Many major clients have national or global rollouts that are happening at a rapid pace.. Often these clients have to procure a bespoke design for every site, introducing unnecessary design cycles and complexity that adds cost and time to construction projects and ongoing operations..
These new software platforms are focused on stitching together other software products and allowing them to talk to each other in a particular way.While there are lots of companies solving problems in isolation, asBuilt say it’s the work of aggregating the data and bringing it together, causing it to be viewable all at once, which will create the great unlock needed to transform the future of construction.. Lamont doesn’t believe this unlock is going to happen at client level, and says he doesn’t think the industry should focus its effort on chasing the people with the money to impart digitization.
He’s also concerned about people focusing too heavily on potentially incidental uses of technology within buildings, which, he says, ultimately won’t contribute to solving the bigger picture problem.He talks about his experience working within the design and construction industry in Australia, and the way contractual risk is pushed down onto contractors, who then push it further down the chain.This is problematic, he says, because the great unlock we’re seeking in the construction industry is going to come from those lower tiers, with people like the rebar tradesman, the electrician and the plumber.. Bryden Wood agree that one of the key issues blocking the progress of the industry is the struggle to try and get digital construction technology down into the supply chain through the massive long-tail of small suppliers.
The large general contractors and consultants have already adopted digital to quite a significant extent.However, getting construction technology down to the smaller contractors and lower tiers on a construction site remains challenging.
Without their involvement, we aren’t gathering valuable site data, which simply evaporates.
Therefore, the logical question becomes, how do we engage those people?.The importance, value and scalability of digitising these building safety processes will be evident to everyone..
Sharing data for a better future.The possibility of digitising our built environment clearly holds the potential for a wide array of valuable benefits.
Miranda Sharp has been working on a demonstrator project focused on information share between utility providers in order to facilitate better decision making.She says that sharing data in this way could have a significant impact on our progress towards net zero.