Dive Brief:
- Suffolk Construction marked a tech milestone when it cut the ribbon at 100MAG, the firm’s new innovation campus at its Boston headquarters, according to an Oct. 29 announcement from the contractor.
- 100MAG will serve as the center of the company’s innovation efforts and furthers its yearslong push to add construction tech to its workflows. Suffolk spotlighted artificial intelligence, robotics, data usage and quantum as technologies it will hone in on at the center.
- The move builds on Suffolk’s varied efforts to integrate technology into its business and building practices. In June, the contractor revealed its “Jobsite of the Future” push to embed AI engineers on its construction sites, and it has long championed the BOOST tech accelerator program within Suffolk Technologies, the firm’s venture capital arm.
Dive Insight:
Suffolk will bring project planning, design, self-perform construction and technology investments and partnerships teams together under one roof, per the announcement.
The company’s goal is to emulate a “master builder” model by combining these tech capabilities with some of its in-house efforts, such as Suffolk Design, which provides integrated architectural services, and the BOOST program, said Doug Harrison, vice president of corporate operations at Suffolk, in an interview with Construction Dive.
Harrison also cited a white paper that Suffolk produced with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which pegged six areas where AI can help builders make productivity gains.
“We're taking some of the best ideas and problems that we get in from our field and start to work through solutions to start to find efficiencies in the way we work, and ultimately try to drive down cost and schedule,” Harrison said.
Suffolk will leverage its Jobsite of the Future, VC investments and the BOOST program to explore potential solutions for wider use, via testing at 100MAG.
“What I would say is the ecosystem of 100MAG sits at the intersection between the ideas and the prototypes, and what actually can be scaled out to our projects and standardized through process excellence and our operational excellence group,” Harrison said.
