Trimble partners with Microsoft to take on construction’s biggest challenges

In thinking about our future world, few numbers are as mind-boggling as the amount of construction needed to support it. In order to keep up with Global Economic Forum’s urban population projections, we’ll need to construct the equivalent of 2.8 new New York Cities, every month, from now until 2050. It’s difficult to comprehend a task this monumental. And even more humbling once you consider the historic labor shortages squeezing the construction industry and ambitious net zero targets that put immense pressure on an industry that is responsible for more than a third of global CO2 emissions.

It all comes down to the fact that we’ll need to do more with less. This is the concept that brought Microsoft and global industrial technology provider Trimble together to co-create Trimble Construction Cloud built on Microsoft Azure. This industry cloud solution was developed as part of Trimble’s long-standing collaboration with Microsoft to advance technology adoption and accelerate the digital transformation of some of the core industries Trimble services: construction, agriculture, and transportation.

It’s a strategic alliance that has the potential to help some of the most important industries in the world be more innovative and resilient with less time, less cost, and less complexity. Trimble Construction Cloud brings together project teams, data, processes, and multiple stakeholders—such as general contractors, subcontractors, designers, engineers, and owners—across all phases of construction projects. The solution provides a trusted environment where customers have the transparency and flexibility they need to make the most of their existing technology investments and achieve more in the face of ongoing constraints.

Single-solution productivity is not enough

Trimble and Microsoft have a history of co-creating together for years. In 2015, they co-created Trimble XR10 with Microsoft HoloLens—a solution bringing virtual reality to the front lines of construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, and mining work. A year later, they collaborated again on the SketchUp Viewer for HoloLens—the first commercial application released on HoloLens. This solution makes it possible for architects and designers to interact with their designs as holographic scale models, helping to facilitate clear and efficient communication about complex spatial issues.

Both of these solutions are part of Trimble’s much larger suite of purpose-built point solutions that improve productivity for almost every persona in construction.

Which was part of the problem.

Since 1978, Trimble has been helping its customers improve productivity, quality, safety, transparency, and sustainability with solutions that bring the digital and physical worlds together. Trimble’s deep bench of positioning, modeling, connectivity, and data analytics solutions means it can help its customers accomplish tasks as varied as programming a robot to digitally scan an entire job site in three hours instead of three days. Or quickly produce detailed estimates that actually save money on a job. Or even analyze countless routing options for a railway with the click of a button.

Before partnering with Microsoft, Trimble noticed that these point solutions can exacerbate the siloed nature that it serves, so bridging the digital and physical is necessary. The amount of processes, stakeholders, and data needed to construct and maintain an airport, an interstate highway, or a manufacturing plant is staggering. Without the ability to connect the dense islands of information and people that work together on a project, there was a limit to the gains and value Trimble’s customers could realize.

The new Construction Cloud built on Azure is the next step in Trimble’s evolution towards a platform strategy that connects capabilities from Trimble solutions (and many other technology providers) so that its customers can benefit from system-wide or process-wide improvements that go far beyond what a task productivity tool can achieve. It’s a huge step forward in Trimble’s mission to transform the way the world works.

As Casey McGee, Vice President, Global ISV Sales, Microsoft, puts it, “Cloud-based solutions are designed to take industries to the next level by connecting disparate systems and providing new workflows that give stakeholders the visibility and fluidity they need to compete in today’s marketplace. Working alongside Trimble has shown us the remarkable efficiencies that are already happening across the industries they serve, and also how much Trimble Construction Cloud will further enhance their digital transformations. In fact, it's the sole construction industry cloud for Microsoft customers.”

Bringing it all together with Azure

When Trimble was looking for a technology partner to help the company transform its point solutions into a platform, and solve the fundamental problem of connecting the different streams of information that exist within the cloud, Microsoft stood out as a natural fit.

“Looking at Microsoft, they are the major cloud provider. They are essential on multiple levels—from a technical solution architecture perspective and from a go-to-market perspective. They have a strong presence in many of the industries that Trimble targets, such as manufacturing. But they didn’t have a dedicated solution in construction, transportation, or agriculture. So this partnership was really a win-win from that perspective. We can leverage each other’s strengths to help our customers solve some of the biggest challenges their businesses are facing, and advance some of the most important industries in the world,” explains Dhawal Tyagi, Trimble Business Executive.

Microsoft’s domain expertise in cloud means that Trimble Construction Cloud customers will be able to see significant improvements in:

End-to-end processing times across multiple equipment providers and technology vendors.
More flexibility in pricing and service levels.
Sophisticated security controls and a proactive approach to data protection.
Seamless collaboration with peers.
The ability to quickly create, test, and deploy new applications—even those that use machine learning and AI, which require huge amounts of data processing.

Other factors influencing Trimble’s decision to partner with Microsoft include the compatibility between Azure and tools Trimble customers have already embedded into their operations. Many of Trimble’s customers have their own existing relationships with Microsoft. The trust and in-house knowledge Trimble’s customers have around the Microsoft ecosystem make it a natural fit. Additionally, the fact that Microsoft embraces a multicloud strategy helps Trimble meet its customers where they are as well as bridge workflows for its customers to allow them to make better decisions.

Working in new ways

Trimble Construction Cloud takes advantage of Azure services including Azure Logic Apps, Azure DevOps, and Azure Kubernetes Service. Through this process, the cloud can now automate the flow of data and decision-making for more efficient and predictable business outcomes like:

Common data environment: This is one centralized, common data environment that connects the back office with site operations tools, enabling Trimble and non-Trimble solutions to automatically integrate into one usable dataset. It provides enhanced data visibility and unites stakeholders across jobs, teams, and departments with the right information at the right time to make the right decisions.
Configured and custom workflows: Now project teams can automate different aspects of their business with commonly used workflows, as well as building and deploying their own around critical job roles and specific business objectives. For example, a procurement workflow can connect mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors directly to their suppliers. That kind of connectivity and customization means contractors can easily evaluate up-to-date pricing and purchasing information, create an accurate estimate directly from an assembly model, and automatically send a purchase order to both the supplier’s and the contractor’s ERP systems for a real-time job cost. The results? An accurate estimate that protects profits. Installers on the job site now have the information they need to do the job right the first time. And the need for duplicate data entry and extra manual processing time in the office is entirely removed.
Live Sharing capabilities: The Live Sharing capability allows for real-time model collaboration for both Trimble and non-Trimble solutions. With Live Sharing, multiple users can be in several Trimble solutions—such as Quadri, Trimble Connect, and Tekla—and view model changes as they happen. Users with non-Trimble solutions can contribute and collaborate in the same modeling process as well.
Trimble Developer Portal: Instead of reaching out to various organizations within a business to gain access to a report or specific type of data, Trimble Construction Cloud centralizes the discovery, learning, provisioning, support, and successful application of APIs through the Trimble Developer Portal. An easily accessible, centralized portal is designed to facilitate faster onboarding and integration leading to more productive developer experiences.

“Trimble Construction Cloud enables customers to accelerate and deliver improved business outcomes with data from native Trimble and ecosystem services,” says Jennifer Lin, Senior Vice President and Chief Platform Officer for Trimble. “It empowers project teams to design, construct, operate, collaborate, and learn with live data sharing. This unique approach leverages connected workflows, precise spatial data, and constructible models to modernize the entire ecosystem and accelerate customer success. We’re excited to help customers and partners achieve more productively and sustainability than before.”

Taking it to the next level, together

Construction Cloud debuted in late 2022 and is available via Microsoft AppSource. Select Trimble customers continue to test the Trimble Developer Program, and Microsoft and Trimble are developing agriculture and transportation industry clouds that will serve similar needs in those industries.

Most early applications of the Construction Cloud built on Azure will probably focus on increasing the use of automation, connecting multiple project stakeholders in real time, or offloading data, security, and infrastructure management. Doing more with less.

It’s exciting to look into the future and think about how Trimble’s customers might use the platform to adapt to changing industry trends and customer needs. Could someone who grew up with a passion for gaming operate a paver from behind the comfort and safety of their laptop—1,000 miles away from the job site? Could a digital twin of a municipal water system automatically send alerts about leaks and threats in real time?

As Chris Keating, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Trimble, shares, “Trimble Construction Cloud is the result of a unique partnership between one of the strongest digital players in the world and one of the strongest domain players in the world. The opportunity is there not just to connect the digital and physical worlds, but to connect the what and the why. So these industries can transform the way they work and change how we all eat, work, move, and live—for the better.”