Nathan Howard, assistant professor in Applied Technology, believes in developing real-world experiences for his students, giving them a direct application of the skills and knowledge they are learning in the classroom. For both sections of his TECS 385 Construction Planning and Design class, his 44 students are getting an insider view of Procore, a project management software used in the construction industry, to see the details of the Forsyth Library renovation project and the new build of the future Bickle-Schmidt Athletic Complex. PWC, the construction firm for both projects, has given Howard viewing access to both projects to use as a real-world learning experience in his classroom. Students can visually see the progress of each building as they drive by the job sites on their way to and from campus each day, but in the classroom, they get to dive deeper into the nitty-gritty details of what it will be like when they are working on large-scale construction projects such as these.
Within the Procore software, Howard demonstrates how the various pieces of the construction planning and design process fit together. This electronic project management software provides a drill down option for the project overview, covering everything from timelines, daily logs, photographs, submittals, specification books, and more.
For example, last week, Howard’s students were learning about submittals, which provide a document trail and a detailed view of materials and their planned location to be reviewed up the approval chain to ensure that the correct material is going into the correct location. Within Procore, the software electronically routes submittals from the sub-contractor through the approval process, to be reviewed by the general contractor, project manager, architects, or engineers before getting stamped with approval to start work on that specific element in the building. Throughout the lifespan of the project, the architects will approve hundreds of submittals. Procore provides the platform to quickly route the submittals to the architects and back to the subcontractors so they can begin work by procuring the approved materials and starting the installation.
“Eventually, students will build submittals for fictional projects for this class, but this Procore access allows students to view a broad sampling of submittals from a real-life project and see what the documents look like and the variety of details they can include,” Howard explained.
Submittals can include:
- shop drawings which are detailed illustrations to show how each specific element will be fabricated or installed;
- product data with product information such as the manufacturer, description of use, size, finish, and installation instructions; or
- samples from the design team about specific colors, textures, or materials to use within each element of the construction.
Howard shared an example submittal for the carpet tile on the main level of the library with his class, which includes a shop drawing that shows the layout of where each color/pattern of carpet tiles should be installed to distinguish different areas of the open space and samples of the specific flooring tile approved vendor’s color and pattern swatches. The submittal also detailed whether the direction of the installation of each carpet tile matters to ensure the right color and pattern of the carpet is purchased and installed correctly to match the architect’s vision of defining space with different finishings. All the material selection details, like the vendor, color, style number, etc., comes from the specification book and finishing documents and get incorporated into the submittal when the subcontractors are getting ready to work on that specific portion of the building.
As the semester progresses, the students will look at other features of the Procore project management dashboard, including the photographs and daily logs that are uploaded to document work on the construction site and track the timeline progress of each step.
“In the near future, some of these students will get an internship or entry-level job as a field engineer, where part of their job description is to take photos of the work being placed, documenting the chronological progress of each installation, and proving that their crew is following each detail described on these submittals,” Howard explained. “For example, you can’t check the spacing of the steel studs or the specific placement of wood blocks between those steel studs that are later used to hang cabinets after sheetrock work and other finishings have been completed, but you can go into that portion of Procore and see the photographs associated with that submittal to prove it was done correctly,” he continued.
In addition to viewing aspects of the two current construction projects happening on FHSU’s campus, Howard has other projects in Procore to use with his students, such as a residential duplex construction project and the project plans for the Center for Applied Technology building that was completed in 2017, where the Applied Technology students are learning every day in the classrooms and laboratory spaces.
Through Procore access, Howard’s students gain invaluable real-world experience with both commercial and residential projects. Howard’s students get to examine the details of real-life submittals from large-scale projects in the classroom computer lab one day and visit the duplex job site for hands-on work, fabricating a portion of the duplex and submitting photographs and daily logs into the project management system the next day. This hands-on learning expands their understanding and skills as students prepare to enter the workforce in the construction industry.
