Compared to other industries, construction is still behind in adoption of digital tools.
Being a sector that produces huge turnover and wealth for the country, public institutions are paying close attention to the digital transformation in construction. A section of the construction strategy document 2016-2020 by the UK government extensively covers digital construction, the state of the art and its projection to the future.
Digital construction is real
A lot of digital is happening in construction right now.
Just taking the Digital Construction Week 2017 in London as an example:
- Building Information Modelling (BIM) integrated with collaboration and workflow tools
- IoT with intelligent sensors that retrieve information from buildings and construction sites for monitoring purposes
- SmartHome and SmartBuilding with digital devices integrated in buildings to be part of the overall digital experience of their users and improve their life
- Virtual reality solutions that allow digital exploration of buildings and other spaces
- Innovative construction techniques like modular and offsite construction and even 3D printing
Still, construction execution is an area full of opportunities to generate value that is almost completely unexplored.
A big market gap
All operators in the industry know that the construction execution can become a value black-hole. The opportunities envisioned during the design are often dramatically downsized by the practicalities of the implementation.
Understanding and optimising the construction execution are crucial:
- for investors and clients to correctly evaluate risks of investments and their return
- for governments and public institutions to allocate budget for construction projects with confidence on the reliability of total cost and delivery date
- for construction companies to make a fair profit from projects of all sizes
- for financial service providers, from first-buyer mortgages to multi-billion project investments
- for all providers of disparate services for the industry
Cost estimation accuracy, risk management reliability, budget management and project execution efficiency generate value from the construction execution.
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
Any data related to construction, projects, costs, planning, property prices and more contribute to build a big set of data to learn from.
All data can be used to identify patterns and support decision making. A lot is already publicly available but not in an API-ready format, that is not directly consumable by software and applications; even more can be collected:
- planning permissions from councils
- past selling prices of plots of land and buildings from the land registry
- physical mapping of the UK territory from private companies, free, open or paid for
- retrospective data on past projects that were funded by public institutions
- past, current and future data about privately funded construction projects
All those data and more can be used to identify trend patterns and implement machine learning mechanisms to support and optimise the construction execution. Plus, data can be aggregated to extract value in new ways, opening the market to new operators.
Why create an open platform?
- Digital transformation doesn’t happen by implementing digital tools to do the old things
- From other markets, we learnt true transformation happens when new ideas and new players are attracted to a market
- An open platform where other players can connect, contribute and benefit lowers the entry barrier to the market
- Digital transformation in construction means huge growth in turnover, profits, employment rates etc, with benefits for the private industry and the economy of the whole country
New business models are available, opening the market to mobile developers, web service providers, tech communities and more.
Construction platform ecosystem
Collecting data on a shared platform is crucial for a radical digital transformation of the industry.
The data might include property values and property potential per area, planning permission info per council and per type, land mapping, commercial and residential value per area.
Applying analytics and machine learning and opening APIs to third parties, an infinite number of business opportunities can be enabled for old and new players in the industry.
Even web and mobile developers with no knowledge of construction can leverage those APIs to launch services that.
About the Author: Gen Pagano is Chief of Digital Strategy at houseUP. She focuses on the transformation of the construction industry and is also active in the Women in Construction initiative.
Before joining houseUP, Gen was VP of Product in a startup specialised in elliptic curve encryption applied to user friendly services.
Follow Gen on Twitter (@ChicaWonder)