Construction Tech
The past 3 months have only heightened the need for construction to run the cleanest and safest jobsite to maintain productivity throughout this time of crisis and recovery.
The term “Social Responsibility” has never had a stronger meaning than it does today with businesses needing to ensure additional care for each employee at both office and site.
Assessment of each jobsite to provide protection for the health of each employee has been a critical requirement for each company to avoid site closure – all while trying to maintain project budgets and progress.
This has been the practical responsibility of each employer as we have battled with just another pressure to the business process – as if it wasn’t hard enough.
No doubt this has been a difficult year for all - and while we may be edging through the crisis period of this pandemic, we still need to face, head-on, with the longer and just as costly recovery phase.
What we are faced with in business today can only amount to increased costs with:
What we are faced with in business today can only amount to increased costs with:Site slow downs
Increased need for Covid-19 protection
Reduced productivity
Economic slow-down affecting all industries
Immediate reduction of new contact award
Resulting in increased market competition
Resulting in market price pressure to win new contract
Ongoing responsibility to ensure health security in the workplace – for many months to come.
You do not need a business degree to understand these pressures will have consequences to the financial operations of our business process and the inevitable bottom line. To survive we need to find new ways for operational efficiency that will take the “Work Smarter” message to a new level.
To survive in the business world tomorrow contractors must be ready to deploy the most agile resources to support managerial solutions providing for rapid business response. Project and business management must be ready to identify real-time issues in real-time, no longer will tomorrow, or the day after, be good enough.
We have heard so often of how the construction industry has been slow to pick up the pace for digitization - and while this may be the case for most, it is not the same for all.
But what does digitization really mean? The Digital Revolution, which is also known as the Third Industrial Revolution is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to digital electronics which began in the latter half of the 20th century, with the adoption and proliferation of digital computers and digital record-keeping. Implicitly, the term also refers to the sweeping changes brought about by digital computing and communication technology.
Central to this revolution is the mass production and widespread use of digital logic, integrated circuit (IC) chips, and their derived technologies, including computers, microprocessors, digital cellular phones, and the Internet. These technological innovations have transformed traditional production and business techniques.
During the past 10 years there has been significant progress with computerized services with the customization specific for the construction industry. Such development includes customized EPR systems with developing artificial intelligence technology for document scanning and account processing.
Building Information Modelling (BIM), a process that begins with the creation of an intelligent 3D model and enables document management, coordination, and simulation during the entire lifecycle of a project (plan, design, build, operation and maintenance).
And more recent initiatives for the Internet of Things (IoT), meaning: “the interconnection via the Internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data” adapted to provide data reporting in various forms of intelligence that could provide insight to real-time activity and process.
While it may be so that some companies within the construction industry are slow to adopt digitization it’s not true for all – many companies have implemented ERP, are using BIM and similar digitized design systems, and others have already incorporated specialized IoT systems – all of which have provided a higher level of intelligence to support the business operations of the contracting company today.
The consideration is, are you implementing systems that support the SMARTER operation of your business – are you looking to improve efficiently, productivity and, as such, increased profitability?
During the next 12 -18 months the construction industry will face - head on - the financial pressures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and consequential economic restrictions that will affect business profitability, no matter how positively you try to spin the narrative.
