Robert: Welcome back everybody. We are here at the Contech Exec Podcast. My good friend Hussein Arwani. you and I, Hussein, we've had a chance to talk. I like I told you this morning, I've got a lot a lot going on. So it's like I was trying to be prepared, but then I just ran out of time to be prepared, but you kind of gave me the quick update. But I think what I'm gonna do is just I want to let I'm gonna give you the opportunity, Hussein, kind of tell folks a a little bit about your background,
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: first. And then because I think it's it's an interesting little path. I still find it, you know, find it funny that you still wanna be in this business. But it by just kinda tell me about your your your path here and and and then we'll kinda get into the meat and potatoes of what we're we're going at going after here.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, Robert. Well, hi, thank you for having me on the podcast for the fall, first of all. so yeah, the name is Hussein. I engineering grad by trade. and I've spent the last ten years in the construction industry, and more specifically, in the nuclear construction industry. and I've Over the last few years of my career, I was a project manager managing quite a big portfolio of construction projects. And I started experiencing a lot of problems when it comes to productivity. and I thought to myself, there must be a way to just make make things a bit better, make my life better. and that's how it all really started. and one of the biggest points for me at the peak of my career, I was managing wanna say probably between fifteen and twenty projects. and I had a I had trouble just having visibility on each of those projects and and knowing what's really going on at any given time basically. So when my when my superiors would ask me, hey, you know, give me a a certain status, it's always like, you know, let me get back to you in a little bit. and I would go and change some.
Robert: So so okay, is it now now let's be clear here. So we're we're talking even with modern day technology, you know, with the pro cores of the world, project management softwares, I'm sure you were using some sort of, you know, PM software, correct?
Hussain Arwani: To a certain extent, still though you don't have that kind of real time view of what's actually happening on the job side, even with that modern s modern day technology, as he said.
Robert: Well, so I I again I find this okay, so you see it all the time. I mean this is like the marketing report for every, you know, project management software out there, you know. at some level they're like, yeah, again, I get real time visibility into this, but I'm I'm actually talking to a person that's like, yeah, that's probably not really what's going on.
Hussain Arwani: Unfortunately not. I mean there's a lot of good tools out there with a lot of good features that give you, you know, different things that are very valuable as well. But that real time view that, you know you know, just like knowing what's actually happening on the job side. I have not seen, you know, being implemented so much. I think there's some tools that are coming to light recently in terms of maybe cameras and some LIDAR technologies that kind of record what's going on and reflects that into updates, but I don't believe or from what I've what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing, there's not that crazy implementation going on yet. from my experience at least. Yeah.
Robert: Okay. All right. Well, I just wanted to clarify that because you know, quite honestly, every time I have I get new founders on here, like it it seems like the number one marketing piece that they try to to try to portray is to say, you're gonna get real time visibility for your project management team. It's like
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: and then, you know, I talk to you, Hussein and you're like, Yeah, that's I'm out here working for a you know, fairly large you know, company that builds nuclear projects, you know, and I don't necessarily had those tools. You were you're missing, there's a gap. There somewhere.
Hussain Arwani: Th there's definitely a gap and and even outside of nuclear, you know, as a as a startup founder, I've obviously done a lot of user interviews to even get to a point where I have validated the problem that I have dealt with personally and to even you know, make sure that it's not just me that experiences it. And there's a lot of positive feedback from project teams as well as construction teams that this is really an issue and there's not that visibility. and I believe a big thing to that Is that a lot of the tools emerging these days, especially with you know using AI for real time, are not or are mainly aimed at people sitting in the office and mainly project teams and you know building those fancy dashboards and these fancy metrics that gives them the information they need, but they're not necessarily tools that are built for the construction side, for the job side, for the people that are actually building in the field. Because that's where the truth is. that's where that's the source of you know that's the input that matters at the end of the day getting that information and reflecting it somewhere on a dashboard that's where the gap still is
Robert: So let me ask you this, and I again a bit of a tangent on this, but I want to get your opinion on this. Why do we think or why do you think we continue to go down this path? Because I kind of agree with you, like it seems like a lot of the applications and platforms that have been developed have all been great for the office side, but just, you know, non-functional really for the builder environment.
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: and I and it's weird because maybe the definitions are getting confused. maybe if you're a project manager or something like that that's working in the office or if you're an estimate or whatever, you think that you're a builder. I I don't know. You know, I'm not s I'm not saying you're not a builder or weren't at one time a builder. What I'm saying is When I talk about the builder environment, I'm not j it's not a broad term. It's really like it's
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: site level, right? It is on the project, in the heat, in the cold, right? Why do we why do you think we haven't tackled that first? I mean, it's a big problem, but maybe they're just out there for the low hanging fruit. I don't know.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, that you know, good question, Robert. And I think there's two aspects to this. Number one is construct construction field teams typically don't hold the budget for the project. So the first thought that comes to mind is to go after the project team or you know, high-level executives and pitch the idea to them directly. But these people are not involved in the day-to-day activities and they don't really know the pains that are lived every single day by the people in the field. but then if you sell to them some fancy dashboard or fancy metrics, then you get their buy-in and you get the money, and and there you go. so that's number one, you know, just holding that budget. and then number two, is basically, you know, there is not I think there's a myth in a way that construction does not like technology. And maybe it's more so that you know construction industry overall is a bit late to adopting technology compared to other industries at least. But I I truly believe if if someone builds something that is actually aimed at the right users, which are the people in the field, then adoption would become easier. And by that, I mean not a fancy technology gadget or or something that will change their behavior entirely. Something that somehow integrates a bit more seamlessly into their current behavior so they can actually adopt it. So I think these are the main two things to why, you know, everything that you see is mostly aimed at people sitting in the office and not so the people in the field.
Robert: So that's exactly the reason why you're on here today, because quite honestly, that is what I'm talking about. That's what I've been saying. I love all these products that people come up with. I I I love the people that are out there doing it and working it, and I don't blame them a bit for solving people's issues. Right. And I don't care if you're in the office, you're in the field, whatever. They're they're they're truly solving problems. They're you're creating products that that help. so I'm not again I'm not bagging on these, you know, the the founders or the people that are out there, you know, selling their softwares or their platforms, whatever. I'm not bagging on them. I'm just saying we're getting into a space, and it seems odd to me that we we're kind of feeling like we're late in the game here, because but we're getting into a space where we realize You know, we've made all this technology, we've done all these things, but yet we still haven't helped to your point. What's going on with productivity? What's really going on in the field? We haven't helped that at all. dis
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: and that's kind of a fifty year trend. I mean, everybody quotes that same McKinsey stat, you know, from from whenever, but despite everything that we're doing, We haven't figured out a way to help our productivity much, I would say across the board. There may be some companies out there that are, you know, making great strides. I don't know. maybe they've found some keys to the kingdom. But I that's why was interested in what your product would end up providing because your product And I'll I'm gonna let you kind of spell it out what it does because I
Hussain Arwani: Yeah. Yeah.
Robert: I I found it interesting, 'cause a lot of products out there just do reporting, but that's not what yours does.
Hussain Arwani: That's right, Robert. Yeah. So we You know, after a lot of conversations and you know, initially it was the same thing for me. I started off with targeting the project teams. As a project manager, that was kind of my ideal customer, me peeling that pain point. so I started talking to them. and then it slowly transitioned more into the people on the site. Okay, let me let me get their perspective and see what they think. so I started talking to a lot of supers, a lot of foremen, a lot of general foremen and just getting their perspective on things. and that's when i got the real view of you know of what's really what's really happening and i thought to myself i think i've been chasing the right customer all this all this time and i believe my users are the people sitting in the field because that's the input that matters eventually that's what's gonna feed feed you the right information throughout execution so I started thinking, you know, you know, I talked to a lot of superintendents that told me they spend hours daily just drowning in updates, sitting in schedule meetings, taking calls from the project team just to tell them what's happening, drafting shift reports. like, okay, well, you know, that's a lot of time wasted when a superintendent should be doing something more important on the field and managing all these crews they have. So we thought, like how do we make it a bit more seamless and integrate into their current behavior? They're already speaking and and talking those updates, so why can't we just capture things through voice? You know. to us it felt the most natural way. Just speak it you know in natural language to your cell phone. That's where you know our voice agent sits, or basically it's a voice recorder, gets transcribed in real time. you see it, you know, as you speak it, you see it being transcribed, and then send it and move on. It's as simple as that. And that that update gets pushed onto a dashboard and it just automatically makes the change on the schedule. And we keep obviously for things that are more critical, like let's say a pushing critical path, we have a workflow approval that the project team stays in the loop, so the schedule just doesn't continuously update itself and pushes endlessly.
Robert: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Well and so th again, like the notifications of that is another big deal, right? Especially if you're saying pushing the critical path at any point in time. You're like, Hey, well where am I pushing it to? And who needs to know about this?
Hussain Arwani: Hundred percent, yeah, yeah. And that's why we keep the right people in the loop and you know, that that goes up on a dashboard and it does not automatically apply a change on the schedule. It actually modifies as a red flag the the project manager and the scheduler that, hey, you know, we're dealing with some issue in the field, so escalate accordingly and and talk to the right people that that sent that update.
Robert: Yeah. So does does the system ask like any clarifying questions at this point where it's again guys like me that that speak, you know, Carpenter out in the field. We're not necessarily the most PC of people in the world, you know, not Super well spoken, a lot of times. so do you actually you do some clarifying questions just to make sure that you're getting that information transferred back correctly?
Hussain Arwani: That's right. Yeah. We are we're in the process of actually developing our conversational agent, which basically picks up on missing context. So it's smart enough that if something is is not clear enough or missing some, you know, context to the update, they can ask the question, it's like, hey, you know, what are you referring to exactly? and then a simple response like a yes or no, or or I'm I'm talking about this activity would be suffice to just kind of take it and and push it to that dashboard. But are definitely we don't want to push anything that's inaccurate. So we will, you know, the agent clarifies things 100% before that change is reflected.
Robert: Okay. So when you talk about this dashboard, is this your dashboard that you provide that then integrates into your P six schedule or or or whatever system that maybe it's in Procore? Is this an integration point, I guess?
Hussain Arwani: Pretty much, yes. That's that's what it is. It's basically a schedule. It's your schedule in P6 or in Microsoft Project, wherever you look at it, and it and you can view it in again, chart view, just a bit of more of a a UI friendly or more friendly interface. and then there is there's a side panel that where the updates are showing up continuously as as they come from the field. and you can click on an on an update on that side panel and it pops out the details in terms of who sent the update at what time exactly if it's a delay, for example, shows you downstream effects and it tells you how you can recover it.
Robert: Okay. So it's again, it's a scheduling assist tool just straight from your cell phone.
Hussain Arwani: That is correct, yeah. And with with a goal to basically again connect the the truth of the job side directly to the schedule. and for us, the scheduling was was the starting point. We're still an early startup right now. and we want to nail down that scheduling workflow before we move on to making different things more real time, such as cost and connecting, for example, cost to to the schedule movement and and how you can get those live metrics as well. So we believe that's gonna eliminate a lot of the unnecessary burden that is put on construction in terms of sitting in meetings, you know, reporting throughout the day through calls and texts and emails, and even drafting the shift report, we have a feature that actually automate automatically sends that shift report out to the right stakeholders by end of shift or at whatever set frequency. And we believe we can we can get a lot of that time back to construction to the supers and GFs in the field.
Robert: Alright, so I love this idea. Okay. And my thing is I think you're gonna piss off a lot of people.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: as you might already know, one of my big statements is you know, the master schedule that's put out there, it's part of the contract, all that kind of stuff. It is an absolute fiction. And it's not necessarily handed down that P six schedule kind of thing or that Microsoft schedule. It's not necessarily the same thing. and then people start to question. And this is what happens, right? You've got this schedule over here that was part of the contract that the the uppity ups, you know, are all looking at going, Well, why aren't we there and what's going on and why have we, you know, shifted here and shifted here and then they now they've got a course record with with your two tool to say, well here's why and then it just creates this massive amount of of just questions like, Well why wasn't in this from the beginning? And then we start getting into the whole question of is the original schedule, the reported schedule or the contract schedule, just a marketing tool?
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, th that's that's definitely a potential scenario here. You know, we we know that that original schedule is is not just a marketing tool, it's also a contractual tool at the end of the day, right? It's it's part of the deliverables that must be submitted
Robert: It's leverage.
Hussain Arwani: yeah, you know, by a contractor and and you know there's some agreed dates even before execution ever kicks off, that have to be met, certain milestones that have to be met at certain dates. so would it piss off some people and you know show them more of a real time or real picture of what's really happening on the job side? You know, I I think it's a I think it's it's gonna happen at some point. But at least we start telling people that, you know, start paying more attention to what really happens on the job side. And and you know, the these the the the truth of what's really going on lies there. That's where the real picture is.
Robert: Mhm. I think I think again, I agree with you. I I'm not again, I just I'm having a little fun with this because this is exactly
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: the thing that I talk about all the time. We spend almost zero hours in planning sometimes. I mean, it may seem like we spend two months or three months, but most of that is kind of I would say dead air. because we're waiting on answers to come back. You know, the the plan itself is is truly the most impactful point in the schedule, but yet we make schedules and go, well, I think it'll kind of fit in here, right? It'll I think this should fit within this window of time.
Hussain Arwani: No
Robert: And maybe we had some backup information. Maybe we didn't. I'm not sure. It depends on who the contractor is, but maybe they take some historical data and go, well, we did this last time and it took us about this much. You know, some people may be doing that. Some people might just be guessing. You might have some newbie on the job that's, you know, helping you make out the schedule and or maybe first time kinda doing it. It's a complex thing. I'm not saying it's i it's an easy thing to do, but I think a tool like this is very interesting and important because again, capturing that real time data and then being able to go back to it, right? Capture
Hussain Arwani: Exactly.
Robert: capture the historical to be able to then use it for that next, that's all part of making a better plan.
Hussain Arwani: One hundred percent. Yeah, it's it's that traceability factor too, like you know, for us in Nuclear specifically, just because it's obviously a heavily regulated environment, traceability is everything. And with current processes and current tools, and especially when it comes to scheduling, a lot of things get lost in emails and in someone's inbox. it's hard to know what's the latest provision of a schedule, even sometimes. And this is all kind of problems that I personally faced and and hence, you know, speaking from that experience. so So, you know, based on conversations we've had so far, whether it's like I said with with project teams or construction teams or even higher-ups in the company, there there was a lot of interest and and people saw a lot of value in this. and honestly, I have not seen or heard a concern as such yet, if anything. If anything, the higher-ups also agreed that you know real-time visibility is an issue that they have seen and they would like to see some sort of a dashboard that is more high-level based on job side truth that updates in real time and gives them high-level pointers on what's what's happening within a project.
Robert: Yeah. Well, they always say that.
Hussain Arwani: Until they actually get that real time picture, right?
Robert: Yeah, yeah. I mean is I've said this before, but you know, the tr the truth will set you free but it'll piss you off first, I think, is with that thing. that they do say that I I love this because we've been having these same types of conversations with executives, even mid level you know, people. Everybody wants this data. until they get it. Right?
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: or until they have to figure out how to implement it into their into the daily because and I I wanna talk about this because I think we're seeing we're kind of, you know, kind of back up against the wall here when we start talking about AI infrastructure build outs, specifically when it comes to like nuclear, in kind of your your your field of expertise there. The complexity of a nuclear build-out is extreme. The permitting of a nuclear build-out is extreme. but yet we have executives of let's say hyperscalers and and people like that, and owners, operators, even some builders who are, you know, very much glossy in the terms of, yeah, I think this is definitely a direction we're gonna need go in, without
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: examining. you know, th what we've been talking about, which is examining the truth behind what all this means and and true deliverability. And I think, you know, our conversation as it kind of morphs here just a little bit, our focus on our productivity could be the most important thing that we do right now. because if it doesn't get built Right. I mean that we're talking trillions of dollars here invested
Hussain Arwani: yeah.
Robert: and it you can't afford that the amount of money, the affordability of it, you know, just of the mistake, because oops, we we had to push the critical path, because we didn't quite have that right. I mean, thoughts on on any of that, especially in the kind of that nuclear space, thoughts.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, and it's it's a lot of it is also like delayed decision making as well. because When you don't have a real-time view of what's going on in the job site, and you're waiting for like an end-of-shift report or the weekly schedule meeting, whatever that could be, then when something is happening in the moment and you don't know about it right away, then you know, two days later, that's when you make the decision, then you've already lost a lot of time. That's already, you know, cost a lot of money. so a lot of it is also you know, the real-time view and visibility feeds into just making making those decisions a lot faster. to like you said improve that productivity because you know I don't believe I think I think margins overall you know construction industry has been more competitive than ever and and margins overall are not necessarily you know the greatest so That productivity loss is not always shown on paper anywhere, right? It's it's just part of the process. It's it's time spent just doing the norm, right? But when you start, you know, putting that time back into people's day so they can focus on more important things and you see that productivity rise and and you know, we're getting more value out of all these individuals by focusing on what matters, then I think and I believe that's when, you know, we're gonna see, you know, a he an an Impactful shift in the industries, you know, as and the productivity would be the main reason for that.
Robert: That's I do agree with you, being able to kind of drop that back into our lap to give ourselves more visibility so you make faster decisions. I think there's a part that we're missing though, and this happens a lot, which
Hussain Arwani: No
Robert: is kind of accountability level for decisions and being able actually to even make them. to take actions on the data that you're getting back is probably one of the biggest, I will say bottlenecks of a a system that is, you know, supposedly designed around, you know, actionable data. If you have actionable data and you can't take an action because you have to wait for somebody's response or you have to wait for some notification, where does that leave you? It doesn't leave you any better off.
Hussain Arwani: That's right. Yeah. It's it's you know it's it's just as important ensuring that the right people are notified just as fast and I guess people are empowered to to make changes or take those actions that can actually change the trajectory or or the direction of the project into something that would truly, you know, pull ahead that schedule back or or, you know, remove the delay that was actually reported. so a hundred percent agree with with your point there.
Robert: Well, I think it would be interesting again, I so like say your system in place, right? It would be interesting to see the delay time between notification and reaction action decisions
Hussain Arwani: And
Robert: on said notifications because I think that would be a huge KPI for teams out there that would say, you know, how did this help? Well, let's see. In you know, in the time it took to you know, write this in or speak this into the phone. It took us eighteen minutes or it took us thirty minutes or or it took us four hours, you know. Again, it becomes an accountability tool as to, you know, where we're taking action and when we are taking action because to your point, the delay of doing something is much worse, I think, than the actual
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: doing it.
Hussain Arwani: Hundred percent, yeah. Like it's it's the speed of information flow, you know, as as a summary and and that velocity, just helps you, you know, get when you get that information faster, you're just you know, you you want to take that action faster. And I think that's a very interesting metric that you mentioned, just kind of measuring the the speed or or when that action happens compared to getting that update. We've thought of a bunch of things to measure to to you know g understand that that return and that ROI. But this is a a really good one, Robert. I think we're gonna I'm gonna take note off it and
Robert: well we're gonna give it information for free. what might do it?
Hussain Arwani: speed speed of information versus action taking.
Robert: Yeah, well I again I think it's a like I said, you can have all the information in the world. Right? You can have every bit of we have it now. we have if I wanted to go research something, I you know jump on my AI, as long as I prompt it correctly, I can go out and find out what I need. But for me to take action on that information Therein lies the key. Like what am I doing with that information and how quickly am I getting back to creating a solution? I love the idea that, you know, it could update the schedule. meaning, hey, by the way, in real time, this is what happened. This is the impact to the schedule. Can you approve this? Or do we provide a solution set to maybe a workaround of some sort? Love that. But again, getting to that workaround is that's where I find That's current problem, right? It's not that you're not gonna have problems on the job site. You're gonna have and you're gonna have some schedule changes, you're gonna have some change orders. It's impact time, right? When it happens versus action.
Hussain Arwani: Absolutely.
Robert: Right.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's obviously gonna be a bit of a learning curve compared to any new tool that's introduced. hopefully a much a much shorter one. but because of the nature of the way we're you know we're trying to set things up, there's there's traceability and and not to, you know, burn anyone, but oftentimes right
Robert: No, let's burn Let's let's do it.
Hussain Arwani: You know, like oftentimes right now There's not so much traceability. There's there's a lot of we we've gotten really good at documenting things and doing a lot of paperwork, but not truly understanding what's what's happening, right? And having that visibility. things are recorded, but still oftentimes it's it's hard to trace it to like what what truly happened, like what is the reason for this? So we can actually learn from it and carry it on to the next project. So The nature the nature of what we're doing here becomes you know things become more traceable when you're providing an update as people get more used to it, and you provide a reason for that and things are recorded somewhere, then you start you know collecting that data and seeing trends and you know creating some sort of a feedback loop for things that are reoccurring, then then that becomes a better decision mechanism, a better decision-making mechanism on its own, and empowers people to take action. faster knowing that you know the data is there and you know people can people people are gonna question it potentially because they see it, right?
Robert: Yeah, it the we get into a whole different I had this just random thing pop into my head about like who owns that data then, you know. there's a there's this big question kind of out there. They people start throwing it around, like you're working on a project, who owns all the data? if you're working on a project. I I think it I find it very, very interesting because it's like I don't know that anybody can truly own it, even though there's a lot of people that would say, you know, let's just say like the KPI we were just talking about. That's kind of a moat for some folks if if they start to implement it in going, Yeah, well we know that if we do this, this and this, right, we're better by X amount of percentage, you know. And that's kind of a that's a thing, right? It's it's kind of like I mean is it IP or w I don't even know what you what you call it, but it's It's your data that you extrapolated and you figured out how to fix it. Okay. So but it's project data. Now, how do you separate that that from the owner's is does the owner own the data of the building? Is that part of it? Or Is that data for the build what it you know, where is that separation? I I find that's a interest a whole nother level of, you know, complexity
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: we've added into this because at at the end of the day I I feel like the the building information or the asset information really should be just everybody's information.
Hussain Arwani: Hmm. Well at least in Nuclear, so I can speak from my experience, the owner basically owns everything. and It's not I I'm pretty sure we're gonna face some you know, maybe a bit of a resistance when it comes to let's say using that data elsewhere, right? If wanna, you know, come up with certain trends or come up with with certain industry benchmarks. and this is nuclear specifically, because you know, things are conf of a confidential nature, and nothing is public, obviously, and and they're very protective typically off.
Robert: Yeah, but let's be clear. N nuclear is I won't say it's the future, but I mean, it is the future. I mean we at least now, unless somebody comes up with some magical new invention which is the easiest way to create power, right? Other than right other than nuclear. I mean, 'cause gas and oil will at some point phase out over the next twenty years. it's just there's just too much of a trend for it not to somehow f fall back. Everybody is talking about how nuclear, SMRs especially, you know, being
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: able to become the power sources that we rely upon. United States is is behind everybody else on this. They don't have any SMRs, you know, even in in process right now. I think there's one in Canada that's underway. But th there's all this talk. And again, the people that are actually driving the economy, the hyperscalers, the people that will fund this type of work, right?
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: Are the ones talking about this. And so These arguments will soon become, you know, a a a relevant thing of well, who owns again, when you're talking about t a tech company, they're all about owning all your data.
Hussain Arwani: That's right. That that's that's the moat these days, right? The data basically. now there's not like so so within nuclear companies, at least from what I know in Canada, information is shared, right? You know, we we have our main two providers, Bruce Power and and OPG, for example. So data is shared because both companies right now are going through refurbishments and and new builds. so there is there is sharing of that information between them so they can both improve their processes. but when I say sharing it's you know our solution is not specifically for nuclear. I we believe nuclear will benefit from it significantly because in essence the way things are done is very similar to conventional construction. It's just in a much more heavily regulated environment. But sharing that information, so there's you know sharing information between nuclear and other industries, that's gonna very likely be restricted. And that's where you know the data silos are gonna have to be established between probably even different organizations and just kind of restricting data to you know just for a specific company. 'Cause you know, from from our conversations to be honest, even with non nuclear companies, it seems that you know, they they're protective over their data as well. They want to make make sure it is not shared with anyone else and it is just used for for their w which makes sense again, going back to the same point. at the end of the day there's a there's a lot of contractors out there, there's a lot of competition. sharing data with just everyone might not necessarily benefit them. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. No, I I agree. I agree. I there's just this weird I don't know, when we're trying to make improvements across the board, across the industry. I don't and I don't care where you are. When you're trying to make I think that maybe we do better when we share a little bit, right, than we do if we are always on an island. That's my thought.
Hussain Arwani: I cannot agree more. you know, even if you think within a specific organization, if each team is working in a silo, let's you know, let's take a small example like that, right? Different teams are just working in silos and no one's collaborating, projects don't progress as well. Right. So it's the same thing. You combine all that information from different companies to build to just have a better industry overall in a specific country, let's say, then I am I am sure that that is gonna you know that Data combined is going to benefit everyone collectively. It only makes sense. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. And I think some of it will I again, I think they'll have to parse it out as to what we can share, what we can't share.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: I I believe that'll happen. I I find it's just an we're in a a different time here. this is this is brand new. I'm I come from the old school of construction. Where everything was done on either a sheet of paper or, you know, an Excel spreadsheet and and it's just a whole different world now. and it's expanding into that level what you're talking about, where the builders are. It's expanding to the field so much because we're realizing that this is the source of truth. This Whether it is the bottleneck or it is the area where we could we could really open up some gates, you know. I I still don't know if the if the field is the bottleneck, qu quite honestly. I don't know that. it's hard to tell, but I do know we need to put tools in their hands that help them do their work better or be more productive.
Hussain Arwani: Absolutely. and l and you know, a keyword there is is expanding. The truth is, you know, people are still using for the most part Excel and paper right now still. So so the old school ways are still prevalent, I wanna say, compared to anything new. So hence
Robert: I know, we're we're just we're crusty old bastards. We just we just can't give it up.
Hussain Arwani: and people are used to it and they trust it. That's that's the main thing. It's it's the trust that is built on these old school systems that's been working for decades and people continue to trust it that way. Yeah, like an the old pen and paper can't go wrong without writing a note down on your notebook, right? Versus saying something into AI and who know God knows where it goes, right?
Robert: Yeah, yeah. I mean i it's I mean your your number one cybersecurity tool is a pen and paper day these days. We ha we've developed all this technology and all we're ever worried about is somebody stealing our stuff. But I have no problem with leaving my meat meat in the front of my truck, you know.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: Nobody's gonna steal it. Nobody wants it. I won't leave my iPhone sitting out there, right? But could but my notebook with probably more, you know, classified information is probably d is kinda sitting out there. well, you know, he
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: reads some stuff down, I don't know what it is, I'm not gonna look at it. I mean that's cybersecurity at its
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, absolutely.
Robert: best.
Hussain Arwani: I absolutely yeah, just no one's gonna look at the notebook and think of let me take that. Right.
Robert: People don't read anymore. I would figure like like my notebook is has a full bunch of stuff. You know, I write notes all the time. I'm I'm still a pen and paper kind of guy, even though I work in AI and I use I build agents and I do all that kind of stuff. But I'm still I'm very, very tactile, you know what I mean? And it's one of those things where I it helps with putting it in my brain. I can keep it on my my paper. But it's just funny, I don't think people read anymore. I think if it doesn't have some pictures that go with it, it's kinda like, you know, they're not even gonna pay attention to it. It's just one of those things.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, especially with with you know chat GPT and Claude and all these good tools, you know, most people the and I you know what I'm guilty of that myself, you know, where when it's a a large article that's interesting to me, you know, I'm gonna go sometimes and put it like in Claude or in GPT and like, hey, can you summarize the main points for me so I can quickly skim through it? I wanna know the the main thing. I don't wanna sit and read it for like twenty minutes, right? So I I think you know, but but I try to whenever I can. percent goes back to your point where people don't read so much anymore and don't write things down. And I think writing things down in a way just kinda like engraves it in your mind, right? Like it's like you don't forget it as much as like kind of typing it. I
Robert: Right. I think it I think it makes it a priority o of ways. You know, there's old kind of the old business books, I don't want it like seven habits of successful people or something like that. Right.
Hussain Arwani: yeah. Yeah.
Robert: But it would say, I mean, specifically and I still see people say it today, write it down. It
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: does something to solidify, right, the the information. That's the one thing I do worry about, the heavy amount of information that we're trying to transfer to one another, like how much of it really sticks. Right? We're trying to transfer a lot of heavy information. I mean, even your product, right? You're trying to get a lot of information that you're not getting now into the system so it can track it, right? And it can help out with the with the schedule. It's like I I think the biggest problem that all context founders have, I think, you know, companies have, and you know, just from random examples is are your people even paying attention? And and that's not something that tech can fix, you know.
Hussain Arwani: No, no, i it's it's a behavioral problem, really. I I think there is A lot of information that everyone processes on a daily basis, whether you know, like at work, later on at home, and people have capacities, right? So, like at some point, no matter what, no matter how bright and how alert you are, you're gonna stop being able to process like new information. You know, it's that cognitive ability that people are capped at, right? and I think it's very important to know. what information matters and what doesn't. So you know, when you kind of block and filter out information that is not important, and you're able to make that distinguishment between what matters and what not, then you extend that cognitive like in a way, you extend that cognitive ability that you have to continue focusing on on what matters. And you know, this is something I I think about and I try to keep in my mind so I can I I can do that to myself and really just kind of, you know, have that capacity continuously for the important things and not just any random information that Yeah.
Robert: Well, that's something that they don't teach, right? They don't teach that in schools. you know, it's it's A D D theater, pretty much anywhere you go. And I just one of my last points here, because you know, as we as we go, like I said, I train, you know, I work with building AI agents for my companies and and I have found that that behaves very much like humans behave. It starts to skim the information, even though it's can parse a bunch of it, it skims it for its the little highlights that it thinks are important. It's still this statistical grab of
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: information. I I find it fascinating. Because some of the replies, some of the things that I get back from, you know, working with Claude and and those kind of things, I go, that sounds like something I'd get from a project engineer. You know what I mean? Or that sounds like something I would get from, you know, Joe on the job site. You know, he he gave me about what he thought I needed, but not really what I was looking for. And then I go and then I look at it and I go, Well maybe it's my fault and the way I prompted it. Maybe I didn't ask it correctly. And This is exactly the point that I was kind of getting at before was it's tough to take action on an unclear set of results.
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: Right? And again, you'll take action anyway, but if it's it's this weird do we talk to people the same way that we're gonna be talking with AI? And is AI gonna behave like the person that's training it that maybe doesn't listen that great anyway.
Hussain Arwani: It's a it's a very valid point, Robert. you know, like like you said, the way they behave similarly, because if you're talking a lot of things, a lot of issues happen because of miscommunication between humans, right? So
Robert: Mm-hmm.
Hussain Arwani: So if you're you know, think about talking to someone and you're not relaying the right information and they end up not doing the right thing, it's the same thing when you're prompting an agent. You don't you know the prompt is not as accurate, which is the method of communication, then they don't do the right thing, right? So a hundred percent. And and the truth is like I think a lot of people have maybe like a bit of a wrong idea of what AI does or what agents do and you know they're onto us are gonna replace all of our jobs, right? It's it's not that like I I want to make you know make make
Robert: I agree.
Hussain Arwani: sure this is also my last point. Like you know, AI is good at doing things that are repetitive and you know things at scale that you know for us would take much longer to do. But if you know the the example you brought, you know, you something came up from an agent that you were running and And you th it looked like someone in a project engineer gave it to you. But if you were to focus on that specific things, you would probably figure out yourself, right? But the agents just like did it at a much faster pace and you know, analyzed that data in seconds versus I don't know like hours that that could take you, right? So it's just agents are are like augmented staff that is that are gonna help us do things better and increase our productivity. They're not replacing anyone.
Robert: Yeah. And that is one of my biggest discoveries of being kind of in this business now of, you know,
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: kind of the AI side of the world and one of my biggest discoveries is I I in twenty years, maybe, I don't know. maybe the improvements will have made enough where it does, you know, replace, you know, humans. I don't know. But right now in the the tools available and all of the things that are surrounding the AI controversy about, you know, replacing jobs. And I was like, Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. What I would say to those folks out there, whether you're in the construction industry, in any industry, learn how to work with it. Understand how it works. Don't confuse it for being a a human. You know? Don't
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: don't and don't confuse it for thinking it's probably more logical than you are because it's I I It's not. It's not more logical. it makes assumptions just as much as anybody else does, unless you unless you advise it not to, unless you really restrict its behavior and really point it, really focus it, which is no different than what you would do with the average employee to say, Hey, by the way, I need you to focus on this problem right here and fix this. I you know.
Hussain Arwani: Exactly. Exactly. That's that's what it is. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. Well I'm excited about your product. does it have a name?
Hussain Arwani: It's called Masaro.
Robert: Okay.
Hussain Arwani: A S A R O. Yeah.
Robert: All right. There's a there's a little there's a little Mexican place out here called Macero. They they serve up some nice chocolate Seattle.
Hussain Arwani: Is that yeah?
Robert: Yeah, so I'm okay. I'll remember that. Yeah.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, we tried to make it a bit more memorable, I guess, and and a bit more kinda abstract. I felt like a lot of the startups emerging in the space either have build in them or construct in them or something construction related. So I wanted to like you know be a bit bit different in that sense.
Robert: No, I think it's a good idea because you definitely do set yourself aside in a in a space where, you know, the next time I see a B I L D or B I whatever, B double I L D, I don't know. Yeah. I
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, that's that's right.
Robert: well anyway, great talking with you, Hussein. we should do this again sometime. I know we kinda went off on a tangent, whatever, but I'm looking forward to seeing
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: what Mazzaro has to offer. If they need to get a hold of you out there, like can you give us do we do we have a website or do we have just a LinkedIn? What do we got?
Hussain Arwani: yeah, I mean my name, LinkedIn and I mean still in stealth. We're launching very soon on LinkedIn, but to go on the website it's Masaro, so M-A-S-A-R-O dot I O is I'll take you right there.
Robert: Okay, fantastic. Well, ma'am, forty five minutes runs fast. Actually we did a we did a longer one. I got the fifty minute drive time here. I like it. but
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: hey, thanks for being with me and you know, hopefully we'll have you back on and we'll we'll talk again.
Hussain Arwani: Awesome. Thanks a lot, Robert, for having me and have a great, wonderful day.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: first. And then because I think it's it's an interesting little path. I still find it, you know, find it funny that you still wanna be in this business. But it by just kinda tell me about your your your path here and and and then we'll kinda get into the meat and potatoes of what we're we're going at going after here.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, Robert. Well, hi, thank you for having me on the podcast for the fall, first of all. so yeah, the name is Hussein. I engineering grad by trade. and I've spent the last ten years in the construction industry, and more specifically, in the nuclear construction industry. and I've Over the last few years of my career, I was a project manager managing quite a big portfolio of construction projects. And I started experiencing a lot of problems when it comes to productivity. and I thought to myself, there must be a way to just make make things a bit better, make my life better. and that's how it all really started. and one of the biggest points for me at the peak of my career, I was managing wanna say probably between fifteen and twenty projects. and I had a I had trouble just having visibility on each of those projects and and knowing what's really going on at any given time basically. So when my when my superiors would ask me, hey, you know, give me a a certain status, it's always like, you know, let me get back to you in a little bit. and I would go and change some.
Robert: So so okay, is it now now let's be clear here. So we're we're talking even with modern day technology, you know, with the pro cores of the world, project management softwares, I'm sure you were using some sort of, you know, PM software, correct?
Hussain Arwani: To a certain extent, still though you don't have that kind of real time view of what's actually happening on the job side, even with that modern s modern day technology, as he said.
Robert: Well, so I I again I find this okay, so you see it all the time. I mean this is like the marketing report for every, you know, project management software out there, you know. at some level they're like, yeah, again, I get real time visibility into this, but I'm I'm actually talking to a person that's like, yeah, that's probably not really what's going on.
Hussain Arwani: Unfortunately not. I mean there's a lot of good tools out there with a lot of good features that give you, you know, different things that are very valuable as well. But that real time view that, you know you know, just like knowing what's actually happening on the job side. I have not seen, you know, being implemented so much. I think there's some tools that are coming to light recently in terms of maybe cameras and some LIDAR technologies that kind of record what's going on and reflects that into updates, but I don't believe or from what I've what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing, there's not that crazy implementation going on yet. from my experience at least. Yeah.
Robert: Okay. All right. Well, I just wanted to clarify that because you know, quite honestly, every time I have I get new founders on here, like it it seems like the number one marketing piece that they try to to try to portray is to say, you're gonna get real time visibility for your project management team. It's like
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: and then, you know, I talk to you, Hussein and you're like, Yeah, that's I'm out here working for a you know, fairly large you know, company that builds nuclear projects, you know, and I don't necessarily had those tools. You were you're missing, there's a gap. There somewhere.
Hussain Arwani: Th there's definitely a gap and and even outside of nuclear, you know, as a as a startup founder, I've obviously done a lot of user interviews to even get to a point where I have validated the problem that I have dealt with personally and to even you know, make sure that it's not just me that experiences it. And there's a lot of positive feedback from project teams as well as construction teams that this is really an issue and there's not that visibility. and I believe a big thing to that Is that a lot of the tools emerging these days, especially with you know using AI for real time, are not or are mainly aimed at people sitting in the office and mainly project teams and you know building those fancy dashboards and these fancy metrics that gives them the information they need, but they're not necessarily tools that are built for the construction side, for the job side, for the people that are actually building in the field. Because that's where the truth is. that's where that's the source of you know that's the input that matters at the end of the day getting that information and reflecting it somewhere on a dashboard that's where the gap still is
Robert: So let me ask you this, and I again a bit of a tangent on this, but I want to get your opinion on this. Why do we think or why do you think we continue to go down this path? Because I kind of agree with you, like it seems like a lot of the applications and platforms that have been developed have all been great for the office side, but just, you know, non-functional really for the builder environment.
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: and I and it's weird because maybe the definitions are getting confused. maybe if you're a project manager or something like that that's working in the office or if you're an estimate or whatever, you think that you're a builder. I I don't know. You know, I'm not s I'm not saying you're not a builder or weren't at one time a builder. What I'm saying is When I talk about the builder environment, I'm not j it's not a broad term. It's really like it's
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: site level, right? It is on the project, in the heat, in the cold, right? Why do we why do you think we haven't tackled that first? I mean, it's a big problem, but maybe they're just out there for the low hanging fruit. I don't know.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, that you know, good question, Robert. And I think there's two aspects to this. Number one is construct construction field teams typically don't hold the budget for the project. So the first thought that comes to mind is to go after the project team or you know, high-level executives and pitch the idea to them directly. But these people are not involved in the day-to-day activities and they don't really know the pains that are lived every single day by the people in the field. but then if you sell to them some fancy dashboard or fancy metrics, then you get their buy-in and you get the money, and and there you go. so that's number one, you know, just holding that budget. and then number two, is basically, you know, there is not I think there's a myth in a way that construction does not like technology. And maybe it's more so that you know construction industry overall is a bit late to adopting technology compared to other industries at least. But I I truly believe if if someone builds something that is actually aimed at the right users, which are the people in the field, then adoption would become easier. And by that, I mean not a fancy technology gadget or or something that will change their behavior entirely. Something that somehow integrates a bit more seamlessly into their current behavior so they can actually adopt it. So I think these are the main two things to why, you know, everything that you see is mostly aimed at people sitting in the office and not so the people in the field.
Robert: So that's exactly the reason why you're on here today, because quite honestly, that is what I'm talking about. That's what I've been saying. I love all these products that people come up with. I I I love the people that are out there doing it and working it, and I don't blame them a bit for solving people's issues. Right. And I don't care if you're in the office, you're in the field, whatever. They're they're they're truly solving problems. They're you're creating products that that help. so I'm not again I'm not bagging on these, you know, the the founders or the people that are out there, you know, selling their softwares or their platforms, whatever. I'm not bagging on them. I'm just saying we're getting into a space, and it seems odd to me that we we're kind of feeling like we're late in the game here, because but we're getting into a space where we realize You know, we've made all this technology, we've done all these things, but yet we still haven't helped to your point. What's going on with productivity? What's really going on in the field? We haven't helped that at all. dis
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: and that's kind of a fifty year trend. I mean, everybody quotes that same McKinsey stat, you know, from from whenever, but despite everything that we're doing, We haven't figured out a way to help our productivity much, I would say across the board. There may be some companies out there that are, you know, making great strides. I don't know. maybe they've found some keys to the kingdom. But I that's why was interested in what your product would end up providing because your product And I'll I'm gonna let you kind of spell it out what it does because I
Hussain Arwani: Yeah. Yeah.
Robert: I I found it interesting, 'cause a lot of products out there just do reporting, but that's not what yours does.
Hussain Arwani: That's right, Robert. Yeah. So we You know, after a lot of conversations and you know, initially it was the same thing for me. I started off with targeting the project teams. As a project manager, that was kind of my ideal customer, me peeling that pain point. so I started talking to them. and then it slowly transitioned more into the people on the site. Okay, let me let me get their perspective and see what they think. so I started talking to a lot of supers, a lot of foremen, a lot of general foremen and just getting their perspective on things. and that's when i got the real view of you know of what's really what's really happening and i thought to myself i think i've been chasing the right customer all this all this time and i believe my users are the people sitting in the field because that's the input that matters eventually that's what's gonna feed feed you the right information throughout execution so I started thinking, you know, you know, I talked to a lot of superintendents that told me they spend hours daily just drowning in updates, sitting in schedule meetings, taking calls from the project team just to tell them what's happening, drafting shift reports. like, okay, well, you know, that's a lot of time wasted when a superintendent should be doing something more important on the field and managing all these crews they have. So we thought, like how do we make it a bit more seamless and integrate into their current behavior? They're already speaking and and talking those updates, so why can't we just capture things through voice? You know. to us it felt the most natural way. Just speak it you know in natural language to your cell phone. That's where you know our voice agent sits, or basically it's a voice recorder, gets transcribed in real time. you see it, you know, as you speak it, you see it being transcribed, and then send it and move on. It's as simple as that. And that that update gets pushed onto a dashboard and it just automatically makes the change on the schedule. And we keep obviously for things that are more critical, like let's say a pushing critical path, we have a workflow approval that the project team stays in the loop, so the schedule just doesn't continuously update itself and pushes endlessly.
Robert: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Well and so th again, like the notifications of that is another big deal, right? Especially if you're saying pushing the critical path at any point in time. You're like, Hey, well where am I pushing it to? And who needs to know about this?
Hussain Arwani: Hundred percent, yeah, yeah. And that's why we keep the right people in the loop and you know, that that goes up on a dashboard and it does not automatically apply a change on the schedule. It actually modifies as a red flag the the project manager and the scheduler that, hey, you know, we're dealing with some issue in the field, so escalate accordingly and and talk to the right people that that sent that update.
Robert: Yeah. So does does the system ask like any clarifying questions at this point where it's again guys like me that that speak, you know, Carpenter out in the field. We're not necessarily the most PC of people in the world, you know, not Super well spoken, a lot of times. so do you actually you do some clarifying questions just to make sure that you're getting that information transferred back correctly?
Hussain Arwani: That's right. Yeah. We are we're in the process of actually developing our conversational agent, which basically picks up on missing context. So it's smart enough that if something is is not clear enough or missing some, you know, context to the update, they can ask the question, it's like, hey, you know, what are you referring to exactly? and then a simple response like a yes or no, or or I'm I'm talking about this activity would be suffice to just kind of take it and and push it to that dashboard. But are definitely we don't want to push anything that's inaccurate. So we will, you know, the agent clarifies things 100% before that change is reflected.
Robert: Okay. So when you talk about this dashboard, is this your dashboard that you provide that then integrates into your P six schedule or or or whatever system that maybe it's in Procore? Is this an integration point, I guess?
Hussain Arwani: Pretty much, yes. That's that's what it is. It's basically a schedule. It's your schedule in P6 or in Microsoft Project, wherever you look at it, and it and you can view it in again, chart view, just a bit of more of a a UI friendly or more friendly interface. and then there is there's a side panel that where the updates are showing up continuously as as they come from the field. and you can click on an on an update on that side panel and it pops out the details in terms of who sent the update at what time exactly if it's a delay, for example, shows you downstream effects and it tells you how you can recover it.
Robert: Okay. So it's again, it's a scheduling assist tool just straight from your cell phone.
Hussain Arwani: That is correct, yeah. And with with a goal to basically again connect the the truth of the job side directly to the schedule. and for us, the scheduling was was the starting point. We're still an early startup right now. and we want to nail down that scheduling workflow before we move on to making different things more real time, such as cost and connecting, for example, cost to to the schedule movement and and how you can get those live metrics as well. So we believe that's gonna eliminate a lot of the unnecessary burden that is put on construction in terms of sitting in meetings, you know, reporting throughout the day through calls and texts and emails, and even drafting the shift report, we have a feature that actually automate automatically sends that shift report out to the right stakeholders by end of shift or at whatever set frequency. And we believe we can we can get a lot of that time back to construction to the supers and GFs in the field.
Robert: Alright, so I love this idea. Okay. And my thing is I think you're gonna piss off a lot of people.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: as you might already know, one of my big statements is you know, the master schedule that's put out there, it's part of the contract, all that kind of stuff. It is an absolute fiction. And it's not necessarily handed down that P six schedule kind of thing or that Microsoft schedule. It's not necessarily the same thing. and then people start to question. And this is what happens, right? You've got this schedule over here that was part of the contract that the the uppity ups, you know, are all looking at going, Well, why aren't we there and what's going on and why have we, you know, shifted here and shifted here and then they now they've got a course record with with your two tool to say, well here's why and then it just creates this massive amount of of just questions like, Well why wasn't in this from the beginning? And then we start getting into the whole question of is the original schedule, the reported schedule or the contract schedule, just a marketing tool?
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, th that's that's definitely a potential scenario here. You know, we we know that that original schedule is is not just a marketing tool, it's also a contractual tool at the end of the day, right? It's it's part of the deliverables that must be submitted
Robert: It's leverage.
Hussain Arwani: yeah, you know, by a contractor and and you know there's some agreed dates even before execution ever kicks off, that have to be met, certain milestones that have to be met at certain dates. so would it piss off some people and you know show them more of a real time or real picture of what's really happening on the job side? You know, I I think it's a I think it's it's gonna happen at some point. But at least we start telling people that, you know, start paying more attention to what really happens on the job side. And and you know, the these the the the truth of what's really going on lies there. That's where the real picture is.
Robert: Mhm. I think I think again, I agree with you. I I'm not again, I just I'm having a little fun with this because this is exactly
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: the thing that I talk about all the time. We spend almost zero hours in planning sometimes. I mean, it may seem like we spend two months or three months, but most of that is kind of I would say dead air. because we're waiting on answers to come back. You know, the the plan itself is is truly the most impactful point in the schedule, but yet we make schedules and go, well, I think it'll kind of fit in here, right? It'll I think this should fit within this window of time.
Hussain Arwani: No
Robert: And maybe we had some backup information. Maybe we didn't. I'm not sure. It depends on who the contractor is, but maybe they take some historical data and go, well, we did this last time and it took us about this much. You know, some people may be doing that. Some people might just be guessing. You might have some newbie on the job that's, you know, helping you make out the schedule and or maybe first time kinda doing it. It's a complex thing. I'm not saying it's i it's an easy thing to do, but I think a tool like this is very interesting and important because again, capturing that real time data and then being able to go back to it, right? Capture
Hussain Arwani: Exactly.
Robert: capture the historical to be able to then use it for that next, that's all part of making a better plan.
Hussain Arwani: One hundred percent. Yeah, it's it's that traceability factor too, like you know, for us in Nuclear specifically, just because it's obviously a heavily regulated environment, traceability is everything. And with current processes and current tools, and especially when it comes to scheduling, a lot of things get lost in emails and in someone's inbox. it's hard to know what's the latest provision of a schedule, even sometimes. And this is all kind of problems that I personally faced and and hence, you know, speaking from that experience. so So, you know, based on conversations we've had so far, whether it's like I said with with project teams or construction teams or even higher-ups in the company, there there was a lot of interest and and people saw a lot of value in this. and honestly, I have not seen or heard a concern as such yet, if anything. If anything, the higher-ups also agreed that you know real-time visibility is an issue that they have seen and they would like to see some sort of a dashboard that is more high-level based on job side truth that updates in real time and gives them high-level pointers on what's what's happening within a project.
Robert: Yeah. Well, they always say that.
Hussain Arwani: Until they actually get that real time picture, right?
Robert: Yeah, yeah. I mean is I've said this before, but you know, the tr the truth will set you free but it'll piss you off first, I think, is with that thing. that they do say that I I love this because we've been having these same types of conversations with executives, even mid level you know, people. Everybody wants this data. until they get it. Right?
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: or until they have to figure out how to implement it into their into the daily because and I I wanna talk about this because I think we're seeing we're kind of, you know, kind of back up against the wall here when we start talking about AI infrastructure build outs, specifically when it comes to like nuclear, in kind of your your your field of expertise there. The complexity of a nuclear build-out is extreme. The permitting of a nuclear build-out is extreme. but yet we have executives of let's say hyperscalers and and people like that, and owners, operators, even some builders who are, you know, very much glossy in the terms of, yeah, I think this is definitely a direction we're gonna need go in, without
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: examining. you know, th what we've been talking about, which is examining the truth behind what all this means and and true deliverability. And I think, you know, our conversation as it kind of morphs here just a little bit, our focus on our productivity could be the most important thing that we do right now. because if it doesn't get built Right. I mean that we're talking trillions of dollars here invested
Hussain Arwani: yeah.
Robert: and it you can't afford that the amount of money, the affordability of it, you know, just of the mistake, because oops, we we had to push the critical path, because we didn't quite have that right. I mean, thoughts on on any of that, especially in the kind of that nuclear space, thoughts.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, and it's it's a lot of it is also like delayed decision making as well. because When you don't have a real-time view of what's going on in the job site, and you're waiting for like an end-of-shift report or the weekly schedule meeting, whatever that could be, then when something is happening in the moment and you don't know about it right away, then you know, two days later, that's when you make the decision, then you've already lost a lot of time. That's already, you know, cost a lot of money. so a lot of it is also you know, the real-time view and visibility feeds into just making making those decisions a lot faster. to like you said improve that productivity because you know I don't believe I think I think margins overall you know construction industry has been more competitive than ever and and margins overall are not necessarily you know the greatest so That productivity loss is not always shown on paper anywhere, right? It's it's just part of the process. It's it's time spent just doing the norm, right? But when you start, you know, putting that time back into people's day so they can focus on more important things and you see that productivity rise and and you know, we're getting more value out of all these individuals by focusing on what matters, then I think and I believe that's when, you know, we're gonna see, you know, a he an an Impactful shift in the industries, you know, as and the productivity would be the main reason for that.
Robert: That's I do agree with you, being able to kind of drop that back into our lap to give ourselves more visibility so you make faster decisions. I think there's a part that we're missing though, and this happens a lot, which
Hussain Arwani: No
Robert: is kind of accountability level for decisions and being able actually to even make them. to take actions on the data that you're getting back is probably one of the biggest, I will say bottlenecks of a a system that is, you know, supposedly designed around, you know, actionable data. If you have actionable data and you can't take an action because you have to wait for somebody's response or you have to wait for some notification, where does that leave you? It doesn't leave you any better off.
Hussain Arwani: That's right. Yeah. It's it's you know it's it's just as important ensuring that the right people are notified just as fast and I guess people are empowered to to make changes or take those actions that can actually change the trajectory or or the direction of the project into something that would truly, you know, pull ahead that schedule back or or, you know, remove the delay that was actually reported. so a hundred percent agree with with your point there.
Robert: Well, I think it would be interesting again, I so like say your system in place, right? It would be interesting to see the delay time between notification and reaction action decisions
Hussain Arwani: And
Robert: on said notifications because I think that would be a huge KPI for teams out there that would say, you know, how did this help? Well, let's see. In you know, in the time it took to you know, write this in or speak this into the phone. It took us eighteen minutes or it took us thirty minutes or or it took us four hours, you know. Again, it becomes an accountability tool as to, you know, where we're taking action and when we are taking action because to your point, the delay of doing something is much worse, I think, than the actual
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: doing it.
Hussain Arwani: Hundred percent, yeah. Like it's it's the speed of information flow, you know, as as a summary and and that velocity, just helps you, you know, get when you get that information faster, you're just you know, you you want to take that action faster. And I think that's a very interesting metric that you mentioned, just kind of measuring the the speed or or when that action happens compared to getting that update. We've thought of a bunch of things to measure to to you know g understand that that return and that ROI. But this is a a really good one, Robert. I think we're gonna I'm gonna take note off it and
Robert: well we're gonna give it information for free. what might do it?
Hussain Arwani: speed speed of information versus action taking.
Robert: Yeah, well I again I think it's a like I said, you can have all the information in the world. Right? You can have every bit of we have it now. we have if I wanted to go research something, I you know jump on my AI, as long as I prompt it correctly, I can go out and find out what I need. But for me to take action on that information Therein lies the key. Like what am I doing with that information and how quickly am I getting back to creating a solution? I love the idea that, you know, it could update the schedule. meaning, hey, by the way, in real time, this is what happened. This is the impact to the schedule. Can you approve this? Or do we provide a solution set to maybe a workaround of some sort? Love that. But again, getting to that workaround is that's where I find That's current problem, right? It's not that you're not gonna have problems on the job site. You're gonna have and you're gonna have some schedule changes, you're gonna have some change orders. It's impact time, right? When it happens versus action.
Hussain Arwani: Absolutely.
Robert: Right.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's obviously gonna be a bit of a learning curve compared to any new tool that's introduced. hopefully a much a much shorter one. but because of the nature of the way we're you know we're trying to set things up, there's there's traceability and and not to, you know, burn anyone, but oftentimes right
Robert: No, let's burn Let's let's do it.
Hussain Arwani: You know, like oftentimes right now There's not so much traceability. There's there's a lot of we we've gotten really good at documenting things and doing a lot of paperwork, but not truly understanding what's what's happening, right? And having that visibility. things are recorded, but still oftentimes it's it's hard to trace it to like what what truly happened, like what is the reason for this? So we can actually learn from it and carry it on to the next project. So The nature the nature of what we're doing here becomes you know things become more traceable when you're providing an update as people get more used to it, and you provide a reason for that and things are recorded somewhere, then you start you know collecting that data and seeing trends and you know creating some sort of a feedback loop for things that are reoccurring, then then that becomes a better decision mechanism, a better decision-making mechanism on its own, and empowers people to take action. faster knowing that you know the data is there and you know people can people people are gonna question it potentially because they see it, right?
Robert: Yeah, it the we get into a whole different I had this just random thing pop into my head about like who owns that data then, you know. there's a there's this big question kind of out there. They people start throwing it around, like you're working on a project, who owns all the data? if you're working on a project. I I think it I find it very, very interesting because it's like I don't know that anybody can truly own it, even though there's a lot of people that would say, you know, let's just say like the KPI we were just talking about. That's kind of a moat for some folks if if they start to implement it in going, Yeah, well we know that if we do this, this and this, right, we're better by X amount of percentage, you know. And that's kind of a that's a thing, right? It's it's kind of like I mean is it IP or w I don't even know what you what you call it, but it's It's your data that you extrapolated and you figured out how to fix it. Okay. So but it's project data. Now, how do you separate that that from the owner's is does the owner own the data of the building? Is that part of it? Or Is that data for the build what it you know, where is that separation? I I find that's a interest a whole nother level of, you know, complexity
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: we've added into this because at at the end of the day I I feel like the the building information or the asset information really should be just everybody's information.
Hussain Arwani: Hmm. Well at least in Nuclear, so I can speak from my experience, the owner basically owns everything. and It's not I I'm pretty sure we're gonna face some you know, maybe a bit of a resistance when it comes to let's say using that data elsewhere, right? If wanna, you know, come up with certain trends or come up with with certain industry benchmarks. and this is nuclear specifically, because you know, things are conf of a confidential nature, and nothing is public, obviously, and and they're very protective typically off.
Robert: Yeah, but let's be clear. N nuclear is I won't say it's the future, but I mean, it is the future. I mean we at least now, unless somebody comes up with some magical new invention which is the easiest way to create power, right? Other than right other than nuclear. I mean, 'cause gas and oil will at some point phase out over the next twenty years. it's just there's just too much of a trend for it not to somehow f fall back. Everybody is talking about how nuclear, SMRs especially, you know, being
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: able to become the power sources that we rely upon. United States is is behind everybody else on this. They don't have any SMRs, you know, even in in process right now. I think there's one in Canada that's underway. But th there's all this talk. And again, the people that are actually driving the economy, the hyperscalers, the people that will fund this type of work, right?
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: Are the ones talking about this. And so These arguments will soon become, you know, a a a relevant thing of well, who owns again, when you're talking about t a tech company, they're all about owning all your data.
Hussain Arwani: That's right. That that's that's the moat these days, right? The data basically. now there's not like so so within nuclear companies, at least from what I know in Canada, information is shared, right? You know, we we have our main two providers, Bruce Power and and OPG, for example. So data is shared because both companies right now are going through refurbishments and and new builds. so there is there is sharing of that information between them so they can both improve their processes. but when I say sharing it's you know our solution is not specifically for nuclear. I we believe nuclear will benefit from it significantly because in essence the way things are done is very similar to conventional construction. It's just in a much more heavily regulated environment. But sharing that information, so there's you know sharing information between nuclear and other industries, that's gonna very likely be restricted. And that's where you know the data silos are gonna have to be established between probably even different organizations and just kind of restricting data to you know just for a specific company. 'Cause you know, from from our conversations to be honest, even with non nuclear companies, it seems that you know, they they're protective over their data as well. They want to make make sure it is not shared with anyone else and it is just used for for their w which makes sense again, going back to the same point. at the end of the day there's a there's a lot of contractors out there, there's a lot of competition. sharing data with just everyone might not necessarily benefit them. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. No, I I agree. I agree. I there's just this weird I don't know, when we're trying to make improvements across the board, across the industry. I don't and I don't care where you are. When you're trying to make I think that maybe we do better when we share a little bit, right, than we do if we are always on an island. That's my thought.
Hussain Arwani: I cannot agree more. you know, even if you think within a specific organization, if each team is working in a silo, let's you know, let's take a small example like that, right? Different teams are just working in silos and no one's collaborating, projects don't progress as well. Right. So it's the same thing. You combine all that information from different companies to build to just have a better industry overall in a specific country, let's say, then I am I am sure that that is gonna you know that Data combined is going to benefit everyone collectively. It only makes sense. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. And I think some of it will I again, I think they'll have to parse it out as to what we can share, what we can't share.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: I I believe that'll happen. I I find it's just an we're in a a different time here. this is this is brand new. I'm I come from the old school of construction. Where everything was done on either a sheet of paper or, you know, an Excel spreadsheet and and it's just a whole different world now. and it's expanding into that level what you're talking about, where the builders are. It's expanding to the field so much because we're realizing that this is the source of truth. This Whether it is the bottleneck or it is the area where we could we could really open up some gates, you know. I I still don't know if the if the field is the bottleneck, qu quite honestly. I don't know that. it's hard to tell, but I do know we need to put tools in their hands that help them do their work better or be more productive.
Hussain Arwani: Absolutely. and l and you know, a keyword there is is expanding. The truth is, you know, people are still using for the most part Excel and paper right now still. So so the old school ways are still prevalent, I wanna say, compared to anything new. So hence
Robert: I know, we're we're just we're crusty old bastards. We just we just can't give it up.
Hussain Arwani: and people are used to it and they trust it. That's that's the main thing. It's it's the trust that is built on these old school systems that's been working for decades and people continue to trust it that way. Yeah, like an the old pen and paper can't go wrong without writing a note down on your notebook, right? Versus saying something into AI and who know God knows where it goes, right?
Robert: Yeah, yeah. I mean i it's I mean your your number one cybersecurity tool is a pen and paper day these days. We ha we've developed all this technology and all we're ever worried about is somebody stealing our stuff. But I have no problem with leaving my meat meat in the front of my truck, you know.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: Nobody's gonna steal it. Nobody wants it. I won't leave my iPhone sitting out there, right? But could but my notebook with probably more, you know, classified information is probably d is kinda sitting out there. well, you know, he
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: reads some stuff down, I don't know what it is, I'm not gonna look at it. I mean that's cybersecurity at its
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, absolutely.
Robert: best.
Hussain Arwani: I absolutely yeah, just no one's gonna look at the notebook and think of let me take that. Right.
Robert: People don't read anymore. I would figure like like my notebook is has a full bunch of stuff. You know, I write notes all the time. I'm I'm still a pen and paper kind of guy, even though I work in AI and I use I build agents and I do all that kind of stuff. But I'm still I'm very, very tactile, you know what I mean? And it's one of those things where I it helps with putting it in my brain. I can keep it on my my paper. But it's just funny, I don't think people read anymore. I think if it doesn't have some pictures that go with it, it's kinda like, you know, they're not even gonna pay attention to it. It's just one of those things.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, especially with with you know chat GPT and Claude and all these good tools, you know, most people the and I you know what I'm guilty of that myself, you know, where when it's a a large article that's interesting to me, you know, I'm gonna go sometimes and put it like in Claude or in GPT and like, hey, can you summarize the main points for me so I can quickly skim through it? I wanna know the the main thing. I don't wanna sit and read it for like twenty minutes, right? So I I think you know, but but I try to whenever I can. percent goes back to your point where people don't read so much anymore and don't write things down. And I think writing things down in a way just kinda like engraves it in your mind, right? Like it's like you don't forget it as much as like kind of typing it. I
Robert: Right. I think it I think it makes it a priority o of ways. You know, there's old kind of the old business books, I don't want it like seven habits of successful people or something like that. Right.
Hussain Arwani: yeah. Yeah.
Robert: But it would say, I mean, specifically and I still see people say it today, write it down. It
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: does something to solidify, right, the the information. That's the one thing I do worry about, the heavy amount of information that we're trying to transfer to one another, like how much of it really sticks. Right? We're trying to transfer a lot of heavy information. I mean, even your product, right? You're trying to get a lot of information that you're not getting now into the system so it can track it, right? And it can help out with the with the schedule. It's like I I think the biggest problem that all context founders have, I think, you know, companies have, and you know, just from random examples is are your people even paying attention? And and that's not something that tech can fix, you know.
Hussain Arwani: No, no, i it's it's a behavioral problem, really. I I think there is A lot of information that everyone processes on a daily basis, whether you know, like at work, later on at home, and people have capacities, right? So, like at some point, no matter what, no matter how bright and how alert you are, you're gonna stop being able to process like new information. You know, it's that cognitive ability that people are capped at, right? and I think it's very important to know. what information matters and what doesn't. So you know, when you kind of block and filter out information that is not important, and you're able to make that distinguishment between what matters and what not, then you extend that cognitive like in a way, you extend that cognitive ability that you have to continue focusing on on what matters. And you know, this is something I I think about and I try to keep in my mind so I can I I can do that to myself and really just kind of, you know, have that capacity continuously for the important things and not just any random information that Yeah.
Robert: Well, that's something that they don't teach, right? They don't teach that in schools. you know, it's it's A D D theater, pretty much anywhere you go. And I just one of my last points here, because you know, as we as we go, like I said, I train, you know, I work with building AI agents for my companies and and I have found that that behaves very much like humans behave. It starts to skim the information, even though it's can parse a bunch of it, it skims it for its the little highlights that it thinks are important. It's still this statistical grab of
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: information. I I find it fascinating. Because some of the replies, some of the things that I get back from, you know, working with Claude and and those kind of things, I go, that sounds like something I'd get from a project engineer. You know what I mean? Or that sounds like something I would get from, you know, Joe on the job site. You know, he he gave me about what he thought I needed, but not really what I was looking for. And then I go and then I look at it and I go, Well maybe it's my fault and the way I prompted it. Maybe I didn't ask it correctly. And This is exactly the point that I was kind of getting at before was it's tough to take action on an unclear set of results.
Hussain Arwani: Mm.
Robert: Right? And again, you'll take action anyway, but if it's it's this weird do we talk to people the same way that we're gonna be talking with AI? And is AI gonna behave like the person that's training it that maybe doesn't listen that great anyway.
Hussain Arwani: It's a it's a very valid point, Robert. you know, like like you said, the way they behave similarly, because if you're talking a lot of things, a lot of issues happen because of miscommunication between humans, right? So
Robert: Mm-hmm.
Hussain Arwani: So if you're you know, think about talking to someone and you're not relaying the right information and they end up not doing the right thing, it's the same thing when you're prompting an agent. You don't you know the prompt is not as accurate, which is the method of communication, then they don't do the right thing, right? So a hundred percent. And and the truth is like I think a lot of people have maybe like a bit of a wrong idea of what AI does or what agents do and you know they're onto us are gonna replace all of our jobs, right? It's it's not that like I I want to make you know make make
Robert: I agree.
Hussain Arwani: sure this is also my last point. Like you know, AI is good at doing things that are repetitive and you know things at scale that you know for us would take much longer to do. But if you know the the example you brought, you know, you something came up from an agent that you were running and And you th it looked like someone in a project engineer gave it to you. But if you were to focus on that specific things, you would probably figure out yourself, right? But the agents just like did it at a much faster pace and you know, analyzed that data in seconds versus I don't know like hours that that could take you, right? So it's just agents are are like augmented staff that is that are gonna help us do things better and increase our productivity. They're not replacing anyone.
Robert: Yeah. And that is one of my biggest discoveries of being kind of in this business now of, you know,
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: kind of the AI side of the world and one of my biggest discoveries is I I in twenty years, maybe, I don't know. maybe the improvements will have made enough where it does, you know, replace, you know, humans. I don't know. But right now in the the tools available and all of the things that are surrounding the AI controversy about, you know, replacing jobs. And I was like, Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. What I would say to those folks out there, whether you're in the construction industry, in any industry, learn how to work with it. Understand how it works. Don't confuse it for being a a human. You know? Don't
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: don't and don't confuse it for thinking it's probably more logical than you are because it's I I It's not. It's not more logical. it makes assumptions just as much as anybody else does, unless you unless you advise it not to, unless you really restrict its behavior and really point it, really focus it, which is no different than what you would do with the average employee to say, Hey, by the way, I need you to focus on this problem right here and fix this. I you know.
Hussain Arwani: Exactly. Exactly. That's that's what it is. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. Well I'm excited about your product. does it have a name?
Hussain Arwani: It's called Masaro.
Robert: Okay.
Hussain Arwani: A S A R O. Yeah.
Robert: All right. There's a there's a little there's a little Mexican place out here called Macero. They they serve up some nice chocolate Seattle.
Hussain Arwani: Is that yeah?
Robert: Yeah, so I'm okay. I'll remember that. Yeah.
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, we tried to make it a bit more memorable, I guess, and and a bit more kinda abstract. I felt like a lot of the startups emerging in the space either have build in them or construct in them or something construction related. So I wanted to like you know be a bit bit different in that sense.
Robert: No, I think it's a good idea because you definitely do set yourself aside in a in a space where, you know, the next time I see a B I L D or B I whatever, B double I L D, I don't know. Yeah. I
Hussain Arwani: Yeah, that's that's right.
Robert: well anyway, great talking with you, Hussein. we should do this again sometime. I know we kinda went off on a tangent, whatever, but I'm looking forward to seeing
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: what Mazzaro has to offer. If they need to get a hold of you out there, like can you give us do we do we have a website or do we have just a LinkedIn? What do we got?
Hussain Arwani: yeah, I mean my name, LinkedIn and I mean still in stealth. We're launching very soon on LinkedIn, but to go on the website it's Masaro, so M-A-S-A-R-O dot I O is I'll take you right there.
Robert: Okay, fantastic. Well, ma'am, forty five minutes runs fast. Actually we did a we did a longer one. I got the fifty minute drive time here. I like it. but
Hussain Arwani: Yeah.
Robert: hey, thanks for being with me and you know, hopefully we'll have you back on and we'll we'll talk again.
Hussain Arwani: Awesome. Thanks a lot, Robert, for having me and have a great, wonderful day.
