The adoption of digitization in the construction business has been a little delayed. Adopting a group of disruptive technologies typically takes longer for a large company where the safety risk prices of construction projects are giving CEOs restless nights.
Industry is appropriately referred to by Deloitte as "the case of complex disruption." This is due to the fact that multiple technologies have contributed to the construction industry's digital revolution. Instead, a variety of interrelated concerns, such as unproductive sites, time management, safety, personnel recruitment, and project management expenses, are changing some of the main issues facing construction organizations. Furthermore, each company's use of digital is unique, according to Ernst & Young. However, there are still broad trends that have encouraged construction organizations to embrace digital transformation. Many of these trends are strategic, while others put a special emphasis on useful digital tools and processes.
Taking On The Problems Of Today
The construction industry is justifiably anxious to take cautious action only after diligently completing the digital transformation process since it shares concerns with other significant digital adopters, such as cybersecurity hazards. In the past few years, self-driving trucks, digital code compliance audits, 3D modeling, IoT performance compliance, and remote collaboration apps for construction sites have changed the workflows of some construction company cases that have embraced AI, automation, autonomous vehicles, sensors, thermal imaging, and digital twin technologies.
The main objective of the construction industry is greater productivity, which may result in gains of up to $1.6 trillion, according to a 2017 McKinsey research. What parts of the construction process are most prone to increasing productivity? Changes to laws and contracts, redesigning products, improving on-site execution, and retraining employees are just a few of the significant areas that could be affected by digital transformation. How far have they progressed in the last 12 months?
Recent Construction Digital Transformation Trends
The construction industry is changing from a flat, underdeveloped field to a potent aggregation of data, skills, and science, thanks to recent research by McKinsey that revealed several insightful findings, some of which we will explore in the following section.
The three layers of executing construction projects—onsite, in-office, and through digital collaboration platforms—are addressed by solutions arising from successful use cases, such as 3D printing, robotics, drones, modularization, digital twins, AI and analytics, and supply chain optimization. Drones are employed, for instance, to examine construction sites, find possible risks, photograph progress, or carry out risky tasks on structures like bridges or skyscrapers. Robots are more efficient than humans in manual labor and don't require breaks. For humans, repeated basic labor is generally less prevalent.
From pre-construction to operation and maintenance, artificial intelligence is used throughout the building cycle. It is especially used in conjunction with computer vision to capture reality or to support digital twin models, as well as to optimize sequence jobs and blueprint divergences.
By automating on-site excavation and grading, autonomous construction equipment, such as self-driving trucks, decreases the need for labor and addresses the skills gap in the construction engineering industry. Using sensors and GPS, autonomous construction equipment moves precisely throughout the job site and completes site work based on 3D models.
The construction industry's supply chain management is improved through better software programs for employing staff and buying tools and supplies. Construction businesses have the ability to improve the transparency of competitive bidding, optimize the supply chain, and boost overall efficiency by matching supply and demand.
Mobile apps that enable real-time communication, simultaneous note-taking and updating, and modifying drawings and RFI templates make it simpler for workers at job sites and in offices to collaborate. Building information modeling (BIM) is a method for representing buildings digitally in 3D models that enables all stakeholders to make modifications in real-time. BIM may produce a virtual construction overlay to replicate the actual construction environment when combined with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
Although the digital transformation of the construction sector is still in its early stages, it is inexorably moving towards enterprise-level digitalization across the organization, including backend systems, with tools like expense tracking and recording transactions on the blockchain. Future construction businesses will benefit greatly from innovation, and those that don't keep up with the development of new technologies and don't buckle under the pressure of the digital transition may have to accept their fate as historical figures.