{"id":56536,"date":"2019-05-07T08:08:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T07:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=56536"},"modified":"2022-10-19T14:52:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T13:52:34","slug":"digitalisation-in-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/digital-construction-news\/construction-technology-news\/digitalisation-in-construction\/56536\/","title":{"rendered":"Digitalisation in construction: The path ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the construction industry wants to unlock its full potential through digital transformation, the next five years are essential, says Steve Radley, strategy and policy director of the Construction Industry Training Board<\/a><\/h2>\n

Anyone with a smartphone knows it\u2019s easy to be seduced by the allure of technology, and the construction industry is arguably more susceptible to excitable predictions than other sectors, which were quicker to recognise its potential. With construction having to an extent missed out on the so-called \u201cthird industrial revolution\u201d of IT, there is the danger of being overly optimistic about how far and fast digitalisation in construction will help it to address the many challenges it faces.<\/p>\n

At CITB, we\u2019ve invested a great deal of time and resources investigating the potential of digitalisation in construction and are as excited about the future as anyone in the sector. New technology can make construction cleaner, greener, more productive and more inclusive; it\u2019s too late to worry about whether or not we should \u201cembrace\u201d digitalisation<\/a> because it\u2019s already here, and would be virtually impossible to avoid even if we wished.<\/p>\n

It is already apparent that technology is changing the way the construction industry works. The use of drones has become increasingly common on construction sites, being used to improve survey data, make the process of surveying more efficient and get safer access to dangerous or hard-to-reach places.<\/p>\n

Plant simulators of the type recently used at the National Construction College in Bircham allow trainees to practise operating excavators, cranes, crawler dozers, telehandlers, tractors and dumper trucks without causing wear and tear \u2013 whatever the weather.<\/p>\n

Then there is Building Information Modelling<\/a>, which incorporates VR and AR to design and build with greater efficiency and sustainability.<\/p>\n

The difficulty with employing a term like \u201cdigitalisation\u201d is that it is so broad: indeed, CITB\u2019s Digital Skills research found it means different things to different people. And, although many companies want to utilise new tech, much of the technology already employed within construction is far from cutting edge \u2013 drones, for example, have been around for years, as have augmented and virtual reality. Drones, VR, AI \u2013 all of these are in a sense just hardware and software. By far the most important essential of digital transformation is the effective collection of data itself and ways in which it is shared.<\/p>\n

There are a number of inhibiting factors that prevent companies \u2013 and in particular smaller firms \u2013 from fully embracing new technology<\/a>. One of these is of course cost. Augmented reality headgear, bricklaying \u201cco-bots\u201d and 3D printers don\u2019t come cheap; it\u2019s all very well talking about long-term efficiency savings when many companies are endangered by wafer-thin profit margins and a lack of capital investment.<\/p>\n

Even when a company can afford to invest in digitalisation, there is the question of who will have the skills required to take advantage. The costs of training new and existing workers can be off-putting, and there is another issue: many young people whose tech skills would be an asset within the construction industry remain unaware of its charms. The industry is doing a great deal to demonstrate to young people, those from non-traditional backgrounds and those in other industries that construction is growing, has vast potential for progression and is a fantastic place in which to work, but we need to do more. We will be picking this up in a major campaign launched this August.<\/p>\n

Just as importantly, industry, government and education and training providers need to understand what digitalisation means for how we prepare people entering work both in the newer roles, and in the traditional roles \u2013 and also how we retrain those in existing ones.<\/p>\n

So if we accept that digitalisation is the future, how far do we still need to travel? Subject to economic conditions \u2013 never easy to predict, let alone in the current climate \u2013 it seems likely that the next five years will see technological adoption evolve then speed up \u2013 but only when the seven conditions for the adoption of innovation and technology are embedded. These are:<\/p>\n