Betonmast is an innovative Norwegian turnkey contractor delivering all types of residential and commercial buildings. Established in 1995, the company has grown to become one of the largest construction companies in Norway, with expertise in building residential and commercial buildings, infrastructure, and renovation projects, and a focus on lean and digital construction.

The team around Head of Innovation Christopher Carlsen are always on the lookout to improve existing workflows with novel methods and technology, on the road toward a more efficient digital construction process.

“The quality control process was so time-consuming that only 10-15% of the total areas got controlled in this way. If the first inspections don't reveal discrepancies, the scope of inspections is further reduced. This leaves significant blind spots for areas without the necessary control.", says Carlsen.

Carlsen set out to find better ways to carry out more frequent site inspections for tracking construction quality and progress proactively.

From testing several solutions, Christopher’s team selected Imerso in combination with a BLK360 laser scanner from Leica Geosystems. Imerso's scanning app simplifies the onsite data capture process by enabling Betonmast's own employees to document the As Built status in high-precision 3D — right as subcontractors are finishing their work.

This allows for a Lean Construction process, where every step is verified objectively and improvements are made before the next step.

Imerso automatically compares the As Built status onsite (represented by the 3D scans) against the specifications of the building plans in BIM. This automatic construction inspection allows deviations that can lead to costly consequences to be quickly discovered early in the process.

Betonmast can thus require that subcontractors correct such deviations immediately, before these create problems for the next phase, or charge for added expenses in the final settlement.

“We use the time that we gain from better control and smoother processes to negotiate better contracts, follow up the project, and manage changes during the project proactively", says Christopher.

Carlsen already deployed Imerso in over 30 projects at Betonmast, and points to several benefits that made it easy for his team to adopt the technology, including ease of use, fast processing time, and agility.

The company now verifies and documents 100% of the relevant areas within the same time that was previously used to cover about 15% by random sampling. Through better documentation and real-time compliance verification, subcontractors recognize that they are themselves exposed to lower risk and can thus give better prices, further reducing Betonmast’s costs and increasing the company’s competitive advantage.

In addition, this proactive approach prevents unplanned downtime, daily fines (which can easily exceed one per mille of the contract value), or the need for replanning work later in the project. Additional costs caused by disputes and extra work to be performed by other subcontractors can now also be avoided. 

The process is leading to the creation of best practices for enabling even smoother workflows in future projects.