Back in 2010, when Lachlan Knight arrived at an Australian tier one construction company for his cadetship, all he could see was an industry through a lens fogged by challenges. It was an eye-opener for him to realise the state, or lack thereof, of technology in the construction industry. From documents and drawings to approvals and inspections, the majority of the operations were paper-based. Besides, he also observed that how each project with disorganised and disparate management applications. “How could a company efficiently manage, store, and access project information years after completion through multiple disconnected systems?” he asked in amazement. Besides being disconnected, these construction applications were clunky and difficult to use. Employees were offered no training, instructions, or guidance from the service provider to make things more challenging.

It was only a matter of time when Knight switched jobs and realised that this wasn’t a single company’s problem. It was a global issue in construction. As a technology enthusiast, Knight decided to change this narrative, putting an end to challenging to operate construction management applications, disconnected project information, paper-based and immobile systems, and lack of training and support. Passionate about design, construction, and technology, Knight started creating the ultimate construction management solution. The goal was to build an application that is easy to use and powerful and adds value to the operations by understanding the needs of the construction industry. This is precisely when Glaass was born.

Enter the New Digital Construction

Inspired by the extraordinary construction material, glass, the company, aimed to represent the innated properties of glass, which is easy to customise, clear and visible in its appearance, and bulletproof in applications. Glaass’ first solution launched on Copenhagen’s largest construction project in 400 years, the 15.5 km underground driverless metro. Today, Glaass works with national and international contractors to provide powerful tools that help teams work smarter with fewer delays and errors.

Glaass specialises in a diverse range of construction solutions and services that focus on pushing the boundaries of construction innovation.

At the core, Glaass connects different construction teams to record, track and trace every aspect of their projects on one single platform. As an adaptable construction management solution, Glaass, designed by construction professionals, allows users to save time, eliminate errors, and experience seamless mobile collaboration with teams—all in one place in an accountable and transparent environment. According to Knight, 25 per cent of all construction-related expenses are wasted through miscommunication, wrong information, misunderstanding, and poor systems. That said, as a full-service provider, Glaass has been built from the ground up to curb these expenses by reducing project delays and mitigating site costs with the power of real-time analytics and mobile collaboration. Glaass also enables contractors to perform Issue Hold Point and Witness Point inspections with digital outcome tracking. Professionals can use the platform’s automatic version control that allows them to ensure the latest drawings are shared and used.

Moreover, users can create digital checklists with individual item commenting by connecting inspection and test plans with quality records. That’s not all; Glaass also empowers construction professionals with online training and support and ease of installation or maintenance. The construction management solution is delivered using enterprise-grade Microsoft Azure cloud services for delivering reference standard reliability, security, and performance.

Designed to meet diverse requirement of different companies, GlaassPro offers a bespoke enterprise solution for delivering projects safely, on time, and within budget. In essence, the solution is classified into three versions Glaass Pro, Glaass Lite, and Glaass Consulting. Glaass Lite is a streamlined solution for contractors to digitally and efficiently manage projects.

Companies can also benefit from Glaass Consulting, whereby they can lead their construction business and bring in improvements with an expert analysis of business systems and site processes with clear optimisation strategies.

Glaass’ reference standard construction management solution, Glaass Pro is highly scalable and focuses on taking the complexity element out of enterprise projects. In doing so, the solution combines advanced Glaass Core—a powerful suite of built-in tools—with customisable modules. Glaass Pro specialises in intelligent search enabling the relevant users to quickly find drawings, documents, colleagues, companies, groups, folders, and locations, direct from the menu bar. The solution brings in advanced customisation to case templates, based on project users, groups, checklists, locations, dates, times, and more. To bring customisation to effect, construction activities are tightly linked together to ensure changes are reflected and updated in real time. Glaass’s Smart Calendar automatically integrates to notify users on tasks that are overdue or are approaching deadline, thereby keeping them organised, efficient, and proactive. The solution empowers users with projects dashboard, where they can have a holistic view of every project, all in one place. This dashboard also allows them to perform advanced project analytics to track, analyse and improve performance of their teams across projects. Production analytics, on the other hand, enables them to delve deeper into details of the number of hours’ companies have used on programmed activities across various locations on the project.

These features of Glaass Core are bundled with Glaass Modules that offer a complete package of Quality Assurance, which includes request for information, inspections, non-conformances, inspection and test plans, records, defects, requests, and more. These modules also comprise of a comprehensive collation of safety & environment, document control, diary, orders, correspondence, and media.

In conclusion, Glaass is poised to revolutionise the construction industry with a wave of digitalisation. The company was born with a singular focus on empowering construction organisations with diverse solutions to analyse project processes to generate conclusions with clear optimisation strategies. This, in turn, translates to, increased team satisfaction and improved bottom line. “At Glaass, we promise to never become complacent and to continually push the boundaries of construction innovation,” says Knight, CEO, Glaass.