What does digital mean to Clearbox?

It's definitely not just turning manual processes electronic.

It’s a well-worn phrase, but we’re all about creating wealth for our customers. That’s not just financial wealth though (although of course that’s the end goal) it’s the wealth of data and information we give you that enables you to reach your goal.

It's about finding a better way to drive your project’s efficiency. Using technology to make you quicker but more accurate. Giving you back the time to do a quality job. 

It’s no use just to turn your old manual processes electronic as CAD did to the drawing, that’s not going to give you any more time (apart from maybe knowing that your information is at least stored somewhere secure and can’t be lost at the end of your project). It’s about rethinking the old way of doing things, taking steps out of processes where they’re becoming unnecessary and being able to re-configure information to suit the next task and not having that same information locked into a file structure.

To do this successfully, we believe you must keep your data at the centre of your processes. That means every object must standalone and be able to be edited, updated, enhanced and aggregated into new views of the information to suit the users next task. Then we can, for example, look at work package information and what is missing just as easily as we can look at system information and see what is outstanding. Historically we would have had to re-configure spreadsheets to gather this and then struggled to keep them up to date. Without this ability, you will not be able to efficiently access the richness of information that will deliver you exceptional results.

That’s why our database is at the core of our solutions, and all of our apps and plugins are tied to it, so that any information you update, anywhere (whether that be a document or the specification or location of an object), will be synchronised and tied to its origin. While this gives you an ease of updating the information (instead of having to find someone put it in the original model) it also means that the information you work on is current, when approved for use, making the issue of superseded information something more a relic of file based approaches, albeit with a full audit history you know exactly what changed, when and by whom.

But for us, it’s not just about the technology – going digital is a complete change of mindset for the industry. It’s about efficiency and accountability and a better opportunity to manage outcomes. So for us, it’s not just creating the technology to enable people to do a better job, it’s about ensuring they understand why they’re doing something. It’s about enabling them to step outside their role and see how what they do impacts the whole process and makes the entire project delivery more successful. It’s about engaging with leaders to drive that change in their teams.

That’s why we do what we do. We know that the industry is on the cusp of real change. The younger generations don’t want to enter a staid, tired industry. We need to be innovating to attract the latest talent and create the buildings and infrastructure for the future that will lead to a better quality of life for everyone.