The Submittal, a Construction Podcast The Link

Construction technology has evolved enormously in recent years, going through different waves, from cloud to mobile to AI, and now AI large language models. Dustin Burns has been with McCownGordon, a general contractor in the midwest through many of these changes. The discussion ranges from the pros and cons of software to what to watch out for as we adopt these LLMs.

As important as specifications are to the construction process, the way they are provided to project teams creates risk for the contractor, and project as a whole. Stephen Poppe, a research leader at HITT Contracting, and former PM at Whiting Turner provides his unique perspective on the how & why of these risks, and how technologies such as ChatGPT might address some of the shortcomings of current Specifications workflows.

Specifications as delivered can be a massive document that is still printed in many cases. The project team will dive in and really understand the specs up front, but what happens when team members cycle off? What happens when there's a question, but the answer is found in a 3,000 page printout from 6 months ago? Construction trial lawyer Garrett Mott walks through some of the risks this creates, and some of the cases he's worked on that show how expensive missing a single line in a specification can be.