We caught up with Richard Saxon, who’ll be joining an expert panel about digital twins at day two of DCW.
In 2001 Richard Saxon was made a CBE for his work on construction industry reform. He’s currently a client and business adviser at Consultancy for the Built Environment and at Deploi: BIM Strategies, and the chairman of contract writing body JCT, which is progressively digitizing its services.
Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to work with Deploi BIM Strategies.
As chairman of BDP from 1996-2002 I championed BIM as an emerging idea, lobbying government on behalf of Building Smart. I followed this in 2012 by being on the government BIM Steering Group and researching a report, Growth through BIM, for BIS in 2013. Since then I have helped clients to use BIM, as an adviser and author of guidance.
What is the most exciting thing about your role?
The most exciting thing is to be seeing the rapid evolution of digital thinking about the built environment, especially the idea of the Digital Twin.
And the most challenging?
The most challenging thing is to get past the entrenched attitudes of clients and suppliers who can’t see digital as a way out of their current suffering.
Tell us about a recent innovation or technology that you’ve been most impressed by.
The Digital Twin is the most impressive recent innovation. New to the built environment sector, it is established in some fields and promises to be the real meaning of what used to be called Level 3 BIM. Connecting sensors and analytics in the facility to the information model to produce a digital replica of reality will be transformative for design, construction and operation.
Can you tell us a bit about your session at Digital Construction Week 2019?
I’m on a panel in the Thought Leadership Conference, discussing the Digital Twin subject: why it’s coming, what it is and how we get there: Thursday the 17th.
How important is Digital Construction Week to the industry?
DCW has become very useful to the industry as a one-stop shop for all things digital in design and construction. The Excel venue has transformed it. What needs to happen however is to extend it to embrace the smart buildings and facility management subjects so that its about Digital Built Environment across the life cycle, not just design and construction. We have to see the big picture.
What do you see as the most interesting and exciting future applications for digital technology in construction?
The most promising future application is the transformation of the industry into a service business, not a product one. ‘Space as a Service’ is the coming business model, with partly-automated buildings supporting service providers in delivering occupier outcome goals.
What piece of advice would you give to someone starting out on a career in digital construction?
You can enter the digital built environment industry from many doors, not just the construction professions. You can help generate designs, simulate performance, power robot-augmented fabrication and assembly and set up automated facilities to deliver better quality of life as well as a more economic and sustainable future.
See Richard at Digital Construction Week 2019
The Road to Digital Twins, why, what, and how (Panel) at the Main Stage at 10.55am on Thursday 17 October
This panel session also features Rosemary Nunn (Chair), Founder and Managing Director of I&K, the Innovation and Knowledge Agency; Cristina Savian, Digital Transformation Director at BE-WISE; Dan Rossiter, Sector Lead (Digital Transformation) at BSI; and Bethan Morgan, Honorary Research Fellow at UCL.