Why Your Foreman Won't Use the iPad (And What to Do About It)

There are dozens of project management platforms built for construction. They promise real-time visibility into every job site. Accurate tracking of materials, labor, and progress. Data you can use to bid better, schedule smarter, and catch problems early.

There's just one problem: your foreman won't use them.

Ben Wespi runs a mechanical insulation company. He's seen the gap between what project management software promises and what actually happens in the field.

"There's a lot of project management suites out there in the construction industry that kind of rely on a foreman to input different information. And I think the efficacy of those platforms is severely hurt by foremen who came up through the trades that are just like, 'Why am I putting crap on this iPad? I'll just give you a call or something.'"

The data never gets entered. The reports stay empty. And the expensive software becomes an expensive paperweight.

This is a problem I think about a lot. I spent 18 years in signals intelligence—our entire job was turning raw data into actionable insights. But here's the thing: we didn't ask analysts to manually log everything. We built systems that captured data automatically, then focused human attention on interpreting it.

The construction industry is doing it backwards.

The Real Problem Isn't the Software

Most foremen came up through the trades. They learned their craft by doing it, not by documenting it. They became foremen because they're excellent at the work, not because they're excellent at data entry.

Asking them to stop what they're doing, pull out a tablet, and log information feels like bureaucracy. It doesn't feel like real work. And honestly? They're not wrong to be skeptical.

"That data that nobody put into the thing—it doesn't get digital," Ben explains. "So how do I just cut out the human component of making the data digital?"

The question isn't "how do I get my foreman to use the iPad?" The question is "how do I get the data without requiring my foreman to change how they work?"

The Sensor Opportunity

Ben is thinking about this differently. Instead of relying on manual input, what if you could collect data automatically?

"How do I just implement—how do I just put sensors on site to look at where my progress is and then measure? Be able to tell myself, okay, the data that was seen and collected and interpreted shows that X number of materials were installed on site. X number of linear footage of pipe insulation was installed in this line."

This isn't science fiction. Sensors, cameras, and tracking technology already exist. The construction industry just hasn't adopted them at scale.

Imagine knowing—without anyone logging anything—how much material moved from the staging area to the work zone. How many hours workers spent in each area of a building. Which sections are complete and which are behind.

That's data you can actually use. And nobody had to stop working to type it into an iPad.

From my SIGINT background, this is how you build reliable intelligence: you collect from multiple sources passively, you correlate the data automatically, and you surface only what matters. You don't ask the people doing the mission to also be the people documenting the mission.

What Good Data Actually Gets You

Ben's biggest stress is balancing crew size with his work pipeline. He's trying to predict when multiple projects will hit crunch time simultaneously so he can plan labor accordingly.

Right now, that prediction is based on experience and gut feel. It works, mostly. But it misses things.

"We kind of sensed this time of year, we'd probably get into this situation. But other projects that we didn't sense—that were related to that—kind of screwed up our planning."

With real data on project progress, you could see conflicts coming weeks in advance. You could tell customers: "At your current pace, you'll need us in three weeks. But we're already committed to another site that week. Can we adjust?"

That's not just better planning. That's better customer relationships. You're not scrambling to explain why you can't meet a deadline. You're proactively managing expectations.

Every contractor I've talked to in my research describes some version of this same problem: they know they need better visibility, but the tools that promise visibility require too much manual effort to be useful.

The Manual Approach Still Works (For Now)

Ben's honest about where he is today: still manual, still grinding.

"You have anywhere from four to eight projects going on at any given time. You'll probably have three to four that are larger projects. You can kind of project out when those are going to go."

For a company his size, with that number of projects, manual tracking is survivable. Painful, but survivable.

The challenge comes when you want to grow. More projects means more complexity. More complexity means more things that fall through the cracks. At some point, the manual approach breaks.

A Realistic Path Forward

If you're running a trades business today, here's what's actually actionable:

Short term: Accept that your foreman probably won't become a data entry expert. Stop buying software that requires them to be one. Focus on the minimum viable data—what do you absolutely need to know, and what's the least intrusive way to capture it?

Medium term: Look for tools that capture data passively. Time tracking via GPS. Material usage via scanning. Photo documentation that gets tagged automatically. The less your field team has to do, the more likely it actually happens.

Long term: Watch the sensor and automation space. The technology to track construction progress automatically is coming. It's not mature yet for most trades, but it will be. The companies that figure out how to use it first will have a serious advantage.

The Foreman Isn't the Problem

The iPad isn't getting used because it doesn't fit into how work actually gets done on a job site. That's not a people problem. That's a design problem.

The future of construction data isn't convincing craftsmen to become data entry clerks. It's building systems that collect information without interrupting the work.

Until those systems exist, we're all doing what Ben's doing: making it work with phone calls, site visits, and experience.

But the opportunity is there for whoever figures it out first.