Young engineer is building his legacy
A GOLD Coast entrepreneur has engineered success in Europe and is prepared to do the same in Australia with his innovative construction management software.
Glaass, which was launched in 2016, is the result of former All Saints student and engineer Lachlan Knight travelling to Europe, falling in love with a Danish woman, and working on a major infrastructure project.
“I wanted to experience something completely new and different so my best friend and I booked a oneway ticket to London and travelled around Europe for three months,” he said.
“We ran out of money so I had to get a job as an engineer. Along the way I met and fell in love with a girl from Copenhagen. I was there for a week-and-a-half and sent out thousands of resumes and ending up getting a job with Salini Impregilo in 2014.”
The Italian company was building a £2.3 billion underground driverless metro system in Copenhagen.
Mr Knight said soon after he started he thought of making software that could create efficiencies in the construction sector. He said he noticed the same problems in Europe as on the Gold Coast, where he had worked before with Baulderstone and McConnell Dowell.
“On all of these projects I saw the same problems – disconnect, inefficient, paperbased systems,” he said.
“Email for correspondence and hard drives for storing documents. A month after I started with Salini I started writing a business plan.
“I wrote on the business plan, if I could create one piece of software for the construction industry without any limitations, what would I write?”
His idea was for software where documents and information relating to quality assurance, safety, environment, production management and ordering could be stored on the one system.
However, he soon realised he needed a software coder to write the program.
Fortunately he met Czech Microsoft engineer Tom Burger in Copenhagen.
“He was really interested in my idea. He had a thirst and a craving to do something different as well.”
Mr Knight said the development process took 2½ years. He said they held meetings with management from Salini in 2016 and were encouraged by the response.
“They were interested to see how it would work and function on their project,” he said. “They could see the usefulness of the software, especially knowing it was developed by someone who had worked with them and saw the problems first hand.”
Mr Knight said Salini signed a contract with Glaass to use the software in 2016.
He decided to return and try to launch the business in Australia last year and is looking for office space in Bundall and Southport. He has had encouraging meetings with companies and organisations including the Toowoomba Regional Council and Probuild.
Mr Knight said the industry had to undergo change.
“A lot of young engineers are hungry, they want to use technology to improve processes,” he said.
IF I COULD CREATE ONE PIECE OF SOFTWARE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY … WHAT WOULD I WRITE?