Innovation

Explore Our Innovation Hub

Thought Leadership BIM + VDC Immersive Experience Off-Site Reality Capture Safety Schedule

Thought Leadership

Our innovative experts seek continuous improvement in every facet of the construction process. From materials procurement to collaboration with the supply chain, project planning and execution, we are always on the watch for new and better ways to deliver for our clients.

Target Value Design Pricing Design-Build What is Innovation? Innovate or Die

First, Focus on Owner Value

Learn how Balfour Beatty teams leverage target value design (TVD) to prioritize customer value while creating a team culture in which every stakeholder can most effectively collaborate and innovate.

Pricing construction is like a game of chess

Learn how Balfour Beatty's proactive pricing strategy helps our clients and partners successfully navigate evolving project and market cost factors.

The Design-Build Advantage

Once considered disruptive, design-build is no longer considered an alternative delivery method. Learn how Balfour Beatty teams leverage design-build to improve project delivery and minimize owner risk.

What is innovation at Balfour Beatty?

Mark Zuckerberg is well known for his approach to innovation, as the following quote demonstrates, "Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough. People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things."

Innovate or Die

The adage made famous by Peter Drucker is clear. Short and to the point, we understand that innovation is imperative for success. For us at Balfour Beatty, it means we continuously seek better ways of doing things in order to deliver maximum value for our clients and teams.

BIM + VDC

Our virtual design & construction (VDC) team understands the power of 3D modeling to positively impact a project's design, cost estimating, collision detection and schedule—all before the first shovel hits dirt. During construction, our team is always on the watch for ways virtual models can improve team alignment and communication, enhancing the building experience for our partners and clients.

See how our team leveraged Infraworks, an infrastructure design software, to create 3D models for existing and future buildings.

Explore This Technology

With expertise in virtual design and construction, our team was uniquely aligned to build a bookstore that would engage Gen Z students and beyond with cutting-edge technology.

Learn More About the Project

In mission critical infrastructures, all components must operate every day, without incident. Speed to market, increased efficiency, redundancy and reliability are crucial. Failure and down-time are not an option.

Advantage of Using BIM

Immersive Experience

Are you ready for total immersion? Augmented reality technologies, which includes virtual reality (VR), help us solve design and constructability challenges. And we're always on the watch for ways VR can help us achieve Zero Harm as a safety training tool.

A Best Kept Secret To brick or not to brick Featured Innovation Off-Site Elevators

Construction's Best Kept Secret

In the early 1900's, Henry Ford turned manufacturing on it's head. His innovations enabled workers to build an automobile in about 90 minutes, down from nearly 13 hours the decade prior. Ford's formula for success was rooted in his belief that every second of a worker's day must be fluent, efficient and safe.

309 East Paces: To Brick or Not To Brick

As the old saying goes - everything old becomes new again. Here in the design and construction industry we can definitely see that there is a trend towards restoring, preserving or even faking historical architecture and exteriors. As desirable as this aesthetic may be, it usually comes at a high price in terms of budget and schedule.

Featured Innovation: Taking off-site manufacturing into new territory

Penn Medicine's new 1.5 million square foot flagship hospital (known as "The Pavilion") is making history in Philadelphia as the largest capital project in Penn's history and the most ambitious health care building in Philadelphia to date.

Taking Elevators Off-Site at Southwestern College

Southwestern College in Chula Vista, CA turned to Balfour Beatty to build its new, $45.1 million, 40,000-square-foot Field House that today overlooks the school's DeVore Stadium. The state-of-the-art Field House includes team locker rooms and training facilities. It also houses strength and conditioning facilities, four new classrooms, a 140-seat mixed media auditorium, faculty offices and tutorial spaces for student-athletes among other amenities.

Off-Site

With off-site manufacturing—commonly referenced as prefabrication or modular construction—elements of a project are built in controlled environments and subsequently transported to the jobsite for final assembly. Balfour Beatty teammates are always on the watch for off-site opportunities that help drive out material waste and cost.

Going Viral Builders without borders Client Engagement Thinking outside the box

Virtual Reality Goes Viral

Imagine if Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs or Henry Ford had never dared to defy convention. Like those innovators, Balfour Beatty embraces the possibility of finding a better way. Virtual Reality—VR for short—is one such exciting tool our teammates are adopting to create a bold and better future for our people and partners.

Featured Innovation: Builders Without Borders

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) is a key part of our digital innovation strategy and an increasingly hot topic in our industry. Following the success of Balfour Beatty's global virtual reality storm, we have been steadily improving our VR capabilities and usage for our clients and projects.

Featured Innovation: Enhancing Client Engagement Through Virtual Reality

Since the inaugural Virtual Reality (VR) Storm, Balfour Beatty teammates have made tremendous strides in advancing our understanding of the ways VR can enhance our business and benefit our clients. Recently, a project team in Florida demonstrated just how powerful high-end visualization and real-time simulation of unbuilt spaces can be on a large-scale hospitality project.

VR Cardboard Box - Thinking Outside the Box

Over the past several years, many contractors—Balfour Beatty included—have begun integrating hardwired Virtual Reality (VR) headsets into the early stages of preconstruction and design, with most use cases centering on creating 3D renderings of Building Information Models (BIM). While the adoption of hardwired VR headsets is revolutionary, the hardware's weight and cost often limit it's applications.

Reality Capture

Reality capture technologies like laser scanners help Balfour Beatty teammates quickly obtain the most accurate information about existing structures compared to traditional surveying or field measurement. We're always on the watch for tools that make our projects run more efficiently and effectively.

The benefits of laser scanning in the construction industry aren't just hard to miss, they're also pretty hard to ignore. Our team witnessed the advantages of obtaining 3D images of current building conditions.

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Look around the room you're in. You probably think you see your surroundings pretty clearly. Balfour Beatty's project team at UNC-Charlotte's Holshouser Hall, however, can see even better than the sharpest human eye.

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Accurate as-built data is a critical component of any planning and design process – a fact especially true in the realm of adaptive reuse projects. For buildings that were originally constructed decades ago, the little data that is available is often inaccurate.

Learn More

Safety

At Balfour Beatty, we leverage a wide range of tools to achieve Zero Harm, and increasingly, that includes technologies like virtual reality, drones and off-site manufacturing. Check out the ways we're on the watch to put the 'smart' into safety.

Zero Harm good or lucky? Silence Isn't Golden The Safety Net Total Immersion

Zero Harm: A Decade Later

We had a lofty goal: eliminate construction accidents and champion construction safety.

Are You Good or Are You Lucky?

How many times have you said to yourself, "Wow! That was a close one. I was lucky!"?

Maybe you started to change lanes without looking over your shoulder and spotted a vehicle emerging from your blind spot. Perhaps you crossed the street while looking down at your cellphone as you heard a car come to a screeching halt. Or you realized that pot was still boiling on the stove as you smelled smoke.

Silence Isn't Golden

Ever locked yourself out of the house? Taken a wrong turn on your way to an important meeting? Spent too much time trolling social media when you should be studying? Watched the clock strike 3:00 PM only to realize you haven't eaten lunch? Anyone can get distracted by life's competing priorities.

The Safety Net

Since the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) was formed in the 1970's, the manufacturing industry has made tremendous improvements when it comes to safety. Despite years of new rules and regulations, the same cannot be said for construction. Statistics tell us that incident rates are on the rise, and so are fatalities.

Are You Ready for Total Immersion?

In the construction industry, we know that fatalities can result from one wrong choice in the matter of one second. But through the power of Virtual Reality—VR for short—five minutes might be all it takes to save a life.

Schedule

The most amazing feats of construction used to take decades or even years to complete. But thanks to modern technologies and lean tools, those projects are being completed sooner than ever dreamed possible. Our team is always on the watch for ways to deliver your project with greater speed-to-market.

Pull Planning Lean Construction Labor Shortage Solutions Trust and Scheduling

Pull Planning With Precision

"In the past, if one of the spokes in the wheel got broken, it had the power to completely derail us," concedes Jim. "Now we're able to prevent that spoke from breaking in the first place."

Using Lean Construction to Shorten Project Schedules and Reduce Risk

For almost 20 years, General Superintendent Neal Ernest has been leading Balfour Beatty teams to deliver iconic construction projects across the country. From the Gaylord Texas Resort to Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Neal's recognizable project experience delights thousands of patrons each day. And along the way, he's learned a thing or two about delivering these high-profile endeavors on-time—by building relationships and honing the lean construction process.

Lean Solutions to Labor Shortages

Supply and demand—the yin and yang of modern economics—govern everything from has and grocery prices to the amount you'll fork over to see your favorite NFL team. Like the guiding tenets of traditional Chinese medicine, supply and demand should reach a healthy equilibrium.

Trust: Your Most Valuable Scheduling Tool

It's no secret that construction work is inherently risky. And as the industry has embraced a faster delivery model, resulting in projects being turned over months—if not years— earlier than once thought possible, our potential risks are greater than ever. But at Balfour Beatty, we believe we have the opportunity to address those risks in a way that makes us stronger and more reliable builders.

Explore Our Innovation Hub

Thought Leadership

First, Focus on Owner Value

Pricing construction is like a game of chess

The Design-Build Advantage

What is innovation at Balfour Beatty?

Innovate or Die

BIM + VDC

Visually Immersive Site Logistics

University of San Diego Torero Store

BIM Competitive Edge

Immersive Experience

Construction's Best Kept Secret

309 East Paces: To Brick or Not To Brick

Featured Innovation: Taking off-site manufacturing into new territory

Taking Elevators Off-Site at Southwestern College

Off-Site

Virtual Reality Goes Viral

Featured Innovation: Builders Without Borders

Featured Innovation: Enhancing Client Engagement Through Virtual Reality

VR Cardboard Box - Thinking Outside the Box

Reality Capture

More Than Meets the Eye

UNCC Holshouser Renovation Project

Hoffman Laser Scanning

Safety

Zero Harm: A Decade Later

Are You Good or Are You Lucky?

Silence Isn't Golden

The Safety Net

Are You Ready for Total Immersion?

Schedule

Pull Planning With Precision

Using Lean Construction to Shorten Project Schedules and Reduce Risk

Lean Solutions to Labor Shortages

Trust: Your Most Valuable Scheduling Tool