What is the Future of Construction?
Advancments in technology have led to many industries becoming more efficient and keeping their costs down, but has it come at a greater price with workers being replaced by machines?
When it comes to the construction industry, the advancements are clear for everyone to see.
Construction Management Software
Today’s task management software is designed to increase productivity and keep everything on schedule, proving an invaluable resource to construction companies to monitor progress and keep all members of the project fully informed, in real time, of actual progress versus scheduled goals.
Budgeting, billing processes, and time management tools streamline the entire process from start to finish. Companies offer top-of the range, constantly evolving software to match the ever changing and demanding needs of this sector.
Building Information Management, or BIM, contains most of these solutions and more to provide the ability to create a 3D building plan and combine it with a construction schedule.
Computer Aided Design
CAD has enabled construction to begin before the design is fully complete, allowing for fast-track construction and reduced interferences. It improves procurement and performance systems, allowing a host of possible issues to be tackled before physical work begins, significantly reducing the risk of errors and thus reducing the risk of going off-budget or off-schedule.
Blueprint Apps
Gone are the days of offices on site overflowing with documents. Now, the main player is the application-ridden tablet. A device as useable in the field as in the office. These planning apps have given us the ability to oversee plans and make changes digitally.
Possible obstacles can be accounted for and tweaked before beginning physical work to save having to change them (usually at great cost) due to an oversight. These apps allow for direct communication, in real time, between the owner, project managers, and other staff, so everyone is kept in the loop, 24 hours a day.
Drones
The introduction of drones in the past decade has changed the face of the construction industry, and is likely to continue its trajectory into the next one.
- In surveying and mapping out the specified area, their value lies in being able to go where humans and heavy machinery can’t, monitoring progress in real time and the ability to make changes to the plan according to the drone footage. This footage can then be compared to blueprint plans and deviations can be noted and dealt with accordingly, saving time, money, and resources.
Health and Safety
The importance of the health and safety of workers has grown exponentially and now safety on site is of paramount importance, helped in part by the legal regulations that have sprouted up around every industry.
- Headsets, halo lights, safety glasses, and responsive clothing are but a few of the safety gadgets having undergone modernization, turning outdated and often un-adhered-to health and safety regulations into routine, standard on-site precautions.
But will these advancements go further and see the construction worker being replaced by machines? We have already seen companies testing bricklaying robots, which, it is claimed are a lot more efficient than human construction workers (View the bricklaying robot here).
Although these enhancements in the industry are impressive and very efficient, it has already been forecasted by the world’s economic forum that 5 million jobs will be replace by artificial intelligence by 2020, but can we really rely on technology to replace a human’s eye for detail and problem solving?
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