from osmoda research · construction
Material prices, the schedule, and the OSHA folder — handled.
Pragmatic admin for crews that build. Real-time lumber and steel scraping, voice-first crew comms in EN/ES, jurisdiction-aware permit drafting against IBC 2024, Davis-Bacon WH-347s weekly. The Procore job, minus the seat fee.
TL;DR
- • ABC says construction needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026; 92% of contractors can't fill open craft roles
- • OSHA serious-violation max is $16,550 in 2026; willful/repeat hits $165,514 — per violation, not per inspection
- • Canadian softwood combined duties total ~45% — adds ~$10K to a single-family home; lumber volatility through spring 2026
- • Procore quotes ~$35K-$60K/yr for a $50-100M GC; Autodesk Forma Build full is $1,400/user/yr
- • IRA prevailing-wage and apprenticeship rules are IRS-enforced — failure forfeits the bonus credit
- • Spirits handle supplier scraping (soot), permit drafting (lantern), voice comms (tofu), Davis-Bacon payroll (frog)
1. The pain — labor, lumber, permits, payroll
Labor is the bottleneck. ABC estimates the industry must attract 349,000 net new workers in 2026, AGC says 92% of contractors are struggling to fill positions, and 45% of contractors reported a workforce-driven project delay in the past year. NCCER projects 41% of the current workforce retires by 2031. Immigration enforcement affected 33% of construction firms by late 2025. The math is hostile: more work, fewer hands.
The compliance surface keeps growing. OSHA's 2026 inflation-adjusted maximum is $16,550 per serious violation, $165,514 for willful or repeat — and a single inspection can pile up ten line items. Davis-Bacon penalties under DOL's 2024 final rule reach $13,508 per violation, plus debarment up to three years, and IRA prevailing-wage compliance is IRS-enforced against the bonus tax credit. Procore charges $35K-$60K/year for a mid-market GC, Autodesk Forma Build sits at $1,400/user/year, and Buildertrend and CoConstruct sit on top of that for the residential side.
The market makes it worse. Combined US duties on Canadian softwood total ~45%, adding at least $10K to a new single-family home and lumber prices are projected to stay volatile through spring 2026 before recovering toward $550-$600 per MBF. The IBC 2024 is landing unevenly — Georgia, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, parts of California in 2026, others in 2027+ — so permit drafting changes per jurisdiction every quarter, and the project manager learns it on the fly.
Procore
~$35K-$60K/yr for a $50-100M GC, scales with annual construction volume; unlimited users but everything is module-priced, compliance docs still need a human.
Autodesk Forma Build
$800/user/yr Essentials, $1,400/user/yr full; per-seat math, strong on PM and cost — supplier scraping and Davis-Bacon are out of scope.
Buildertrend / CoConstruct
Residential-tilted, $399-$699/mo entry, weak on prevailing wage and OSHA documentation for federal/IRA work.
Sage 300 CRE / Viewpoint
Legacy construction ERPs, six-figure per year all-in; great GL, not designed for jurisdiction-aware permit drafting or voice-first crew comms.
2. What 2026 is bringing
- ABC 2026 workforce model. 349,000 net new workers needed; AGC: 92% of contractors say craft hiring is difficult; immigration enforcement now affects 33% of firms.
- OSHA 2026 penalty schedule. $16,550 serious / $165,514 willful or repeat, indexed annually for inflation each January.
- Canadian softwood combined duties ~45%. Adding ~$10K to a single-family home; Q1 2026 import volumes down 28% YoY.
- IBC 2024 adoption fragmented. Only Georgia, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, and select cities are statewide in 2026 — permit logic must be jurisdiction-aware.
3. The os.moda stack
- 1 · soot (price scraping) scrapes lumber futures, regional supplier portals, ready-mix indexes, steel mill quote pages on cron; haku surfaces the burn-rate chart against the schedule so the PM sees variance before the next draw.
- 2 · lantern (permit + OSHA) auto-drafts permit applications and OSHA 1926 compliance packets jurisdiction-aware — pulls the right IBC 2024 vs 2021 vs 2018 references for the AHJ, pins the reasoning chain to the audit ledger.
- 3 · tofu (voice crew loop) runs the voice-first crew loop over WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS in English and Spanish — daily safety stand-down, JHA confirmations, RFI capture, time clock — works on a cracked phone in a Faraday-cage stairwell.
- 4 · frog (Davis-Bacon payroll) prevailing wage by craft and county pulled from SAM.gov, certified WH-347s generated weekly, IRA bonus-credit substantiation packets assembled for the IRS file.
- 5 · naga (vendor + lien vault) holds lien waivers, COIs, W-9s, MSAs, signed change orders in the KEYD vault — every release is a signed action, the GC sees who signed what and when.
- 6 · haku (live schedule) rebuilds the schedule daily: critical path against actual deliveries, weather, crew availability — re-routes around a delayed truss order before the foreman has to call the super.
4. Why it works
Sovereignty + audit
Every permit draft, every OSHA training acknowledgment, every Davis-Bacon WH-347 lands in the SHA-256 hash-chained ledger — when DOL or the AHJ asks who approved what when, the answer is a signed receipt, not a Slack screenshot. IRA bonus-credit substantiation is a single export.
Workflow integrity
Spirits run typed, KEYD-gated, watchdog-recovered. The voice loop with the crew (tofu) is the same agent that updates the schedule (haku) and books the payroll line (frog) — no copy-paste between Procore, ADP, and a shared Drive folder.
Economics
$29-$299/mo self-hosted or managed against $35K-$60K/yr Procore plus $1,400/seat Autodesk plus a payroll service. Crews don't pay per seat. Subs don't either. The audit ledger is included, not a $25K GRC add-on.
5. The 3–5 year future
- 2027-2028 · autonomous bid generation. Lantern reads the spec PDF, soot prices the BOM live, frog applies regional crew rates, naga signs the proposal; estimator becomes a reviewer instead of a typist.
- 2028-2029 · AI scheduler re-routes around supply delays. When the truss truck slips two days, haku rebuilds the next two weeks and tofu calls the affected subs in their preferred language and channel.
- 2029-2030 · voice-first crew interface + robotic inspection. AR glasses + voice agent; Spot or successor walks the floor, feeds photo and lidar to lantern, OSHA gap exceptions drafted before the safety officer leaves the trailer.
FAQ
Do you replace Procore?
For GCs under ~$200M ACV and most specialty trades, yes — schedule, RFIs, submittals, daily logs, prevailing-wage payroll. We integrate with Procore via API if you have a major owner that mandates it.
How does Davis-Bacon work in practice?
frog pulls SAM.gov wage determinations by craft and county, applies them at clock-in, generates the WH-347 weekly, and pins the substantiation package for IRA bonus-credit review.
Can the crew app run with no signal?
Yes — tofu queues over SMS fallback, voice notes sync when the phone is back in range, and the foreman's log writes locally before reaching the ledger.
One pilot job. We wire the supplier feed and a Davis-Bacon payroll in a week.
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