At last week’s Builtworlds Tech Conference, approximately 60 tech companies courted 35 construction firms, many with new AI-based tools still under development. The offerings ranged from a layout robot that can print lines with instructions in multiple languages to cameras that can count trucks and measure earthwork quantities.
Reality Capture
Reality capture, a buzzword you will hear more often, uses a variety of approaches to capture data for productive use. This includes stationary cameras, 360-degree helmet cams, portable laser scanners and sensors (IoT). The “data” to be captured, identified and analyzed by AI, includes safety concerns and work-in-place. Measure progress is another buzzword you will hear more often to describe capturing work-in-place and tracking construction activities. The AI component can identify and count or measure objects from video capture. From our perspective, more importantly, is that this imposes a very needed level of transparency. It helps confirm contractors are doing what they said they would do, are working in the correct places and provides a historical record to resolve factual issues in the event of disputes. We see this going a long way to resolve causation of jobsite delays. Put another way, Chris Callen, CEO of Plot, says:
“I think that when it comes down to risk, software can have a very crucial part in identifying a trail of what actually occurred, whether that be verification from IoT or simply just capturing a conversation that otherwise would have been a meeting or a call or a text message. Software can do a good job of painting a picture of what’s going on and encourage contractors to start to take a closer look because they know that it is being brought to the light."
Logistics, Materials and Field Coordination
A number of startups are tackling the inefficiencies experienced in the field. This includes new approaches to smartphone use and apps to coordinate trades (Crews by Core) and using software to track material and equipment from purchase order to coordinating job deliveries (Plot). Many of the apps are standalone approaches designed to solve a specific problem. Others, including an app called Roger, are designed to work with established applications such as Procore. Morgan Hays, Sr. VP Product Management at ALICE Technologies, emphasized the importance of exploring different options, sequences and timings for material delivery to better predict project delivery. The goal is to build confidence in delivery by understanding the myriad ways a project can evolve, hence managing risk in a proactive way.
Planning, Scheduling and Risk Management
Technology is already disrupting scheduling by improving visibility and risk reduction. Ricardo Nolasco, Director of Scheduling at McKissack & McKissack, highlighted the benefits of early risk identification through increased visibility into potential project issues, allowing teams to act and mitigate properly, efficiently and cheaply.
“It’s a lot easier to mitigate a project when you’re very early on rather than having to get more crew or work overtime or work weekends in order to mitigate.”
Planning and scheduling can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including CPM programs and BIM models. Most contractors we talked to use BIM more for trade coordination than actual scheduling, despite the existence of good 4D tools such as Synchro and Navisworks. Danielle Dy Buncio, CEO & Founder of VIATechnik, underscored the need to use BIM more to improve decision-making speed and quality in construction. She advocated for the industry to address both its planning and reaction problems by making faster, better decisions when changes occur.
The Challenges – People, Fragmentation and Disruption
During the sessions, we learned about challenges and benefits of new tech. Innovation in construction technology is a people-first endeavor, a sentiment echoed by keynote speaker Anita Woolley Nelson, Chief Strategy Officer at Skanska USA Building. Addressing industry fears about losing control in the face of change, Nelson implored the necessity to make room for failures and uncertainty to foster innovation. An ongoing theme in the discourse, both here and at the Scottsdale conference last month, is finding those in the field who will be willing to learn and implement new technology.
Generative AI is revolutionizing the construction industry by overcoming data fragmentation. According to Patrick Murphy, CEO & Founder of Togal.AI, generative AI, which requires less training data, can uniquely process diverse data sets. This advancement may eventually alleviate the longstanding issue of data siloing in construction. With the data boom in the industry, Mehdi Nourbakhsh, CEO of YegaTech, asserted the importance of closing the chasm between executives and data-driven decision-making. He urged a more experimental approach to "unsilo" the data, always starting with the business question rather than just deploying tech for tech’s sake.