In recent years, technology has been increasingly adopted in almost every industry; from oil and gas to retail and manufacturing. One of the most recent sectors to welcome technological solutions is the construction industry. While many companies still find it hard to incorporate digital innovation into their physical operations, the trend of embracing IT solutions in construction is accelerating at a rapid pace.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the latest tech trends in construction, and, in particular, how software solutions can boost this industry.
The Construction Industry Today
At one time, the world’s tallest building was the Empire State Building in New York City at 381m, as such heights had never been achieved before. It held this title from 1931-1970. Now it comes in at No. 43.
In 1971, it was surpassed by the World Trade Center, which stood at 417m before it collapsed in 2001. But even before it fell, it lost its title to Willis Tower, which took the record in 1973 with a height of 442.1m.
Jumping forward twenty years, and a number of title changes; in 2019, the honor has moved from the US to Dubai, where the Burj Khalifa holds the title standing proudly at 829.8m, almost 1km.
Compelled by the drive to go higher and higher, the construction industry has engaged new materials and processes to create these giants. Each in its own time was an innovation. Today, that compulsion for development has grown to include innovating internal processes to facilitate more impressive and more efficient construction developments.
What Lies Ahead for the Construction Industry?
Let’s take a look at some of the innovations that construction businesses are adopting in 2019.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Commonly thought to be confined to the world of gaming, AR solutions are branching out across all industries. They are moving away from their entertainment-only purpose and focusing on changing the world as we know it.
In the construction industry, they present a number of advantages such as:
• Creating digitized comparisons by tracking the progress of a real-world construction project against the initial models.
• Allowing investors or other interested parties to tour building sites in safety and from many miles away.
• Aids in developing a floor plan, including measurements, evenness of surfaces and defects, which simplifies the construction process.
Drones
From surveying land to facilitating communication on sites, drones are one of the latest technologies increasingly used in construction. Aside from seeing how a site is progressing and easily delivering this information to clients, the latest drone technology is becoming more accurate in taking measurements, which can be vital in seeing how a project is really shaping up.
Robotics
This tech area has long been in use in car production lines; however, its role in the construction industry has been considerably less visible. That said, building companies are now seeking to embrace similar robotic solutions as their vehicle counterparts with such robotic technologies as bricklaying robots, demolition bots, and even 3D printing bot solutions, that will innovate and increase safety across constructions sites.
Back-office software
While in the past the use of software by construction companies was confined to standalone task management, billing, and administration, as we move further into 2019 all that is set to change.
Building companies are increasingly seeking the enterprise software development services of custom construction software providers to optimize operations and develop innovations that help them more efficiently manage their internal processes for greater results.
These solutions have the potential to:
• Address the needs of various actors in construction projects, including staff, managers, and clients, and improve collaboration and communication;
• Control various stages of construction and renovation projects with workflow and task management tools;
• Help to make better decisions, aided with analytics and reporting.
In addition, custom software solutions provide a company with the tools to combine any of the previously mentioned tech–– robotics, AR, and drones.
Use Cases of Custom Construction Software
A solution in its own right, custom construction software forms one of the cornerstones of progress in the building industry.
It is instrumental throughout the entire construction process, from project conception to billing. Here’s how it can have an impact at each of the stages.
• Project conception
At the planning stage, custom construction software facilitates communication between various parties within the construction process. It allows the entities involved––architect, project manager, foreman, investor, etc.––to collaborate clearly through a singular defined channel, reducing the risk of miscommunication or lost information and paving the way for successful working relationships.
• Construction project management
Pushing on from this, the potential solutions may also encompass numerous features that streamline the management process and bring harmony between different departments.
This can be achieved through project management tools such as task and workflow management systems. They allow the users to control and monitor tasks, establishing a chain of responsibility for their completion. They also provide dashboards to access project analytics and data easily, to monitor progress and evaluate which steps need to be taken. Additionally, calendars showing the overall project progress can provide an up-to-date timeline for investors, participants and end buyers (if applicable).
• Monitoring
Analytic and reporting tools built into custom software solutions help construction businesses to base their decisions on relevant data. This ensures that decision-making is efficient and grounded in reality, not assumptions.
By combing and visualizing data from various aspects of the construction project through charts and reports, the project manager would be in a better position to evaluate the progress of a project and the next step to be taken.
These could later be combined with aerial images from a drone, for example, or digitized AR plans to develop presentations for investors or other interested parties, thus building construction vendors’ reliability and credibility.
Such integrations are already possible; one such product is a defect management solution that allows construction companies to inspect, report and manage defects while on-site. This helps to improve document management and the efficient resolution of construction defects.
• Customer relationships
Whether a customer is the end buyer, a sales company or an investor, ensuring productive communication with them is an essential part of project management. While each requires different accountability and reporting standards in this respect, all of them share the need for consistency and updates on the project progress.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is one solution that could address this issue. CRM is a system that can be integrated into a wider enterprise ecosystem to keep customers’ profiles. With its help, your customer service specialists as well as sales staff can ensure timely and relevant communication with every customer.
• Billing
Different companies bill differently––payment on completion, payment schedules, payment per project, the list goes on and on, Yet they have one thing in common: the need for accurate and efficient billing.
Integrated custom construction software makes that possible by developing Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR) systems that help businesses better manage their budgets and payments schedules.
Solutions in this area may include tailored ticketing solutions, such as eTicket among others, that allow a business to report more fully on expenditures. Such systems use digital ticketing for tracking the journey of materials, ensuring they reach the right person at the right time as well as correct billing. Ultimately this saves time, energy and money.
Bringing Positive Transformations with Technologies
While these are just some of the areas that could be set to revolutionize how the construction industry develops, the list is by no means exhaustive.
Each and every business has specific needs that demand unique and innovative solutions. Their early adopters in the construction industry are set to see such benefits as:
• The consistency of service with increasingly efficient monitoring
• Enhancements in the quality control arena
• The opportunity for business expansion and growth
• Streamlined project management
• More efficient and transparent service delivery
• Better budget management
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