Hexagon acquisition boosts construction accountability

Dire reports about poor productivity on construction sites (plus, to be honest, the public perception that most workers are just standing around) means that this is an industry ripe for PLMization. Bentley, Trimble and Autodesk have been selling technology to this market for years; others are now jumping on the bandwagon. Hexagon, the parent company of Intergraph (plant design) and Leica Geosystems (surveying equipment), just announced that it is acquiring Multivista, a provider of cloud-based construction documentation solutions. If you’ve seen a time lapse video of a construction project, that might have been using a Multivista service. Multivista and its franchisees will set up cameras and feeds that upload photos and videos to its cloud-based platform. Users log in to their project’s documentation portal to interact with content and the project team, 24/7, from anywhere — meaning that oversight can now take place far from the jobsite.

Multivista’s cloud-based platform indexes and links images to architectural plans, which enables a comparison of actual versus planned and conceived conditions while the project is in progress. Once the asset is operational, the platform helps reduce guesswork by helping trades locate electrical or plumbing systems hidden behind structures — though this would require an asset operator to keep the platform live after construction concludes, which is still not common practice.

Hexagon President and CEO Ola Rollén said that the acquisition “not only strengthens Hexagon’s breadth of expertise in the changing construction landscape but also offers opportunities to augment Multivista’s proven documentation portfolio with 3D reality capture solutions. Additionally, as more and more construction companies realise the value of centralised, real-time ‘as-built’ information sharing, the practicality of integrating mobile, positioning, and autonomous technologies into the construction workflow will also become a reality – which are all an integral part of Hexagon’s construction management solution strategy.”

Multivista is currently active in North America and the UK; clearly, a first step is to scale the platform and offering to a more international presence.

Neither Hexagon nor Multivista commented on the financials of the deal, though Hexagon did say that the acquisition will have no significant impact on Hexagon’s earnings.