Tag: <span>Technology</span>

Tag: Technology

3M™ Smog-reducing Granules Harness the Power of the Sun to Improve Air Quality

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Enabling asphalt shingles and other residential and commercial granulated roofing materials to become smog-fighting surfaces.

St. Paul‚ Minnesota–(BUSINESS WIRE)–At 3M, we use science every day to improve lives and help solve society’s toughest challenges. We like to imagine a world where all communities are safe, healthy and thriving—where increased energy efficiency, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and access to clean air and water enhance human health at home and at work. Still, nearly four in ten Americans currently live in counties with unhealthy levels of ground level ozone or particle pollution.1 Since reducing air pollution remains critical to public health,2 3M is addressing this environmental challenge by creatively applying science to help remove smog3 and improve the air we breathe.

The 3M Industrial Mineral Products Division recently launched 3M™ Smog-reducing Granules to help remove smog pollution (nitrogen oxides or NOx) using roofing shingles. Integrated throughout a shingle’s surface, 3M’s roofing granules are designed with a specialized photocatalytic coating applied to the base mineral. The specialized coating on the granule is activated by the sun’s UV rays, while blending inconspicuously into various shingle color combinations. As sunlight hits the shingles containing the smog-reducing granules, radicals are generated and transform nitrogen oxide gases into water-soluble ions improving air quality. This smart solution for pollution mitigation can help communities contribute toward their NOx emission reduction efforts.

“3M is leading the way with roofing technology solutions for improving environmental impacts on human health and welfare,” said Frank Klink, senior laboratory manager, 3M. “The roofing granules are a first for residential asphalt shingles. The new 3M granules will help roofing manufacturers develop high quality, aesthetically-pleasing shingles that can turn any roof into an active smog reducing catalyst, essentially becoming smog’s worst enemy.”

To prove out the technology, 3M submitted granule and shingle samples to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for evaluation. Performance testing occurred using challenge gasses in a reaction chamber. Downstream of the system, NOx concentrations were recorded in real time, prior to, during, and after UV illumination. The testing validated the efficacy of 3M’s photocatalytic materials in reducing smog and contributing towards air purification.

“We view smog-reducing technology, embedded into mainstream roofing materials, as a great step forward in addressing air quality and climate concerns,” said Jonathan Parfrey, founder and executive director of Climate Resolve, a U.S. non-profit organization focused on local solutions to global climate change.

Learn more about 3M’s commitment to using science for the greater good at www.3m.com/sustainability.

References:
1 State of the Air ® 2017. American Lung Association. Retrieved from www.lung.org/assets/documents/healthy-air/state-of-the-air/state-of-the-air-2017.pdf.

2 Health Effects of Ozone and Particle Pollution. (2017). American Lung Association. Retrieved from www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/sota/health-risks/.

3 Smog, Soot, and Other Air Pollution from Transportation. (2017). Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved from www.epa.gov/air-pollution-transportation/smog-soot-and-local-air-pollution.

About 3M
At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily. With $32 billion in sales, our 91,000 employees connect with customers all around the world. Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Twitter @3M or @3MNews.

3M is a trademark of 3M Company. All other trademarks listed herein are owned by their respective companies.

 

3M™ Smog-reducing Granules Harness the Power of the Sun to Improve Air Quality

Posted on

Enabling asphalt shingles and other residential and commercial granulated roofing materials to become smog-fighting surfaces.

St. Paul‚ Minnesota–(BUSINESS WIRE)–At 3M, we use science every day to improve lives and help solve society’s toughest challenges. We like to imagine a world where all communities are safe, healthy and thriving—where increased energy efficiency, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and access to clean air and water enhance human health at home and at work. Still, nearly four in ten Americans currently live in counties with unhealthy levels of ground level ozone or particle pollution.1 Since reducing air pollution remains critical to public health,2 3M is addressing this environmental challenge by creatively applying science to help remove smog3 and improve the air we breathe.

The 3M Industrial Mineral Products Division recently launched 3M™ Smog-reducing Granules to help remove smog pollution (nitrogen oxides or NOx) using roofing shingles. Integrated throughout a shingle’s surface, 3M’s roofing granules are designed with a specialized photocatalytic coating applied to the base mineral. The specialized coating on the granule is activated by the sun’s UV rays, while blending inconspicuously into various shingle color combinations. As sunlight hits the shingles containing the smog-reducing granules, radicals are generated and transform nitrogen oxide gases into water-soluble ions improving air quality. This smart solution for pollution mitigation can help communities contribute toward their NOx emission reduction efforts.

“3M is leading the way with roofing technology solutions for improving environmental impacts on human health and welfare,” said Frank Klink, senior laboratory manager, 3M. “The roofing granules are a first for residential asphalt shingles. The new 3M granules will help roofing manufacturers develop high quality, aesthetically-pleasing shingles that can turn any roof into an active smog reducing catalyst, essentially becoming smog’s worst enemy.”

To prove out the technology, 3M submitted granule and shingle samples to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for evaluation. Performance testing occurred using challenge gasses in a reaction chamber. Downstream of the system, NOx concentrations were recorded in real time, prior to, during, and after UV illumination. The testing validated the efficacy of 3M’s photocatalytic materials in reducing smog and contributing towards air purification.

“We view smog-reducing technology, embedded into mainstream roofing materials, as a great step forward in addressing air quality and climate concerns,” said Jonathan Parfrey, founder and executive director of Climate Resolve, a U.S. non-profit organization focused on local solutions to global climate change.

Learn more about 3M’s commitment to using science for the greater good at www.3m.com/sustainability.

References:
1 State of the Air ® 2017. American Lung Association. Retrieved from www.lung.org/assets/documents/healthy-air/state-of-the-air/state-of-the-air-2017.pdf.

2 Health Effects of Ozone and Particle Pollution. (2017). American Lung Association. Retrieved from www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/sota/health-risks/.

3 Smog, Soot, and Other Air Pollution from Transportation. (2017). Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved from www.epa.gov/air-pollution-transportation/smog-soot-and-local-air-pollution.

About 3M
At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily. With $32 billion in sales, our 91,000 employees connect with customers all around the world. Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Twitter @3M or @3MNews.

3M is a trademark of 3M Company. All other trademarks listed herein are owned by their respective companies.

 

How Predictive Analytic Technology Can Grow Your Roofing Business

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By Tony Agresta, Vice President of Marketing, Nearmap

 

Predictive analytics is not new, it’s been used by marketers for many years. It is simply using historical data on response or performance to determine who is most likely to buy a product or respond to a promotion. For example, cataloguers would take a sampling of data, send out a mailing and track who responds. The more data they had about the people such as income, age, interests, prior buying history, the better they could predict future buying behavior since the responders and non-responders could be modeled.

By scoring and modeling the data, a company could focus their dollars and marketing efforts on the people who scored highest and were determined to be the most likely to buy. Rich, accurate models leverage robust data sets.   That same concept can be applied to roofing, using modern technology, to determine the properties most likely to need roofing services.

Many roofing contractors today already understand the value that high-resolution aerial maps bring to their business. The images provide a lot of data about a property that satellite imagery cannot. For instance, using freely available satellite imagery, it’s not easy to tell the difference between a solar panel or a skylight on a roof, and it can be hard to tell what type of roofing material is on the property.

With higher-resolution aerial maps, contractors can review properties, see the type of roof, whether there are skylights, solar panels, outbuildings, the presence or absence of trees, and can even look back over time to see how the roofs may have changed.   High-resolution aerial maps provide the detail needed to classify features of the property and the grounds.  Just the way the cataloguers could use sample data to differentiate responders from non-responders or multi-product buyers from single product buyers, aerial maps can be used to create data sets that classify type of roof and other features.

When machine learning algorithms are applied to this new source of data, users can automatically detect which properties have skylights, or solar panels or missing shingles. It could detect the pitch and potentially the type of roof material. Then the algorithm could store all those attributes in a database. The database is important because now you have data about all the properties in an area that can be queried.

Querying the database would allow a contractor to ask for only properties that meet certain criteria to be returned. Perhaps you want roofs of a certain size, or ones that appear to have damage, or only want to look at roofs with asphalt shingles. You no longer must spend the time manually scanning through images of properties, the algorithm does it for you.

By assigning scores to certain characteristics and using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the database can deliver a list of leads that are prime candidates for a new roof. This allows you to strategically deploy your sales team to the homes that score the highest, rather than walking a neighborhood knocking on every door.  Companies providing aerial maps are applying machine learning to vivid imagery. They are refining the algorithms, building accuracy into the models and making the resulting data available to roofers to help drive their business faster.

RT3 Members Discuss the Current Issues, Trends and Opportunities for Technology in the Roofing Industry

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by Anita Lum

Technology has been at the forefront of nearly every industry for the past decade and roofing is no exception. The industry is ripe for change and has been transforming rapidly as more and more contractors embrace the use of technology in their day-to-day operations. David Huval of National Roofing Partners interviewed Trent Cotney of Cotney Construction Law, Lynn Foster of AccuLynx, and Tom Whitaker of Harness Software, to learn more about the current issues, trends, and opportunities with technology in the roofing industry during the International Roofing Expo in New Orleans.

Both Cotney and Whitaker expressed a current challenge that the whole industry can resonate with – the lack of skilled labor. To combat that need, the adoption of technology in the workplace is critical. Technology can be used to supplement this shortage by doing more with less; there are currently programs geared towards all facets of construction, including project management, work orders and health and safety.

Opportunities for technology in the industry are plenty. With the integration of applications in the workplace, the industry as a whole can really go digital. For instance, smartphones and tablets have become part of our daily lives, so integrating it into our businesses should be the next step. As Foster put it, “…the next couple of years is really going to be the mobile revolution.” This technology will allow instant transmission of information from the field to the office, which is critical to increase efficiency, decrease risks, and drive performance.

Other trends in roofing technology include drones; “Drone technology has gotten so much better over the last few years and it’s going to continue to make a huge impact,” said Whitaker. Cotney mentions the use of blockchain, a new way of engaging in contract payment method, to improve productivity by cutting out the middlemen.  According to Foster, integration is also set take off in the next couple years with “all these different entities getting together on one platform and integrating.” This will ensure much smoother processes by keeping all business information in one space.

While the roofing industry has been slow to adopt the new technology into their processes, this is beginning to change. With the technology tools identified by Cotney, Foster, and Whitaker, roofers can streamline workflows, manage clients, and share projects across the board, and ultimately grow their business.

Watch a recap of the interviews below.

Top 4 Benefits of Drones in Construction

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By DroneBase.

Drones are an innovative solution to deliver sophisticated analytics, provide a visual progress report, and allow worksite managers to track, map, survey, and manage projects easily. They are used on hundreds of sites nationwide and are equipped to perform construction flights safely, efficiently, and under compliance with all worksite regulations.

Plenty of construction professionals use drones to take their projects (and efficiencies!) to the next level. Here are a few of the top reasons contractors choose drones for their worksite needs.

1 – Site progress

Get project updates as they happen, regardless of your proximity to the worksite.

2 – Stakeholder communication

Share visual project updates with key stakeholders to keep all parties informed on progress.

3 – Surveying

Gather analytics via drone to vastly reduce time associated with traditional forms of site mapping.

4 – Stockpile measurements

Collect accurate volume data with a fraction of the manual labor.

 

Note: This article first appeared on DroneBase’s blog and can be viewed here.

Photo: Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The Best Employers in the Built World Embrace Technology

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By Isabel Singer, BuiltWorlds.

The AEC industries have a workforce issue. According to the Associated General Contractors of America, 70 percent of contractors have difficulty finding qualified craftspeople and, in 2017, the National Association of Home Builders found that the median age of construction workers was 41.

Given the challenges facing the industry, how can you ensure that great people want to work for your company? According to Travis Voss, the answer lies in embracing technology.

Travis Voss is the Technology Manager of Mechanical Inc., one of the nation’s top 50 mechanical contractors. Voss’ efforts to get employees excited about and invested in innovative technology has transformed Mechanical Inc.’s workforce. Since Voss joined the company in 2016, he believes that Mechanical Inc. has become even younger, even sharper, and employees stay at the company for even longer.

Voss agreed to sit down with BuiltWorlds and share Mechanical Inc.’s secrets for creating a robust workforce.

Tech-forward organizations recruit first-rate talent

When trying to recruit young people, Voss makes sure Mechanical Inc. showcases its technology. Voss ensures that all the interns that spend time at Mechanical Inc. visit the technology department and, whenever Voss visits a job fair, he brings along a HoloLens or an HTC Vive.

“Keeping those shiny toys out in front entices young people to talk to us,” Voss laughed. “But in all seriousness, a few decades ago, you didn’t look at innovation as important when you were trying to recruit people. You just wanted to offer a stable position, good salary, and benefits. But, now the employment market is a seller’s market. You have to have a leg up to entice the talent in. They’re not going to want to work in a company that’s still doing things in an old school method when they know there is technology out there. Young prospective employees have grown up around technology and they know there must be a better way of doing things.”

Cutting-edge companies retain talent

Tech-forward companies retain talent because employees take pride in working for an innovative company. Furthermore, when a company has an innovative culture, employees have confidence that their company can weather adverse market conditions.

Voss related that employees “take pride in the fact like they’re working with a forward-thinking company, a company that is striving to innovate and bring new things to the industry. If another company offers everything similar across the board, but the competitor is still using pad and paper, employees prefer to stick around with the forward-thinking company because chances are the innovative company is better positioned to survive.”

Only GREAT Technology will help your company retain GREAT talent

Technology only helps retain talent if it improves employees’ work experience. Voss urges company leaders to experiment with new technology and not to fear failure. “You can rely on organizations such as BuiltWorlds and programs like the BuiltWorlds Pilots to help you curate different apps and gadgets and narrow down your focus,” he explained. “But, at a certain point, you have to invest in something that you feel is beneficial for your company. But, you should still treat the new tech like a research project. Don’t be afraid to walk away from a product that isn’t working for you. It’s a sunk cost.”

Voss also emphasizes that the opinions of field workers are vital when evaluating new tech. “I’m not a field foreman. I’m not a pipe fitter,” Voss said. “So, I have to admit that I don’t know what they know. No matter how awesome I think something is, I’m not the one that has to deal with the endpoint solution day-to-day. I always ask stakeholders, ‘do you think this will improve your job?’ and I accept that input.”

Note: This article was first published on BuiltWorld’s blog and can be viewed here.

Report Says U.S. Not As Prepared As Other Countries for Automation

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A report from Swiss technology leader ABB says the U.S. is behind other countries regarding its readiness for an increasingly automated world, placing ninth on a ranking of 25 advanced economies, according to www.savannahnow.com.

Researchers graded the countries in three main categories: innovation environment, which included money spent on research and development; school policies, from early curriculums to lifelong learning programs; and public workforce development, such as government-led efforts to retrain workers.

The report showed South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Canada are better prepared for automation largely because of their education systems and labor policies. Although it was acknowledged no country is “genuinely ready” for the technological shift expected to happen during the next three decades, the U.S. was deemed especially underprepared.

Guido Jouret, ABB’s chief digital officer, specifically referenced the U.S. educational system, which pushes students toward two- or four-year degrees. Colleges can be slower to keep up with technological changes, and companies will want workers who can adapt to cutting-edge technological developments.

By contrast, Germany encourages technical training, with 60 percent of young adults in the country training as apprentices in manufacturing, IT, banking, construction and other fields compared with 5 percent of Americans.

The Chinese government is updating public education to prioritize creativity rather than acing standardized tests; economists say these efforts are meant to train children and young adults to value independent thinking over regurgitation, which is a trait robots can’t yet replicate.

“Take the Southwest Airlines pilot—she did a phenomenal job landing that plane,” Jouret said, referencing a recent engine explosion that grabbed international attention. “This is the thing we need people to be good at—how to cope with the unexpected.”

Although U.S. leaders have praised apprenticeships as a way to help prepare workers for an increasingly technological world, economists say the U.S. would benefit more from continuous learning.

In Singapore, citizens were given cash in “individual learning accounts” they can use to cover job training courses at any stage in their careers. In Germany, lawmakers have proposed “employment insurance,” which would help workers pay for upgrading their skills during their lives.

The U.S. scores higher on research-and-development spending, which involves the dollars that fund advancements, devoting 2.79 percent of gross domestic product to the effort, which places the country fourth behind South Korea (4.23 percent), Japan (3.28 percent) and Germany (2.88 percent).

Note: This article first appeared on the NRCA website and can be viewed here.

Using Your Reports to Make Better, Profit-Driven Decisions for Your Roofing Business

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By Michelle Mittleman.

Software technology has opened the door for roofing companies when it comes to managing their business more efficiently and effectively than previous generations. CRM and ERP platforms, mobile applications and integrations give roofers 24/7 access to their business, including the information they rely on to make smart decisions.

It’s more than just knowing how many leads are in your pipeline, or how much revenue your top salesman generates on a quarterly basis. Dashboards and colorful graphs can’t always provide you with the in-depth analysis into the data that you need to see in order to make profit-driven decisions that impact your entire organization.

Going back and forth between Excel or separate programs means you are spending valuable time staring at spreadsheets, and not taking care of the things that really need your attention. As a roofing business owner, it’s more critical now than ever before that the reports you see and share with your teams are both accessible and easily generated from your software platform.

What Do Your Reports Tell You?

The greater the visibility you have into all of your data, the easier it is for you to extract the critical information necessary to run your business.

Is your reporting easy?

Reports are not helpful if you need to spend hours analyzing them. Reports generated from your CRM should easy to create, easy to to understand and easy to access.

Is your reporting customizable?

Being able to create custom reports from all of the data within your software platform means you get to pick and choose what’s important to you and not what a software company thinks you need.

Likewise, can your teams create their own reports that they need to succeed in their individual roles? Flexible data structuring and custom filtering means everyone has access to what they need.

Does Your Data Give You True Insight Into Your Business?

Being able to create calculations within your reports that allow you to derive meaningful insights and a greater understanding of what is happening in your business is the foundation of what software reporting functionality is about.

At the end of the day, these reports should be helping you make smart, profitable decisions for your roofing business.

Note: This article first published on the AccuLynx blog and can be viewed here.

Collaboration Between Industry Leaders Can Help Bridge the BIM Gap

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By Dennis Stejskal & Walter Davis.

Over the last 20 years, technology has played a key role in how information transfers through every phase of a building’s construction. As mobile technology continues to increase access to real-time feedback from the jobsite, it has become vitally important to have a comprehensive process for seamlessly connecting building information silos.

In the most recent version of the AGC Outlook and Hiring Report, contractors revealed their plans to increase productivity by adopting mobile technology to generate daily field reports (67%), enable field access to data in their ERP system (63%), as well as track employee time (59%).

Additionally, 49% of contractors expect the amount of work they perform involving Building Information Modeling (BIM) will either expand or remain consistent in 2018 compared to the prior year. These are all examples of much-needed integration between different systems in the construction process.

Despite this fact, much of the data-sharing process between construction disciplines remains disconnected or dependent on outdated import/export functionality. Seamless integration can eliminate this problem and create some key benefits.

For example, it becomes easy to click on a design object in a building information model, pull relevant information into an estimate, and then click on that same object within the estimate to return to the 2D and 3D source estimators. This provides insight into the impact of design changes through effortless access to the source data. Similarly, mobile technology can deliver jobsite data directly to financial and operations systems.

To achieve true integration, industry leaders must collaborate and work together to tear down software technology silos, so that direct links between specialized software tools can be built. This will allow for a bidirectional flow of project information that will be vital to the success of construction projects. The breaking of these siloed systems is imperative to improving efficiency, reducing costs, and modernizing the industry in a new era of technology.

Note: This article first published on BuiltWorld’s blog and can be viewed here.