It is not easy to
observe technological change across a project based industry. Evidence tends to
be anecdotal, say Skanska’s Flying Factories, rather than systemic and widely
known, like BMW’s carbon fibre manufacturing or Adidas’ 3D printed trainers. Thus,
most building, engineering and architectural histories are a series of case
studies of significant buildings and demonstration projects like the 1851 Crystal
Palace or 2010's Burj Khalifa.
One of the effects new
technologies are having in building and construction is increased transparency as
more and more of the information used is digitized and new sources of data come
on line. In the first category is software, in particular the fully integrated
project development, procurement and management platforms now available. These
increase transparency by making all transactions in the system visible to
users, including clients, depending on their level of access. The main new
source of data is drones.
There was a Cutting Edge post
before Xmas on the use of drones in construction, which included the
partnership between equipment manufacturer Komatsu and drone company Skycatch.
This has since been followed by two more, similar partnerships. Kespry and John Deere joined up, as did Airware and Caterpillar, in
both cases matching drone/equipment companies. These are the first, second and
sixth largest construction equipment manufacturers globally (in 2016 order
Caterpillar 18%, Komatsu 11%, and John Deere 5%), so this looks like a new
front in the competition for market share.
A good description
of the process of turning gigabytes of data into useful information comes from
the Economist’s June 2017 Technology
Quarterly here.
The drone companies are using various technologies “to measure buildings
precisely during construction and track the use of raw materials on site to
ensure that everything is going according to plan. Drones are ideally suited to
the task. Thousands of aerial photographs are crunched into a 3D site model,
accurate to within a few centimetres, called a “point cloud”, which can be compared
with the digital model of the building.” The process is called “reality capture”.
The same article included the new partnership
between 3D Robotics and Autodesk, each industry leaders in their own right.
They quote Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics, “It’s all an information problem,” he
says. Drones are making it possible to check in real-time that plumbing,
heating and electrical systems are being installed correctly, but their most
important may be to measure progress made during the previous day and check
that against the plan. There are competing services from companies like Nearmap and Sky and Space, which use GIS based
satellite systems and also allow site progress to be viewed, although perhaps
not with as much detail as a drone that can collect up to 100 gigabytes on a
flight.
Autodesk and others are also using
virtual reality and augmented reality to overlay digital models with real-world
views. Another construction software giant, US corporation Trimble, is collaborating with Microsoft to use
Hololens with the aim of “transforming how architects, engineers, contractors
and owners work”. The 2016 Daqri smart helmet also uses Hololens, linking the 3D
BIM model with the wearer on-site.
The idea that
projects are information intensive is, of course, not new, and drone companies
are not the only ones adding transparency to building and construction. While the
ability to monitor site progress on a daily basis will improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of project management, there are other new technologies and
systems that will greatly increase the transparency of contractors and project
managers operations and performance. These will help clients in general, but for
those clients who are prepared to get involved in their projects and want to
use the data this will be a transformative change in the construction
technological system.
The Aconex
cloud-based platform enables collaboration across the lifecycle of building
projects, with document management, cost management, bid and tender processes
and contract management, workflow and site management, and asset handover and
maintenance. It fully integrates BIM and design development. Originally this was a project management
system, like many others started in the dot com era, with contractors as the
market. During 2016 the company moved to a new business model, where the
project owner signs up for access to the Aconex collaboration platform. The owner
is the fee-paying customer, a ‘subscriber’, while the other non-fee
paying users are the project’s consultants, contractors and suppliers, who obtain
access to the platform through the account holder's subscription.
Two other software
majors have also entered this market, coming from totally different direction. Trimble
Connect was
launched December 2016, which brought together Trimble’s suit of six software packages
covering engineering and construction. Trimble is a very big and very
successful US firm, expanding from their origins in mapping and GPS to
surveying, estimating and project management. The other is from German behemoth
SAP. Their Connected
Construction uses Internet of Things technology to link site activities to the
PM and project plans. Launched in 2015, it is one of a number of industry based
IoT ventures by the company.
Real-time
project data and monitoring has many implications for clients, contractors,
suppliers and workers. One can expect many variations in how they play out in
different countries and across projects. How
the increased transparency of project and contractor performance these new
technologies provide will impact on the industry is an interesting and, for
now, open question. Markets run on information, and industry behavior reflects
information flow and availability, so these effects could be profound. The main
area technological transparency will change is to reduce the current
information asymmetry between contractors, who know a lot about their costs and
capabilities, and clients, who typically have limited information about these. The
current system of procurement and project management also provides opportunities
for what are called hidden information and hidden action, from agency theory,
which can lead to a principal/client making poor decisions when selecting and
monitoring an agent/contractor.
With technological
transparency monitoring is easier and cheaper, so hidden action becomes more
unlikely. All else equal, agency theory suggests this leads to increased trust
between contractual parties. Software platforms also compile a complete record
of the project as it progresses through the stages from inception to operation,
and do this in an objective manner with time, content and contacts recorded.
Transparency means less opportunities for hidden information, which will decrease,
about the project, the PM, contractors, consultants and suppliers. Agency
theory suggests this would reduce adverse selection of contractual partners, and
increase their contractual commitment (i.e. the effort they make to meet contractual
obligations).
The Cutting Edge No.
1: New Construction Technology
The Cutting Edge No.
2: Use of Drones in Construction
The Cutting Edge No. 3: Five Construction Technologies
The Cutting Edge No. 3: Five Construction Technologies
