Short answer: Sam Nadler demos a tool that uploads a bill of materials and runs shocks like tariffs or port delays. Eldar Sadikov says it resembles Field Materials' pricing intelligence module and could enhance the platform.
Watch this answer from Episode 33 (starts at 1:32) · Episode 33 notes and transcript
From Episode 33: AI Is Transforming Construction — We’re Entering a Golden Era, starting at 1:32.
Sam Nadler [1:31]: Amazing. Okay. So in our quick conversation, we discussed a few, potential future features that may be relevant to Field Materials AI. I took my stab at building one of those, this kind of scenario control for different potential price fluctuations and different analyses that that could happen. I may be completely off base here, but let's run through it and tell me kind of what lands, what doesn't land. It all starts with uploading a BOM as I think the industry term. So confirm, upload, boom. We've got all our potential prices here, and you could theoretically go one by one and, manipulate the price for concrete. Obviously, a very important material based on this project. A 10% increase in concrete could result in a 6% risk of overrun. Let's drop that back down. You could go to, electrical, etcetera. I thought these shock mode presets could give us a little bit more to talk about. So if there's a potential tariff shock, boom. It looks like it could have an impact on steel, potentially reinforcement bars, drive a risk of overrun up to 9%.
Sam Nadler [2:52]: Procurement strategy locks structural steel pricing via forward contract immediately. In that case, let's try one more. Maybe there's a port delay. Boom. -oh. That would have a actually, not so bad. A risk of an overrun only 1%. Your risk exposure here looks to be primarily in plumbing. So your procurement strategy based on this potential shock, scenario would be to diversify your supplier base for plumbing to mitigate concentration risk, yada. Let's do maybe a market relief and see if that helps. Risk, obviously, nothing. No critical action required. Everything dropped in prices, and, our margin increased. We're flush with cash right now. So, anyway, this is just to kick off the conversation, get started. I have no idea if this is completely off base. Let me know your thoughts.
Eldar Sadikov [3:50]: No. This is great. This is actually, reminds me of a module we have called pricing intelligence where you can kinda see all the prices that you've been paying for materials across different jobs throughout the year and sort of shows you the fluctuations in price. And, we also have a concept of a BOM where you can upload a bill of materials for the job. But what this does, which is kind of cool is is that you can sort of throw in different variables. What happens to this cost code, let's say electrical or concrete, if, certain scenario happens, and then you can kinda see what will happen to your total price or to your job cost in general. So pretty cool. I would say this definitely has a place and you know, elements of this you know, could be some of them exist in our platform, and some of them could be ported or you know, could be good enhancements to how our platform works.
