Fulcrum

In a typical construction setting, project managers, subcontractors, and technicians are always on the go, performing safety audits, building inspections, and site surveys. However, the pain point is that most of them spend the lion’s share of their time working with different data sources to carry out essential business processes, including safety and compliance. They need solutions that will help them get rid of the enormous and laborious paperwork in project management and reporting. Florida-based Spatial Networks has emerged as a game-changer for the construction landscape, providing intelligent geospatial intelligence solutions. Having created a niche for itself in geospatial data consulting, the company developed Fulcrum, a simple and flexible central oversight mechanism that allows managers and field personnel to monitor workflows in real-time.

“We have utilized our years of knowledge to build Fulcrum, an agile and customizable field data collection and workflow automation solution that allows clients to create custom mobile field data collection forms and deploy them to field teams instantly—without coding,” says Coleman McCormick, VP of Product Development at Spatial Networks. The SaaS platform has all the business processes built-in for smooth workflow execution. As a one-stop-shop for comprehensive, location-based data collection, Fulcrum provides accurate and context-rich data to the project stakeholders by integrating with GIS and asset management systems.

One of the highlights of Fulcrum is its ability to function without network connectivity. The platform collects and stores the data when offline and syncs it with the central database when it is online again. Another key feature is that a newly created form for data collection can be updated through Fulcrum in real-time, without the need for extra devices. The web administration tool makes the changes, saves them, syncs the latest version in the backend instantly. This enables companies to reduce their investment in annual massive IT assessment or overhaul to address the needs of the field workers. Such capabilities and ease-of-use drive user experience and adoption. To deliver greater value to clients, Fulcrum maintains a professional services team that supports clients with onboarding, customization, and training.

Fulcrum’s versatility and reliability can be gauged with a case study involving a company from the construction industry. The client was able to use Fulcrum as a data collection and documentation tool that supported their field operations. Before adopting Fulcrum, the client depended on Excel or email to record the safety standards at various sites, which proved to be a tedious and time-consuming process for everyone involved. With Fulcrum, that data was now captured in real-time. The client also utilized Fulcrum’s API to extract the data from its own database. Moreover, the platform also created reports in PDF format. All these features have made Fulcrum the backbone of their clients’ business, especially from the on-field operations perspective.

For 2020, Spatial Networks is looking to improve Fulcrum’s pre-existing workflows in terms of forms building, data collection, and several other functions. The company is updating its tools to make them more automated, reducing the manual data processing work further. What is more, they are developing a feature to extract more data from photos and videos in Fulcrum using artificial intelligence and machine learning. As clients mostly collect photos as part of their inspection and other data collection process, extracting unstructured data can improve the operational efficiency and business outcomes. Spatial Networks believes these upcoming features will prove to be game-changing for its clients.