Knutson Construction Works More Efficiently and Safely with Matterport

Embracing and running with 3D

Knutson Construction is a streamlined, family-owned company that has thrived in the upper Midwest for more than a hundred years. With world-renowned health care providers and major universities on their list of prestigious clients, the company’s reputation as experts in healthcare and K-12/ higher education construction projects couldn’t be stronger. Knutson is equally awed by its clients: visionaries who heal people in need and foster the growth of communities.

The team began using Matterport digital twins on job sites in 2019. The team quickly realized the power of the Matterport platform - beyond replacing 2D photography, the true-to-life and dimensionally accurate models were a game changer. “One person can now reliably do a job that once required four: the estimator, the pre-construction manager, the project manager, and the virtual design construction manager. As a result, the number of jobsite visits has been drastically reduced by 75 percent,” shared Katie Montag, VP of Technology & Innovation.

Knutson also strengthens its business pipeline by helping clients who have yet to begin their projects better understand a space. They achieve this by scanning client locations, exporting Matterpak point cloud files, and offering comprehensive measurements and square footage details automatically generated by Matterport’s Property Intelligence - a task that was previously manual and time-consuming for the firm.

We can produce our construction documentation and images at least twice as fast now thanks to Matterport,” says Montag. ”Plus, we end up with reliable dimensional information and photo documentation all in a single file."

Optimizing from Pro2 to Pro3

As the firm sees growing demand, serving more clients in new markets, the additional work has pushed them to optimize for speed and efficiency across all their workflows and processes.

One optimization Knutson made in 2022, was switching from drone photography to using a Matterport Pro3 camera for high-quality outdoor scanning. Documenting information like small cracks in a sidewalk or current conditions of a laydown space no longer requires a licensed expert to fly a drone. “It has become a no-brainer for us on most of our job sites,” added Aalayha Traub, VDC Manager at Knutson.

The high-quality Pro3 imagery and speed of service that the Matterport platform provides to Knutson is helping the firm serve high-caliber clients with ease. Knutson’s clients have access to Matterport 3D scans almost immediately, and because anyone can immersively navigate through the space on their own and drill down into whatever they want, whenever they want, client conversations are more informed and specific. “The confidence that it gives a project manager to have that documentation is unmatched,” said Traub.

Producing Accurate Construction Documentation 2X Faster

Using the Matterport Pro3, with its under-20-second scan time, the team has been able to save time across projects. “The few seconds shorter (than Pro2 or other scanners) makes a huge difference when you are scanning tens of thousands of square feet at a time,” shares Traub. These time savings help the team complete projects faster, while not compromising on image quality or the ultimate deliverable.

For example, the Knutson team recently had a project with constraints that only Matterport could serve. The team had just one hour to scan and document pre-construction conditions within a hospital, and the project team wanted the documentation delivered the same day. Traub chose to use her Matterport Pro3 for the best combination of speed, accuracy, and image quality of the capture.

We knew that the initial measurement information would be enough on its own to give the entire project team a peace of mind. We then can take this further and determine what other information is needed from this scan – point cloud files, floor plans or even a BIM model.”

Knocking Down Barriers to Access

Ten minutes or less of training is all the folks at Knutson need to be successful with Matterport. Project managers, superintendents, and business developers are all comfortable using it, which helps alleviate the workload for the VDC team, so they can focus on projects that require VDC knowledge like coordination and clash detection. Montag explains, “Not everyone can run a 3D model and get it in there and manipulate it, or run a terrestrial Lidar scanner, but everyone can click a button on an iPad and have Matterport run for you. It's probably our most easily-adopted tool that we have on the project management side.”

The integrations and add-on features within Matterport allow Knutson to support their design partners in a way that makes the entire process seamless, integrating data from the scans into the new designs regardless of the phase of design.

“All designers have a unique workflow which typically ends in Revit, however the Matterpak point cloud files give us the flexibility to support them along whichever path they choose to get there through the ease of use, practical file sizes, and ability to interact with the data,” said Traub.

With simultaneous access to Matterport digital twins and design file exports, designers, contractors, and subcontractors can make decisions faster. Meetings are shorter and less frequent. In the past, 3D modeling was primarily a visualization tool. Now it's becoming a data tool used to share information across teams. “It's not just the pictures anymore,” explains Montag,

It's all the valuable information that's associated with each image. The virtual walkthroughs help everyone make decisions immediately because we have the same access to the same information at the same time.”

Using Matterport for a Project’s Full Lifecycle

Knutson uses Matterport from pre-construction to construction to post-construction. In the pre-construction phase, digital twins help them work quickly with subcontractors to get accurate numbers and dimensions, without having to rely on hundreds of photos. Their teams are confident and comfortable having their subs use Matterport to make sure they capture accurate numbers. Ultimately, it benefits everybody. Says Montag, “We're getting a more accurate number, and they feel more confident in the information they’re providing to us.”

Once they have the job, Knutson uses Matterport to capture the existing conditions to ensure they leave a job site exactly as they found it - and don’t get held responsible for any pre-existing damages. The team has seen this time and time again serve a valuable purpose. “The cost of the Pro3 and the 45 minutes you spent scanning, can save you thousands of dollars because you have the documentation to say what something looked like in the moment. Scans like this bring our team peace of mind,” says Montag.

Image quality paired with dimensional accuracy is a top priority to serve their client base. The construction team has come to rely on the Pro3 imagery so much that they’ll jot measurements on the physical site materials, knowing that they can go reference the notes in the 3d model with ease later. The team has adapted this convenient time saving step for the majority of sites they work on given its ease of use and 4k image fidelity.

At project completion, being able to share scans of upgraded or new healthcare and education centers with the clients and the communities gets everyone excited.

Creating long-term customer relationships

Matterport also enables Knutson to maintain good relationships with their clients and show that they are a long-term partner. If a client comes back to them with questions, even years after the project ends, they can easily pull up past scans to walk through the details together.

Working with Matterport has helped Knutson serve the highest standards for tighter tolerances and smaller windows of time. “By using Matterport, we find that we’re winning projects faster,” Montag says. “We can provide information to prospective clients that they likely didn’t have before, and we’re also seeing our own costs to win business—and then subsequently manage it—decrease.”

ABOUT KNUTSON CONSTRUCTION Knutson Construction, founded in 1911 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with offices in Rochester and Mankato, Minnesota and Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, provides general contracting, construction management, and pre-construction services to clients throughout that region, specializing in health care and education projects. The company nurtures a culture of innovation, collaboration and putting clients first. knutsonconstruction.com

HEADQUARTERS: Minneapolis, Minnesota

INDUSTRY: Construction

EMPLOYEES: 325 Employees

CHALLENGE: Create accurate 3D scans of construction projects to increase work efficiency, speed up decision making, and share progress and completed projects with clients.  

PRODUCTS: Matterport Pro2 & Pro3, Leica BLK360, Ricoh Theta

SOLUTION: Matterport synthesizes high-definition images with spatial data and measurements to produce immersive 3D digital twins that can be analyzed and explored without having to travel.

RESULTS: Produce construction documentation 2x faster; Reduce site visits from four project members to one; Eliminate in-person site inspections during COVID-19; Replace thousands of 2D photos with a Matterport 3D virtual walkthrough.