Field-first construction management

The work
proves itself.

A photo, taken against the task it belongs to, checked by AI and signed by a second person — and the test sheet, the permit, the daily log and the pay application write themselves from it.

Build 0.23.0 · camera to pay application · built for HV and electrical specialty contractors
HV cable termination Panel A3 · Basement west · Task 0412 Photo 1 Photo 2 14:31 14:34 AI checks Reading 2 pass · 1 unclear 3 pass 3 checks from the template Reading the photo Read in 4.2 s · evidence, not a decision Reading photo 2 Two photos read · evidence, not a decision Gland seated and torqued Confidence 0.94Pass Phase ID sleeves fitted Confidence 0.88Pass Screen earthed at both ends Confidence 0.41Confidence 0.91 · photo 2UnclearPass “Can't see where the braid lands — one more photo settles it.” “Photo 2 shows the braid landed on the earth bar. Settled.” Nothing is verified until a person signs. Aoife Brennan PM · the second person Waiting Reading Verified Three passes, one on a retake. Her name goes on the record. Reading · 2 photos · 3 checks Verify Verified · 14:36 Daily log Tue 1 Sep · Ashwick DC Open Cable pull B2 · 640 m approved Snag #04 · closed by a second person PTW-012 · live until 17:00 Termination A3 · verified · AB Locks when the day closes
The verified work record · one link is a person
5.5h / week
per person, just looking for project information FMI + PlanGrid survey · n = 599
35%
of the field week lost to non-optimal work — searching, conflict, rework Same survey · cited on the savings page
51 / 51
ranked improvements from our September study of the field, built across seven releases Releases 0.14.0 – 0.20.0
0
customers, hours measured on a site, hosted regions — the half a pilot has to settle Our own standing, 5 September 2026
The problem

The work happens on site. The proof happens at nine o'clock that night.

Photos in a camera roll, quantities in a spreadsheet, the diary typed from memory, snags in a chat thread — and at month end, someone reconciling all four into a valuation.

Unrecorded work is donated work.

  • Every retype is a place the record drifts from the truth.
  • When the claim is challenged, a folder of loose photos is the evidence.
  • The paperwork is the part of the job nobody was hired to love.
Where the day lives nowFour apps, none of them the record 4 places Not a record Site group chat31 messages Quantities spreadsheetv7 final (2) Camera roll 1,208 photos Email thread11 replies · 2 versions Nothing here is dated, signed or attributable. The day’s recordTue 1 Sep · Ashwick DC · assembled itself Waiting Filing 5 records Termination A3 · verifiedA. Brennan · 14:36 · three checks, one retake1,240 m HV cable · approvedbooked M. Reid · approved A. BrennanSnag #05 · closedfixed M. Reid · closed A. Brennan — two peoplePTW-012 · issuedthree signatures · live until 17:00 ITR-047 · signed · locked torque 45 Nm on the record · sha256 stored Every line cites its records · locks when the day closes
From four places to one record · the moment it lands
How it works

Four steps, and one of them is a person.

Verification is a chain. Every link is recorded, and the chain is allowed to break honestly when the evidence isn't there.

01 · CAPTURE

The photo knows its task

Taken in the app against the task — task, checks, location and person already known. The only field work left is pointing the camera.

02 · AI CHECKS

A verdict per check

Pass, unclear or fail — with confidence, and a note on what a better photo would show. Abstention is an answer, not a failure.

03 · A PERSON CONFIRMS

Verified means signed

Verified is reachable only through a human tap, in a queue that puts critical work first — and nobody reviews their own submission.

04 · RECORDS ASSEMBLE

The paperwork writes itself

The record files into the day's log, the registers and the valuation — keeping who confirmed it, when, and which model analysed it.

Walk the whole loop on the field loop page — every step animated from the product's own rules.

We know why you haven't switched

Changing systems mid-job feels riskier than the paperwork. So olab starts where the risk is smallest and the proof is fastest — one package, your own checklists, your own bill of quantities — and everything you record leaves as PDF and CSV, so the record stays yours even if you walk away.

One package to start Your checklists, your BOQ Capture is one tap beside the camera Leaves as PDF · CSV
Why you can trust it

The rules aren't policies. They're code.

Eight invariants the server enforces — not a handbook, a refusal in the API, each with a test named for it.

01

Verifies work, never workers

The analysis looks at tasks and assets. No per-worker AI metrics, no leaderboards — by design, and by the EU rulebook we built to.

02

A person closes every loop

AI output is evidence for a decision, never the decision. Every verified record carries a human name.

03

The model may abstain

“Unclear” is a first-class verdict. A system that can't say I can't see that is a system that guesses.

04

Separation of duties throughout

The fixer never closes their own snag; the holder never sits on their own permit panel; nobody approves the quantity they booked.

05

AI output is always labelled

Every analysis and drafted narrative stores its model, and whether it ran live — and the label survives onto the printed page.

06

Records built for handover

Capture, analysis, confirmer and export stay linked — evidence with lineage, from the first week to the hearing.

07

An instrument out of calibration invalidates what it measured

A record cannot be confirmed on a lapsed instrument, and a failed certificate reaches back and flags every record that cited it since the last good one — telling each confirmer.

08

The free field seat cannot approve

Capture-only seats are unlimited and cost nothing — and the refusal says so in one sentence: a capture-only seat cannot approve; ask a seat holder.

The whole system

One record of the job, from the photograph to the pay application.

The quantity a crew books in the morning is the quantity the pay application claims at month end — because it is the same row, and the application says which records it read.

THE DAILY LOOP

Field & the phone

My Work and the rings, the two-party snag close on the phone, the review queue with its abstention, the self-writing daily log — and an outbox that keeps working with no radio.

The field loop →
THE RECORDS

The paper layer

ITRs typed to units, limits and clause references; forms and submittals; hold points that stop the work; non-conformances that take two people to close — every register leaving as PDF.

The paper layer →
THE MONEY

Measurement & contracts

Located quantities, change orders on your own approval ladder, T&M tickets the client signs, crew hours and the measured mile, notices with a clock — and a pay application that never bills ahead of the work.

Commercial control →
THE OVERSIGHT

The owner & the portfolio

The owner brief in eight sections computed from the records, scheduled and receipted; a portal with its own client channel; the portfolio roll-up where every figure names the records it was counted from.

The client lens →
THE HV RECORD

Permits, switching, calibration

Permit to work, sanction for test and limitation of access with their real earthing and lock semantics; switching programmes countersigned by three hands; a calibration register that reaches back through the records.

The paper layer →
THE DOORS

Platform & trust

A documented REST API, nineteen signed webhook events and an MCP server for agents — all on the app's own procedures. Plus SSO, SCIM, sessions, an audit export and a control map that names its own gaps.

The platform →
The client lens

Competitors share claims. Olab shares proof.

Your client gets a private portal — progress verified against evidence, the week in photographs, the questions that are theirs to answer, and a forty-second film every Friday. Nothing here is self-reported.

olab · portal / meridian-digital-estates / week 35
The Friday film · rendered from the live demo world · 0:40
The day brief

The first thing you hear is your own day.

Once the day is in, every person's morning is composed from their own records — the permits in their name, today's cards, the instrument about to lapse, what they filed, what waits on them, the company's notices — and voiced for the drive in. Never pushed, never drafted, heard by one person.

olab · my work · your morning brief

Every sentence is read from a row — the permits and switching programmes in that person's name, today's cards in order, the instrument about to lapse, what they filed since their last shift, what waits on them, the company's notices. No model writes a word; the voice is MiniMax Speech 2.8 Turbo through WaveSpeed, named on the record. It is heard by one person, it is never pushed, and whether it was played is that person's own bookmark.

Read the transcript

Good morning, Marcus. Your brief for today, ADC-HV and KRW-33. Your cards today. 3 cards are on your list today, 1 of them already overdue. First, Fire-stopping — basement penetrations row A, Cable Basement, ADC-HV, overdue, high priority. Second, HV cable termination — Panel A3, Switchroom A, ADC-HV, high priority. Third, Busbar joint torque check — Section B2, Switchroom B, ADC-HV, critical. 1 snag assigned to you is due today: Door seal damaged — 33kV room on KRW-33. 1 more card is coming up over the next week. Since your last shift. You filed 1 verification: 1 confirmed. You raised 1 snag. You submitted the daily log for ADC-HV, and it has been approved. You submitted the daily log for KRW-33. You signed 1 sheet. Waiting on you. 4 verifications are waiting for a reviewer on KRW-33 and ADC-HV. 8 notices in your inbox. The oldest: A colleague mentioned you on a record. That's your morning. Everything you heard was read from your own records, nothing was written by a model. Have a safe day.

Marcus Reid's morning brief — senior site engineer, ADC-HV and KRW-33 · 1:19
What the old way costs

The admin is a wage you're already paying.

Every retyped diary, every photo filed by hand, every month-end reconciling four versions of the truth — it's all engineer-hours. Put your own numbers in and see the arithmetic, every constant cited. It is a model, not a measurement: nobody has yet run a stopwatch on a site using olab, and we will not publish a figure until someone has.

Minutes per recordThe manual way, then the same record in olab Modelling A model, not a measurement Daily report 40 min the manual way · write it, photograph it, retype it 5 min in olab · read the draft and approve it Weekly client update 45 min the manual way · assemble it, write it, send it 7 min in olab · approve the brief Snag round-trip 12 min the manual way · photograph, message, retype, chase 4 min in olab · raise it, fix it, close it €13,673 a year for an eight-person crew at €55 an hour
A model · three record types · every constant cited
On the demo machine

Drive it yourself — the product, live, twice.

The demo stage puts the field app and the desk side by side against a seeded HV world — nine personas, signed in for real. Act on the phone and watch the desk change. Nine acts, one per area of the build — each card opens the stage at that act.

The stage runs on the demo machine: npm run demo in the olab repo boots the world, the desk and the phone — these cards light up when it's ready. A hosted demo org is an owner action away — see the platform page for what is built and what is bought.

The stage is up. Every card opens the live product, signed in as the persona that act needs. Or start unscripted: open the demo stage and pick a persona — or read the client's own window at the Meridian portal.

The pilot · three steps

Run it on one package.

1

Pick the package

One project or work package, your own checklists, your own bill of quantities, the people who'd actually use it.

2

Run one month through it

The permits, the daily log, the ITRs and one month's measurement — captured once, on site, as it happens.

3

Judge the register

Print the register. Raise the valuation off it. Ask whether you'd defend them. We'd rather be judged on that than on a demo.

No customer logos on this page, because there are no customers. Nothing here is hosted, nothing is in an app store and no auditor has been engaged — those are purchases, and we say so on the compare page rather than in month two of a pilot. Every figure on this site is a model or a count of what the build does; the first minutes we publish will be minutes somebody measured on a real site.