Dr. Perry Daneshgari, founder and president of MCA Inc., Grand Blanc, MI, has built a career around putting into motion processes and products to improve productivity. IEC members know him well, as he’s spoken at numerous IEC events and written regularly for this magazine for three decades. 

“The world around us is changing rapidly, especially with the application of AI and quantum computing,” says Perry. “MCA research in the areas of cost reduction and profitability has helped more than 600 construction companies make improvements in their operations.” 

After discussion and discovery with many contractors, especially electrical contractors, Perry found that for any improvement in productivity with implementation of clear production systems is that the work needs to be managed and the work and effort and time need to be separated to do so. This has to happen in a digital environment, he says. 

“The task to do that – to use AI and what I call other industrialization tools – is through data creation, management, and usage and then applying that data and information to improving installation, timing, ergonomics, and so on,” Perry explains. “What attendees will learn in this SPARK session is how to get, create, record, report, and analyze the data and that is the first step to using AI. AI is not possible in a tacit environment; it has to be digitalized in order for it to be useful.”

MCA has come up with methodologies that are being used by numerous contractors in billions of dollars of work that all begin with simple data methods and processes. Much of this research has led to electrical contractors seeing through the data that more prefabrication is necessary. 

“Not all the work on a job site needs an electrician,” Perry says. “Bending pipe does not need electrical knowledge, moving material is not electrical, receiving material is not electrical. If you do more prefabrication, you don’t need to open boxes or move garbage on a job site. We are working with vendors like Crescent Electric Supply Company, across the nation preparing them to be what we call agile distributors to provide services that would reduce the labor cost on the job site.” 

It all begins with data. 

“You can’t do everything by hand anymore,” Perry says. “If you want to grow your business, you have to look at and understand what the historical data is telling you about job behavior, obstacles, and more. It is literally amazing what AI does in the tools I will be introducing to SPARK attendees.”