The construction sector is ripe for disruption. Construction of the One World Trade Center (also known as The Freedom Tower) in New York started in 2006 and was completed in 2014. A year later, the Chinese managed to finish a 57-storey skyscraper in only 19 days. Admittedly, the latter building is significantly less complex than the first, but 19 days is still an impressive feat.
Traditional construction practices have dominated the industry for decades. This inhibited the adoption of innovative solutions. The sector’s R&D expenditures of less than 1% are among the lowest and bear testimony to poor performance outcomes. Luckily, the landscape is changing and the industry is starting to adopt new technologies for the better. In this blog, we’ll focus on three of the most prominent ones: BIM, drones and 3-d printing:
BIM (No, not Business Information Management, but Building Information Modelling): is thé platform technology for the construction industry. It is a shared knowledge resource for information regarding the project at hand. The construction value chain consists of many organizations and stakeholders. BIM shows a digital representation of the construction and allows each organization to enter data related to their respective field of expertise. Contractors can, for example, synchronize the activities of countless subcontractors (there could be a subcontractor for the windows, another one for the doors and so on..) while simultaneously, show the end result to the customer.
Drones: As buildings are becoming increasingly complex, executing common construction tasks prove more difficult. Manual inspections and surveyor tasks are likely to be replaced by drones. They do not carry the concern for human safety, cover a much wider area in less time and provide real-time data. Such advantages are wanted not only by the company, but also by the construction workers as well. Image a project revolving the construction of a mountain path near the cliff.
3-D printing (also called additive printing): this technology is still limited to complex components as scaling proves difficult. However, 3-D printing has proven to be much faster and less costly compared to traditional techniques with fixed molds. For a company to create all the necessary molds for a specific building can sometimes even double the total construction period.
These technologies are only a handful of the disruptive forces that are going to disrupt the construction industry. One thing is sure, skyscrapers will erupt from anywhere, everywhere.
Bibliography
- Agarwal, R., Chandrasekaran, S. and Sridhar, M. 2016. Imagining construction’s digital future. McKinsey&Company. Retrieved on 15 October 2017: http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-infrastructure/our-insights/imagining-constructions-digital-future
- Ball, M. 2014. Building Information Modeling for the Win: Top 10 benefits of BIM. Redshift. Retrieved on 15 October 2017: https://redshift.autodesk.com/building-information-modeling-top-10-benefits-of-bim
- Kavis, 2016. How Technology is Disrupting The Construction Industry. Forbes. Retrieved on 15 October 2017: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikekavis/2016/07/12/how-technology-is-disrupting-the-construction-industry/#4fe629e6174
I really enjoyed reading this post! Probably because it’s actually never struck me how little innovation takes place in the construction industry; it’s baffling! It begs me to ask the question of whether or not an Emirate like Dubai can be considered as one of the players also leading a push in this sector. Clearly, the Chinese are extremely far ahead in comparison to for instance Americans. I wonder whether it will still be possible for America to catch up or whether we will see Chinese developers and construction companies be industry leaders (if they aren’t already). I also wonder what the startup space looks like in this industry – do you think there is a lot of entrepreneurship happening? I would guess that an entrepreneurial startup with the right combination of disruptive technology and business model could do some serious damage to an industry that is so locked into their old ways of doing things. Especially considering the low levels of business model renewal in this industry. Again, I’m just curious why this hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps it is like you suggest: it’s happening now.