46:11):
Like it's great if it wouldbe great if the software said,
Hey, red flag right here.
Um, something, you need to addresssomething, but I don't necessarily
need to know what those things areuntil I need to know what those
things are, right?
I mean, so, I mean, am I, am I talk, isthis crazy talk or are you nodding your
head in agreement like,

it's, I
live it, I wear it every day.
I lost all my hair from pullingit out using those tools, right?
It's like, it's like how many times havewe sat there and we've just been like, Oh
my gosh, why do I have to do this again?
Right?
It's, it's, it's, it totallymakes sense what you're saying.
And what I, what I'm really enjoyingabout this conversation is, From

(46:48):
your perspective, Evan, I'm actuallythinking about it in a different
way than I have prior to this.
And it's, so it's, it's really excitingfor me because, you know, hearing
your thought process on it, and thenyou're, you're kind of more on that
design side out to construction.
We're kind of more on that specialty side.
And what the software providers havebeen doing is they're kind of stuffing

(47:13):
that and forcing these architects andengineers to learn the constructability
side, but it just doesn't need to happen.
Right?
We can allow the software todo that translation for us.
And that's kind of the exciting partabout what Brett and I are building here.

But that sounds like a very recent development, right?
Like
that the software and the hardwarehave kind of come together at this
moment of like really great capability
to be able to do that.
Because I think that was just abig cloudy mess for a long time.

Totally.
I mean, just the amount of, we've doneseveral pivots as most startups have.
Um, our last pivot was probablyabout two years ago, prior to
building the electrical segment out.
And, uh, I gotta give major credit toKyle Sponseller from CNR Electric, cause
he came in as this, really young, but amaster electrician, professional engineer.

(48:10):
So not only did he know how to design it,but he also know that he also built it.
Right.
So he's kind of that masterelectrician that knows how to build it.
And so his, he kind ofinformed the process.
He's like, let's mark the material.
Let's cut the materialin an automated fashion.
Let's bend it automatically.

(48:31):
Let's reduce it down.
Uh, in some of the examples that weshow online, you know, the bends on 4
inch EMT that are going into data centerwork take about 15 minutes to do it
the manual way, the traditional way.
And with the automation, we can doit in less than 15 seconds per bend.

(48:51):
So it's pretty wild to see,you know, that translation.
What that translates to me isbeing able to do more projects,
do more bends, produce more work.
So,

curious, like, how, so, so, I mean, there's been conversations
led by, uh, software companiespreviously about retooling AEC, and
this is really the C side, right?
The, and, and you even have kindof the pre construction side, if
we're talking about prefab, kindof, offsite fabrication, right?
So talk about that side of it and how,what the appetite is for retooling

(49:32):
the trades, because now you'reactually talking about less people
running the machines, the machinesare way smarter, you have a lot
less waste, you have less in like,there's all of these things kind of
floating around that conversation,but how does that, how, what is
the appetite for that conversation?

when we came into this showing the
moonshot, which was the whole entirework cell, which is like auto marking,
auto cutting, auto bending, we're askingfor a pretty substantial investment
into equipment to retool that shot.
You know, they're, they'relooking at a work cell that's
anywhere from 650, 000 to 1.

(50:11):
2 million, depending onwhat they put into it.
These guys are used to using, you know,881s, 555s, 747s, and a hand bender.
All of the tools that range from100 to 8, 500, upwards of maybe 30,
000 to 50, 000, depending on whatthey type of machine they're using.

(50:36):
And so what we've had to do and whatBrett pointed out, which I think was
absolutely brilliant is we've had toactually scale the product back to
what the existing trades do today.
So now there's an option.
Are you a manual shop?
Do you do manual work?
Great.
We have a tool for you.
Hey, are you a semi automatic shop?

(50:58):
Yes, I am.
I use a little bit.
I want to, I want to start with cutting.
I want to start with marking.
We have a way to do that.
And then there's the whole, you know,like big end goal of manufacturing, like a
manufacturing work cell for electricians.
And we have that too.
And so it's interesting because you,as you're developing your product,

(51:20):
you know, we were very visionaries.
Like as the founders were, youknow, we're like, we need to get out

Go all the way,

Yeah.
Go all the way here.
And then people are like, you'reabsolutely out of your mind.
You're all the way out there.
Like what's.
What's going on?
Uh, and then we've met, you know,we've, we've actually, we're currently
working with the top 50 in our, uh, 100electricians and we're in about 10 to
15 percent of those currently today.

(51:48):
And what's wild is, um, we, as Brett cameon board and Brett can speak to this, as
he started to scale it back, It's beeneasier to kind of lay out the breadcrumbs
to get them into understanding how there'sa bigger picture to do full automation.

Before you
jump into that, Brett, causeI, I want, I want to hear that.
I just want to add one,one extra thing is that
I, to me, what this seems like it woulddo for you is help you build relationships
with your customers because you're
not just going all the way.
It's like, let's start here.
And then once you're ready,we can go to the next step.
And then once you're ready,we can go to the next
step.
That seems to me like a muchmore sustainable business

(52:28):
model, right?
For, for Allied.

We're not, we're not just giving them a platter
and saying here feast, right?
Like, it's like
we're going in there and listening andunderstanding what their pain points are.
We're responding to those painpoints in our development.
and making that development suitablefor anybody so that we can build
a better relationship over time.

(52:52):
This trip to Atlanta at England and Stubbslast week was one of the most eye opening
experiences because they truly understood,Hey, we're not ready to cut right now.
We don't want to deal with cutting.
We just want to startwith the bender, right?
Let's get the bender rolling.
And After we finish the bendingwork, so they're like, okay,

(53:13):
you've proven the bender works.
Let's get the cut stations rolling.
Let's let's let's automate

next step, right?

Yeah Mm hmm

just as forward thinking, same exact industry, and they chose to go
the other way where they're like, we'regoing to saw, we're going to cut and mark
first and we're going to bend the old way.
And, uh, they are now like, okay,let's get these vendors going.
Um, you know, there are two big, bigthings I'd like to touch on over that

(53:46):
conversation arc that you guys had.
Uh, one is that do we get pushback incertain areas of the country, uh, that
say, hey, you're kind of encroachingon jobs or something of this nature.
Yes, people brought that up,but there's a couple of things.
There is a skilled labor shortage,and what that requires is, is for the

(54:12):
industry as a whole to market to youngpeople and their interests, right?
However, that may be, and I'm not amarketing expert, but I can tell you
that whenever I go to career fairs,if I stick to we're electricians,
we or, you know, we're industrialengineers, we break up rocks.

(54:32):
You know, people walk on by, butif I have a VR headset and an
interactive way for them to engagewith the type of work that they're
doing, then you get that engagement.
So, there's one aspect of getting newpeople on, but then there's the other
aspect of that same skilled shortage, inthat we don't have 50 electricians running

(54:55):
around that know how to do all this stuff.
Um, we have much less than wehave ever had, and we also don't
have a good entry level positionfor people in this industry.
What better than a safety orientedenvironment to hire an operator to
work under a journeyman electricianto learn the ropes of this new, of not

(55:19):
only the way electricity is installedin our country and in the world,
But, you know, learn from someonethat's got that experience
while they still provide value.
Um,
to me,
it seems like a hugewin all the way around.
And, you know, people thatmake that leap are finding
that to be prettyvaluable in those regards.

You mentioned VR and I know Brian you've got like this really
interesting kind of I don't know.
I want to call it a workflow, I guess,for the moment, for the meantime, but
explain kind of this, the thing that,like, build on what Brett was just
talking about, like the, the type
of software that you've done that's
enabled through the web, but givesyou a, uh, a view, a window into

(56:06):
the shop itself and, and kind of
this immersive experience that you guys
have created, which is
more than just like, cause I think maybe
what people think is okay,
Revit, is maybe what people
are thinking when they're thinking aboutwhat you're talking about, but it's not
that at all.

No, a hundred percent.
Um, you know, in, in what we,
as we orchestrated and what APS,what Autodesk platform services,
like I'm going to plug them.
It's a shameless plug for them, but II'm plugging them because I actually
believe in them and they helped us a lot.
And what they kind of showed uswas that now that we have all the

(56:42):
model data information accessiblethrough this environment, Now we
can actually communicate beyond whatthe generation one set of tools did.
Now we can actually start to createthis linkage to the equipment
to be able to manufacture.
So what I did is I, I, just tried it out.

(57:03):
I'm like, I, you know, the MetaQuest3's out, bought a MetaQuest 3.
They're really prettyinexpensive, 600 bucks, right?
Um, and, um, throw the thingon, open up a web browser.
I opened up our Fabrication Connectedsoftware and I was like, wait a minute.
So we have some proprietary software thatruns on the machine that I can connect to.
Let's see if it connects from the headset.

(57:25):
And so I go in and I log intoour ring camera on our shop
that's up in Bozeman, Montana.
Uh, I'm based in Boise, Idaho.
So being, you know, at the shopthrough the headset on the machine
is like really important tome because I can work with it.
I can actually.
In the VR environment, I cantouch it because it's got hand
tracking, so I can actually tapand learn it through the headset.

(57:48):
And what it did is it actually, real time,through the internet, ran the machine.
It cycled the machine.
I was able to load materials from my homeoffice in Boise to the machine there.
Our development team's onthe other side of the globe.
They're remoting it and controllingthe machine digitally now.

(58:09):
And so where that all camefrom was the skilled trade gap.
And I know we're, that's awhole nother subject, but I'm
going to keep it real simple.
I experienced it.
My business partner is 60plus year old master plumber.
Okay.
He's retired.
He's got 35 years ofexperience all up here.

(58:29):
Okay.
How does he teach that emerginggeneration how to actually use it?
, and I believe it's through VR or youknow, these glasses, meta just talked
about these new, I think it's calledOsiris or something like that, or Iris.
Um, but you basically put these glasseson and it's passed through technology

(58:51):
that overlays all the screens whileyou're walking through society.
They're like 10 grand.
They're really expensive right now.

Yeah, they're
not for sale.
Yeah.

but I envision
him, I envision these guys popping in.
on our headsets and seeing throughour eyes on the job site and actually
instructing us how to build and model.
And as things start to get more intuitivewith VR, like imagine being able to
open up a toolkit and start modelingout your systems on site, like just

(59:24):
with real content and then manufacturingthat on the equipment, right?
It's, it's not even.
It's not even modeling the buildinganymore, it's just going out on site
and just, here, I want this here.
Send it to the shop, they're going toship it to the site, I'll install it.
Uh, it's, it's wild.
So
that's, that's kind ofthe vision I see with it.

the interesting thing to me about that is scale, right?
Like, like the, okay, the bestcase scenario is in person, right?
Like you're, you're the,you're the master plumber
and I'm here learning this trade.
Let's connect and let's do this.
But that doesn't
scale, right?
And,
and now with the internet, withtechnology, with what we're
doing right here on this call,

(01:00:07):
right?
We're
in three different locations.
You're also talking about tuninginto the shop in Bozeman from Boise
and having direct control over themachines is you've, you've now got this
broadcast scenario potential, right?
One to many, right?
And you have this interaction,but you can have an, a,
A huge number of people tuning into watch and learn that in real time

(01:00:32):
from the source, from the person who
is the master plumberto do that right there.
I think it's really incredible, and thatyou can run all this software from that.
So, is VR magical here in this scenario?
Not really, except it enables Thiswhole thing to scale and it enables
you to connect from anywhere to

(01:00:52):
anywhere and
feel like you're actually immersed inthe situation Not just watching it on a
small screen like on your phone, right?

Brian Nickel (01:00:59):
I, it gives me a medium to convey the vision of it
so that someone other than me canbuild that, like, like, build that
platform to be able to communicateso I can get that done, right?
Like, we've looked at, like, ResolveBim.
Angel say is amazing over there.
I think he's probably going to be theone to pull something like this off.

(01:01:20):
Um, but being able tohave that platform that.
leverages our data to work with it,to pass it through those systems.
We've built the networkof fabrication shops.
Now we just plug it into that headsetand we're ready to roll, right?
Or, or even just the network ofpeople that are, that are fabricating.
So it's, that's moonshot.

(01:01:42):
Always have to scale it back toreality that we're using tape
measures and sharpies, right?
So, Gotta scale it before we canget there, but, uh, it's, it's
just an interesting way of usbeing able to convey that vision.

Evan Troxel (01:01:54):
It's a cool, cool thing.
Brett, I have a question for you being theproduct manager for this and just talking
about kind of why you guys chose the web.
I know there's a lot of kind of, there'sboth sides to that argument, right?
Doing it on machines versusin the cloud or on the
web.
And I'm just curious to hearyour thoughts on that side of it.
And what that's enabled you guys to do.

Brett Settles (01:02:16):
Yeah, the, the interesting thing is, is that
the decision on the WebSocket wasactually developed before I got here.
However, it was new.
So, while it wasn't necessarily my idea,it was thought of by Brian and Kyle, it
is something that I immediately recognizeis extremely valuable and something
that me personally, um, I have a uniqueperspective on a lot of my projects

(01:02:43):
because, you My projects that I workedon were always prefabbed, very far
away from where they were being built,shipped to where they were being built.
And one of the things is, issolving the problem of localization
for a prefab operation.
and and what I mean by thatis, is that if you wanna scale

(01:03:05):
prefabrication the easiest.
And, and I'm sure there's someone outthere that has done this, but I'm sure
it's very difficult to prefab one largeproject from three to five addresses,
right.
So, you know, you get a project,you're doing something like a, you
know, a 20 story hotel, um, andyou've got three 5, 000 square foot

(01:03:31):
shops, not a 25, 000 square foot shop.
So, The first thing you got todo is you got to start thinking
about your resources, right?
In a desktop bound environment,the connection between those three
shops and the communication is goingto be Excel and IT heavy at best.

(01:03:55):
And that's if you have a verygood team doing it, right?
As to where, with the decision that theymade beforehand, It allows it to where
everything's automatically labeled, andyou cannot possibly step on the toes
of each other, even if shop 1 is doing,you know, 1 through 2 inch, shop 2 is
doing 2 through 4, and shop 3 is doing4 and up, in terms of, like, conduit

(01:04:19):
sizes, or, or something of that nature.
So, the integration of the data,and the way that the UPCs, the
QRs, the package labels sort
themselves out, allow them tobe shipped and not confused.
I think it's something that's oftenoverlooked about the difference
between desktop and web basedsoftware, mostly because No,

(01:04:42):
one's tried that yet,
or, or has tried it on a large scale.
So we'll see how that goesover the next few years.
I have high hopes, but you know, I'vebeen wrong before, but we'll see.
So that's kind of my take.
Brian, am I on, on base
with what you're thinking?

what I really am glad that Brett just narrated there is just that
a lot of these shops have threeto five different, like, buildings
that perform different sequences of
operations.
Like, one might be mechanical, one mightbe electrical, one might be plumbing, one
might have electrical split up between,you know, different sizes all the

(01:05:20):
way out to different racking systems.
And the beauty of that web environmentand answering your question, Evan,
about like why we chose web is wehave an internet system, right?
So because every shop has a computer,it's much easier for a guy to
open up a web browser and createa simple interaction than it is to

(01:05:42):
have him download and install andfind his serial code to install a
C sharp desktop application, right?
Right.
And so what we've done is we'vesimplified it on different medians to
where they can run it on the iPad, theycan run it on their iPhone, they can
run it on just a standard computer.
And now, now that all those stationshave been identified, it's rolling

(01:06:03):
out a map of all of those workstationsfor an overall metric system to be
able to understand what's happeningat each work cell, at each machine.
Um, And it gives us data thattraditionally is lost through that export.
When, the moment you export a model,you've immediately just like vomited,

(01:06:25):
you know, all this informationthat has no traceability, right?
And

You know,

even if, you can import it, there's data loss, right?
And it's just a nightmare, right?
This is all connected.
It all communicates.
There's no data loss.
It's all being put into one central core.

and Brian, I mean, the only reason I was going to jump in
there, and I'll be real quick, right?
Like, classic problem in our industry,
uh, hey, BIM changed something.
What'd they change?
Disassembly.
Well, it's sitting right there.

Yeah.
Already made it, Yeah.

So like, what are we going to do?
This is a huge solver of that problem.
And that was really the onlypoint I wanted to bring up there.

And again, I just want To kind of, like, I'll give you a moment to,
and we'll have a link to a video wherepeople can actually see the Allied BIM.
Connection, like what that actually means,but it's, it's more than a spreadsheet.
Like it's, it's a 3d interactive.
You're clicking on, or maybe in VRtouching parts, spinning models.

(01:07:35):
To fully understand what is beingsent to the fabrication shop, right?
Like there's, there's a level of fidelitythere to give me the peace of mind that
what has been modeled or, or maybe whatis the intention of, of the design.
Is actually being
sent to the shop.
I get to see it and I get some,I get, I can actually see what

(01:07:57):
the parts are and I can look
for red flags because as a human, Ihave really great pattern recognition
by visually inspecting what's going on.
Maybe I don't need to go through allof the parts list to on my end to do
that, but that due diligence would needto be done on the, on the other side.
But it just gives thatkind of more accountability
in the system.

(01:08:18):
At a really high fidelity rightto enable the best product
to be produced in the end.

You bring up an incredible point there is that most
of these shops are putting out twodimensional paper drawings with a 3d
isometric in 2d format on the sheetreference to a schedule on what to cut.
And I can't, I can't tell you howmany times we've sent that out
and the guys,

there there
you can't mess that up

he's looking at it and he's like, what does this say?
Like he's got to interpretthat drawing now,
right?
And so the beauty of showing the3D model is the interpretation
is through the connection outto those positioners to cut.
The interpretation is out towardsthose generated files to bend.

(01:09:06):
So that interpretation layer goes away.
It's more of a QA, QC process ofsaying, check, that looks correct.
Let's let the work cell do the work.

nice nice Very cool.
Is there anything that we've missed here?
Um, I, I, again, we'll just reiterate,uh, that there will be some links in
the show notes that you can click on towatch some videos on the, the types of
facilities that you're talking about,but also the software and kind of the
interactivity of, of, you know, throughthe VR potentially, um, you know, as

(01:09:36):
kind of a future statement of, of what itmight be like to work in these, but also
just showing kind of whatthe software is doing.
What else?
Is there anything else that weneed to say before we wrap up here?

Um, I just like to say, thank you, Evan, for, you know, hosting
today and for bringing us on your show.
I've been a listener for quite some time.
I love the content thatyou're putting out.
Um, really, really appreciate thetime that you've gone through our
product today and, For anybodythat's listening that would like
to get in touch with us, feel free.

(01:10:07):
Brett and I are very approachable.
Uh, we, we enjoy conversationsjust like what we had today.
And, and we also like learningabout, you know, other ideas that
can kind of further and enhanceand better our industry together.
I mean, this is an allied pursuit,you know, we're, we're building
industry alliance status, like withdifferent, you know, disciplines in

(01:10:30):
mechanical, electrical, plumbing.
This is truly a collaborative effortand we can't do it without a network.
Uh, it's, you know, this is our network.

Nice.
And I
want to give you guys a chanceto plug your show too, so I'd
definitely talk about that if peoplewant to learn more and do a deeper
dive into this particular kind of content.

Yeah,
I'll let Brett kind of,
Brett kind of came up with FabFab andI, I would love for Brett to kind of
explain what we're doing there becauseit's, it's really exciting, uh, and
it's focused on an area of the industrythat's generally less understood from
the design intent through the fab side.

(01:11:12):
And I think it gives us kind ofa place to, to showcase that.
But I want to, I want to, I wantBrett to kind of cover that.
Thanks

Yeah,
it was, it was a whole bunchof things that came together.
One is that we're a fanof a lot of podcasts.
We both watch upwards of three or four apiece, and we truly generally like them.
One of the things, uh, that we wanted todo was cover exactly that, that sort of

(01:11:39):
design intent through the beginning offabrication, uh, because it's, it's an
area that usually you're talking aboutBIM or you're talking about fabrication.
You're never talking aboutthe interface of the two.
Um, and that was something that RCN alwaysdid really well, was the interface of
BIM and surveying and reality capture,and it's a super important area.

(01:12:03):
Uh, so that is where wekind of like to live.
We do it live.
A couple reasons we do it live isbecause we don't have time to edit
it, and There are a lot of peoplethat do a much better job than Brian
or I could do, so we just don't eventry to compete in that area, right?
So we make mistakes, we go live, um,and yeah, I mean, it's just really,

(01:12:29):
it's really based on that interface.
And the term FabFab came from a lot ofconversations we had, and it was actually
a goofy conversation where it's anabbreviation of Fabulous Fabrication, is
essentially what that name means, and itwas snappy, it hashtagged really well,

(01:12:52):
uh, all of the internet analysis said
that it was a good SEO, Opportunity.
And so
that is how we ended up with it.
And it's fun.
We don't do it as often as we wouldlike, most likely because we're
chasing funding, you know, but once we

(01:13:14):
staff up and stuff, we hope to make it avery regular thing and our next episode
should have a very important client thathas stepped through this process with us.
So as long as they agree to comeon, our next, uh, episode should be
very insightful for anyone that's
thinking about doing

He has agreed.
Um, so Austin
Bruner from England andStubbs is joining us, but.
Yeah, the grittiness of itis why we like doing it live.
It's like, you know, we're ina shop in a live environment
working and stuff happens.
And so we, we like to kind of fitthat mantra of this is live or human.
Like
we're not going to, we just,

(01:13:54):
we're off the cuff.
Like if we screw up, it's, we screw up.

Yeah.

We're still waiting on our first ban.
We haven't been banned fromanything yet, so that's good.

Yes, correct.
No bans.

Well, I will put links to, for people to connect with both
of you in the show notes as well.
So
they actually can get in contact ifthey want to learn more or talk through
kind of what you've been working
on at a deeper level.
Thank you both for taking the timetoday to tell the story of Allied BIM
and what you've been up to.
And it's really exciting.
I'm, I, I find it.

(01:14:27):
intriguing that you've kind of gonea different direction than a lot
of other startups in this space.
Like you're going directly to thetrades and solving those problems
between design and fabrication, right?
And that to me is just
a, that, that's a sweetspot for you guys to be in.
Obviously your passion is
there.
So thank You for doingthat and for telling that
story today on the show.

(01:14:48):
Yeah.
Great to have you.

Absolutely.
Thank you.
Evan.

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171: ‘From Model to Machine’, with Brian Nickel and Brett Settles

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