The Value-Add of Offsite Construction Project Management Software w/ Offsight [podcast transcript]

John McMullen

Hello, and welcome to Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction, brought to you by the Modular Building Institute. Welcome, everyone. My name is John McMullen. I'm the Marketing Director here at MBI. Today I'm talking with Vikas Murali, CEO at Offsight. Vikas is here to discuss offsite project management software that has been specifically designed for the offsite construction industry. Vikas, thanks for being here.

Vikas Murali

Hi, John, thank you for having me.

John McMullen

So, tell me about yourself. What's your background and what led you into software development?

Vikas Murali

So, I'm a technical person and I'm actually an engineer by training. So, I have a degree in systems engineering, I did CS with a minor in math. So, I have a pretty technical background. What led me to software development started off as a product manager in some bigger enterprise companies where I really managed the launch of internal applications. So, these are pretty big applications across different teams, you had your developers, your QA, your product people, etc. That was my foray into managing enterprise software. From a personal perspective, I always wanted to start my own business and do my own thing. Though I work within these bigger companies, my whole thing around it was that I always had an itch to do my own thing. Ultimately, that led me in the direction of starting a consultancy that was focused around enterprise software, and then later developing Offsight. So that's been my background.

John McMullen

Very good. Well, I applaud you, sir. I tapped out at pre-algebra. So very good for you. I always am impressed with people who can continue past that.

Tell me about your interest in project management. Where did that come from? Was there a point along the way that you said, I can do project management and software together?

Vikas Murali

Yeah, that's a good question. I think our interest in kind of what we offer at Offsight evolved from our background. By our I mean myself and my co-founder, Andrew, both of whom actually went to school together. We both went to UPenn together, did engineering together, and know each other from our early days there. That whole interest kind of formed when we launched our consultancy and that really had a focus on helping manufacturers develop enterprise software in house, leveraging our skill set. One of the companies we worked with there was a company called Schneider Electric. They provide all sorts of different electrical equipment. The team that we worked with provided modular switch gears for data center construction and other commercial construction projects. So essentially working with that team at square zero, building a solution for them that lets them track these products as they go through assembly and provide quality conformance reporting. We realize the pains that a lot of folks in the entire prefab offsite world go through when it comes to factory management, factory operations management, project management, and communicating status with your customers and stakeholders. So that journey kind of brought us to building what would be the MVP or version 1.0 of Offsight. It also opened our eyes into the possibility of what businesses could become if we were to kind of make it into a product and get it out there in front of the larger customer base. That's really where the genesis for Offsight started and where our whole interest around the industry began.

Then coming from that perspective of basically developing the software, working very closely with all types of people at the factory level with all different hats. Supervisors, team leads, project managers, manufacturing engineers, operations managers, we got a holistic picture of really what it takes to not only build this offer, improve on it consistently developing it, but also implementing it is another crucial aspect of what we learned from working with them. So, we took all those learnings and then we started Offsight. Now we have a fully productize business, a list of customers, and many robust customers.

John McMullen

Very good. Obviously, you're a firm believer in the ability of software to help manage processes and you found your way to the offsite construction industry. Why do you think project management from a software point of view is so important for modular and offsite construction?

Vikas Murali

I think what we saw definitely working with Schneider and then even what we see now, still hold through where when you look at off site, you look at prefab, and the modular as an industry it's unique in that it's not really pure manufacturing. You're not making a widget over and over again. And nor is it on the other side of things where it's pure, customized construction, job site construction, where everything is unique, and everything is specific. So, you exist in a unique world where we call it almost project manufacturing, the combination of both. You're designing for each project, things are different from project to project, manufacturing workflows are different from project to project, they couldn't be consistent on the design changes, they can involve changes, and in many cases in many different parts of your process. The traditional software that's built around construction only project management, doesn't seem to work at the factory level where you have that type of production workflow, nor does the opposite, where you have software truly built around the automotive industry let's say now being forced into this type of process.

So, what you really need is a software that can adapt as often as you need to adapt from project to project or even if you launch a new factory and your process is changing along the way. Your physical production lines are changing, your manufacturing workflow is changing, you need to be able to completely rebuild that flow within the software, relaunch it and Offsight does just that. It's very easy to basically update your manufacturing workflow from project to project even into the same project as many times as you need. We get that but that's the unique thing about the offsite and prefab industry. I think even as companies start to grow into the industry, their processes are going to change, there's going to be new learnings and that's really what it's all about. It's very easy for us to rebuild your workflow just on the fly. That's all part of our ethos and our process.

John McMullen

Very cool. So, for those who have not started incorporating a software solution like Offsight, what can you tell me about how the software actually works? Obviously, as you described, it's very adaptable, but what data is actually being created and how do manufacturers leverage that data?

Vikas Murali

That's a good question. So, the pitch behind the modular offsite construction industry is really that you can do probably several things, but maybe three main things very well. You can basically deliver products faster, the project schedule could shorten, and you can do them cost effectively. So, at a cheaper and more efficient cost than traditional job site construction. The third thing is quality excellence. I can build these products in a much better way than an open job site where things are all over the place. Mistakes happen, materials get wasted and soiled, lots of rework is required. So, I can build them in a controlled setting in a much more efficient way, reduce all those quality issues and build a better product. So that's the sales pitch for offsite modular construction, but just moving work from a job site into a factory doesn't ensure those things are going to happen. You could have a bad process on the job site and start off with an equally worse process in the factory. All those problems are going to creep up again. So how do you ensure to your owners, customers and other stakeholders that you are really adhering to that and that is really something that you can deliver on?

Well, the best way to do it is to marry technology with your process. So, when you start a new factory or even when you're already in prefab and production, if you aren't really using a tool like Offsight to manage your process, you're basically selling yourself short. All those things that you're trying to sell to your customers, who knows whether you're truly delivering on them and who knows what you're actually managing them in a way where you can deliver on that ROI. What Offsight lets you do is basically that. We build your software, build your workflow, we let you track your production, make sure your deliveries are on track, we let you pull immediate reports, so you know where things are tracking and where they're falling behind. We like to provide those update reports to other stakeholders in the business, so people are always on track. We like to track production KPIs, like overall project progress and production progress.

We also like to do quality excellence, making sure that all the issues and conformance problems that you find are resolved in the factory. Normally you identify them due to the visual inspection through Offsight. You take the photos in Offsight, but you even have an internal solution or internal task management element where you can resolve them. You can say here's the issues I found and I'm confirming I’ve solved all of them before I ship. I mean all the real work, all repairs, everything was done in the factory and we're good to go. That's all part of making sure that we adhere to those three elements. I think the final element of the course is managing your materials and labor which are two key variable elements in ensuring your product is built in a cost-efficient manner. If those two key aspects in most projects get out of hand, then it's very likely that your cost differential or the cost savings you may see from the traditional construction or jobsite project may not be that great. If you're able to control those and accurately track the material consumption and your labor consumption in real time, which you can do through Offsight, you have a much more accurate picture.

That's basically the value of Offsight. So, I tell many customers when you start a factory, if you start a factory without the tools to basically manage that process, it's unlikely you can really deliver on those three major values of offsite construction.

John McMullen

That makes sense. You mentioned this a couple of times, but I wanted to dive into the reporting features of Offsight. I deal with analytics a lot from marketing and I'm looking at campaign KPIs for email, social media, and our website. Tell me about the reporting capabilities for Offsight and how managers and decision makers can really leverage those reports to drive better results.

Vikas Murali

For sure. So, I would say reporting is definitely a huge element to the solution. I think the reason it is, is because unlike traditional manufacturing where you're not going to have as many stakeholders, most of the work happens within the factory operations realm. Then you sell a product to consumers and it's out the door. In this case, you have many stakeholders, you have many parties that need to collaborate, need to be on the same page, need to be aware of how things are progressing, maybe install teams on the job site need to know when things are going to arrive. So, before something ships, this was done correctly, here's visual verification. Okay, we're both on the same page there. Updates, I need to receive some payment from my owners. I only do so when certain products have passed a certain stage. So, I need to track that and confirm I've received everything that passed the stage, now it's time to receive payment. So, there's all types of situations where collaboration is crucial in the prefab offsite modular industry. What Offsight has done well is essentially turned all aspects of tracking production, quality reporting, material consumption, labor into active reports that can be delivered as a PDF, as a table, as an Excel format that can be customized directly to what you need to get from the system. Look at these specific products for this project and here's exactly where they are. Maybe you need that to get billing from your customers to prove that, hey, I have X number of products at this stage and now it's time to get my next payment. So, in that sense, the value of reporting is that it provides that level of collaboration between the stakeholders that is necessary to really work on these projects.

Another example of this is even with third party inspectors and quality providers. In almost every factory, you'll have to work with a third-party inspector on residential multifamily type projects where you have to go through code conformance, keep documentation for five years, you have to do factory audits, there's a lot of back and forth. If you were doing this manually, which many people are today, or on spreadsheet, Google Doc or whatever it may be, there's a lot of room for things to get missed, for documentation to get lost or difficult to collect all the documentation over all the different products. Now imagine that you can do all that in a single click. I can say, here's all the modules for this project, their status, all the conformance for every checklist that you mandated for every station, you mandated in one single click its export digitally. That would be what Offsight does. That reporting capability as well is very important for quality for inspectors. It's another example of how you can collaborate with stakeholders on these projects.

John McMullen

What’s the process for manufacturers who are interested in incorporating these types of software solutions whether it be Offsight or something else? Is there a process they need to go through to get started?

Vikas Murali

So, to get started, it's very simple. You simply reach out to us on our website and say, hey, I'm interested in demoing and checking out Offsight in action. Our team would immediately connect with you, provide a live demo of the product and we can even make it specific to your process. So, whether you make commercial modules, panels, bath pods, all types of different products we probably have a workflow already built to kind of cater to your process and show you what it would be like. It kind of brings your process to life. You can see how it would work with Offsight. Then what we do is we show you all elements of functionality that can address those different key points. Production, quality materials, labor, and then also how they may play into what you're doing today. So, if you're doing certain things manually, relying on spreadsheets, or you have a hodgepodge of solutions all over the place, we get an understanding of that. Then we say, okay, great, we now have the product, you understand its value, we understand what we're doing today, and now we work you through a very simple plan. This plan is usually four weeks or less, where we can basically take some documents from you, build out your workflow with Offsight, and get you fully built in with operators, quality inspectors, managers, all types of users on our platform. We don't by any means limit whom you can add to the product. We understand that more stakeholders and more people with different hats are needed for you to really drive value from our product. Then what we do is during that four-week period, our solutions engineering team, many of whom have worked at modular manufacturers in the past, would then be the ones setting up your workflow, training your team and launching. That all comes together in one simple package.

So that's how we take a customer life. We do so in a very systematic manner, just to make sure that everybody's driving value, everybody is being trained correctly. At the end of the day, we judge our success based on where you're seeing engagement with the product. You're using the product, operators are using it on the floor, managers are getting reports, the things that you wanted as outputs are being delivered. That's basically what we're looking to achieve.

John McMullen

So Offsight has been around for a little while now. As you've worked with clients, as you've on boarded people, as you've created these workflows that you mentioned earlier, what have you learned over the past few years as Offsight has been adopted more and more and more? Has the product evolved because of that and if so, how?

Vikas Murali

Yeah, that's a very good question. So, what we've learned is essentially a couple of things. I would say, one I touched upon it before, just the need for engagement. At the end of the day, a solution is only as good as the people using it. So, if people are not using it, it's not going to drive value, you're not going to see the ability to basically sell those points of faster delivery, better quality excellence, low cost efficiency, if you can’t actually use the solution, you're not going to see that. So obviously, being able to get engagement from your team, making sure operators are trained, making sure people can use this software is crucial. On the mobile side of things, if you look at our mobile app, tablet app, iPad app or iPhone app, it's very intuitive, very easy to use, and very user friendly. That's one of the key elements like engagement is necessary for you to actually see value. So that's something we've learned. We build a process around driving engagement and training. There's an untold number of software's out there that promise everything but then are never used so nobody actually gets the value from them. So, that's very important to us and that's actually been one major learning.

I think another important learning is definitely the need to have a pretty robust solution that encompasses a variety of the different elements of factory operations and the factory operations staff. The reality is, there's many different stakeholders and players within the factory operations and overall, the offsite project domain that can benefit from a solution and need to interact with solution. I mentioned some of them, you know, production quality, materials handling, admins, finance, back office, customer success, customer service, like there's many different stakeholders that need to interact. Offsight can really drive value in their day to day by being able to interact with Offsight. The way they interact with Offsight and the functionality they need from the software may be slightly different based on what they do, what's happening where, and if they need different tools.

So, we're always building out functionality for the product, it's never done. So, even though we have four modules today, we're building two more in the works to launch this year. Those will help with pre-production before you actually began the production process, going through design, and then even post production in being able to service the products after they’re installed and so forth. So, from our perspective, the work is not done and the product is always going to keep evolving. It's going to keep getting better and is going to keep meeting the needs of the prefab modular and offsite industry better as we get more and more customers. I think the end solution there is just to build a fully encompassing product that can really provide value to the customers.

John McMullen

So maybe my last question for you, because thinking outside of Offsight, what role do you see software playing in the offsite construction process as the industry evolves? Clearly we're moving more and more into things like automation, integrated electronics, networking, all these kinds of things being built into mods now. Where does software fit in and where do you see that going in the next three to five years?

Vikas Murali

That's a good question. I would say, when I think of all societies as a whole, I think of Offsight as a technology company first and foremost. What we do is we offer tools to basically help you manage your offsite projects and offsite factory operations. As the operations itself starts to evolve, new things start to happen, and processes start to evolve, we will make them part of what offsite is. As Offsight itself, as a business starts to mature, we may find tools and products that we need to basically work with our interface to really provide full value to our customer base. We're not shy of doing that and we always get that from our customers. Oh, can you work with XYZ? Or can you integrate with this or that? I think when it really comes down to it for us as a business, if we can see that value where yes, we could do this, this would absolutely help this customer improve their operations, improve their business, provide visibility that's not existent in that and then make it available? Absolutely, we would do it. I think that's really our endgame here. Offsight is going to be in our vision, a technology company for the offsite construction industry and a place where people can go to essentially get those tools. Today, we see that as being this central platform that allows you to manage these projects, but over time can evolve where many other elements become part of the solution, too. That's kind of where we're really heading.

John McMullen

Very good. So, what's next for Offsight in the near term?

Vikas Murali

In the near term, I would say our goal is really to further our vision by being the center of the community. We don't just want to provide a solution, provide software and say, we're selling this thing to you like any other company. At the end of the day, we also want you to really view us as being in the corner of your offsite, modular prefab business and we want you to succeed. What that truly means is we like to work with people in the community to understand their pains. We have a very elaborate blog and content base that we'd like to push out information for people in the community and hear their stories. What works, what doesn't work and share that with other people in the industry as well so they can take their best learnings, they can improve and they can avoid pitfalls and so forth. So Offsight’s goal in the near term is really to build itself as a go to source not just for the tools, but also for learnings in the community. Also, for sharing information community, sponsoring events and networking events where people can share ideas and move the industry forward as a whole. So that's basically what we're hoping to achieve in the short term.

John McMullen

Thank you for your time today because I really appreciate it. Speaking of events, I think you guys are due to be in Orlando for the 2024 World of Modular in a couple of months. Is that right?

Vikas Murali

That's correct. Yep.

John McMullen

Well, I hope to see you there. Do you have a booth?

Vikas Murali

I believe we'll have a booth.

John McMullen

Well, I can't wait to see you there. Hopefully we will run into each other. As I said, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you very much.

Vikas Murali

Thanks, John. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

John McMullen

My name is John McMullen, and this has been another episode of Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction. Until next time.