MATT Uses OpenSpace 360 Camera to Promote COVID-19 Safety Standards at St. Michael’s Abbey

Changing with the Times

Along with many major industries, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the AEC industry to quickly adapt and modernize in order to keep projects progressing. Despite a year of many challenges and learning curves, the team at MATT Construction has embraced these unprecedented times as an opportunity to integrate new technology that not only promotes new safety measures, but also bolsters workflow efficiency.

Building challenges arise with COVID-19

MATT’s team is currently building St. Michael’s Abbey, a 40-acre religious campus on a 327-acre property in Silverado, California that was commissioned by the 900-year-old order of the Norbertine Fathers in Orange County. The site, scheduled to be completed at the end of February, will accommodate housing, worship, and burial for the order. Like many other projects being built during the pandemic, the team at St. Michael’s Abbey has had to adjust to new safety hazards and learn how to function with a limited number of employees on-site at any given time.

Adopting new technology

By leveraging cutting-edge computer vision technology, MATT’s team has upgraded job efficiency and bypassed many obstacles stemming from new COVID-19 safety measures. One of the highly-valued tools adopted by the team at St. Michael’s Abbey is the OpenSpace 360 camera, which virtualizes job walkthroughs by capturing and mapping 360-degree views of the jobsite and providing a virtual twin of real-time construction progress with a single on-site capture. This technology allows team members to view jobsites remotely at any time, limiting the number of people necessary on jobsites. The 360 camera has served as a facilitator in maintaining open lines of communication between architects, owners, and subcontractors throughout the build process, without requiring everyone to be physically present in a collective space.

Evolving workflow efficiency

Beyond reinforcing safety standards, the automated technology also allows MATT’s team to build more efficiently during these difficult times. With the OpenSpace 360 camera, team members can expedite punch items, observations, and RFIs through the software’s field notes feature that allows for the creation of custom views and field notes assigned to specific trades. “Utilizing this technology has allowed my team and I to automate necessary, yet previously time-consuming aspects of a project,” says Omar Hamdan, Project Engineer at St. Michael’s Abbey. Project Managers, Superintendents and Owners can use the reliable software to access the project at any time and check on the status of work, accurately monitor on-site progress, and have a full-view of on-site conditions from the comfort of their computers.

A new approach

As general contractors continue to endorse new safety precautions to protect the health of workers and their families, technology will continue to quickly infiltrate the AEC industry, changing the way many tasks have been executed for years. This renewed focus on protecting public health provides industry-leaders the unique opportunity of adopting advanced innovations and merging them with tried-and-true industry practices to shape the future of construction best practices on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic.