Connected Construction: The Future Is Now

Until recently, the construction industry has moved at a crawling pace when it comes to the adoption of technology. However, over time, we have seen a major shift in the industry towards digitisation.

In a recently concluded roundtable organised by BW Businessworld with some of India’s top leaders from the construction industry, a wide range of topics were discussed, including significant challenges in managing costs and timely delivery of projects, the connected-construction approach, digital aspirations, usage of intelligent analytics, and the way ahead.

Challenges galore, digital is the answer:

As Archetype Construction Holding Limited, MD-Archetype India, Sivakumar Shanmuganathan pointed out, "The major challenge which the construction industry is facing today is the escalation of costs. When we do budgeting and costing at the time of budget approval, we do estimation, but even before we start the construction, the costs shoot up.

Sivakumar gave an example to explain his point. He said, "At the beginning of 2020–21, the steel prices were around 40–45 rupees per kg, and by the end of the year, they rose to 80–85 rupees per kg. The same thing happened with cement prices. Price volatility remains one of the major challenges which construction companies are unable to forecast."

"Similarly, a lack of trained/skilled construction workers to meet high-demanding safety standards at an international level is also another challenge the industry is facing today."

Sivakumar also harped on the fact that the project owners take quite a long time to decide "Project Go or No Go", and by the time the decision "Project Go" is made, the price has already inflated quite significantly. He commented, "A lapse in pre-construction planning hurts the project." 

He further added that effective use of BIM models linked with planning software like MS Project level 4D and 5D from the beginning of the project eases out a lot of construction problems and delays during construction. Archetype is one of the few engineering consultancies in India which uses BIM & MS Project Level 4D & 5D from the start of the project.

In his remarks, Dineshchandra R. Agrawal Infracon Pvt. Ltd., COO, Ashutosh Chandwar, highlighted that in the construction of highways, they are facing the ardent task of perfectly managing the natural resources.

Chandwar said, "We are using age-old technology. Yes, we have upgraded and modernised our designs. However, the overall requirement for the materials is largely dependent on the available natural resources. In the upcoming future, this will be a tough task as these resources will not be available so easily."

Chandwar provided an example to further illustrate his point. He said, "In urban areas, it is difficult to get hold of basic materials such as sand. So in this case, what do we do? We plan for tunnels or plan construction in such a way that we get the available material from the source itself."

He also mentioned that the construction industry missed the bus while the other industries upgraded themselves to the latest available technology. Chandwar said, "We are still largely dependent on the manual workforce that comes from different states, including Bihar, Odisha, and Bengal."

"There remains a huge gap in technical manpower as far as the number of engineers available is concerned. So, these gaps should be filled up, or technology should be utilised in such a way as to minimise the requirements of technical supervision in construction."

The fragmented construction industry needs to come together:

 Prestige Group, Delhi/NCR Operational Head, Sanjay Labh, remarked that the construction industry never anticipated future challenges. Labh mentioned that "36 per cent of the Indian population resides in urban areas. By 2030, this percentage will go up to 40 per cent, and by 2050, this number will be 49 per cent. Construction contributes 8–10% of our GDP and the Indian economy will be witnessing rapid GDP growth—3.5 trillion dollars (Y 2022) to 8 trillion dollars (Y 2030) to a further 30 trillion dollars (Y 2050)."

"The increasing population poses a huge challenge to the construction industry—an industry that is going to contribute substantially to the GDP of the country," he added.

Labh remarked that the solution for the construction industry to fulfil the needs of the growing population will demand a shift from pen and paper to digital. 

He said, "On an immediate basis, all of us should shift our entire project management, engineering, etc., to the digital mode. The construction industry is witnessing a labour shortage at every construction site. Unless this is done, the cost and timely delivery of projects will remain a major issue. The application of IT has grown multi-fold in all sectors in the last decade, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, companies across the globe are coming up with futuristic products (Robots with AI) that will be solutions for the growing construction industry."

Autodesk India, Head of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction, Sunil MK highlighted that the nature of the construction industry is very fragmented.

Sunil said, "When you start a new project, a fresh set of people come together to build it each time, which is diametrically opposite to the manufacturing industry. In construction projects, bringing a fresh set of faces each time can have an impact on the efficiency."

The challenge is how to make the construction industry more efficient and to make sure that everyone has the same baseline knowledge from the start, whether they be architects, engineers, or any other stakeholder. Sunil commented, "This can be done by using digital tools such as Autodesk.  One needs to embark on the digitalisation journey to ensure that everything is in one place, using a single source of truth to manage and run the project."

"As of today, 90 per cent of construction firms do not have a collaborative platform in place (McKinsey report),  and majority of the time, mistakes happen due to communication errors, as people may not communicate the latest information. From the design phase, digitalisation can be extremely helpful. One can use tools such as BIM in order to achieve productivity and efficiency. Specifically, BIM can help reduce the number of people working on a project by three-fourths. This is one aspect that organisations should consider and explore," he added.

Stakeholders need to come together to drive the change:

Cushman & Wakefield (PMSI) India, Director Technical Services, Devesh Gupta, mentioned that connected construction is not a new concept at all. Gupta remarked, "Digitalisation of construction activities is important, not just in the design phase or construction phase, but also in the post-construction phase too."

"As buildings are built for a long number of years; it is really important to have all the aspects of the construction be streamlined in one folder. Different stakeholders of the construction industry, including contractors, supply chain, equipment, and labour, should all be brought under one umbrella," he added.

Without digitalisation, bringing all these stakeholders together is tedious. This makes digitalisation important. Gupta commented, "Connected construction will enable us to make quick, big, and effective decisions, and we need to adopt it."

Sunil suggested that an effort should come from the construction industry eco-system to adopt digitalisation. He shared an example of how one can successfully use the 1.5 trillion dollars committed by the government for infrastructure spending.

Sunil commented, "Adoption of digital tools can provide 10-20 percent productivity, and 1.5 trillion dollars can translate into a saving of 300 billion dollars. The saved amount can be used to make the industry more efficient. The question is, how do we make the stakeholders come together to drive change?”

Aspirations for a digital chain:

Ashutosh Chandwar remarked that if there was a digital chain available to manage the entire project cycle, it would make their lives easy.

Chandwar explained what an ideal scenario would be like. He said, "While executing a project, I would like to have a digital platform where I can put all of my drawings and designs together, which can be transformed into construction programming along with the compliance of the contractual obligation of the project, including monitoring of necessary statutory clearances required. Following this, at the project site, my project team gets the information, and accordingly, they can design mix recipe.

This recipe is then taken to the plant, where a digital tool can be placed to check the requirements of design and finally quality assurance, final product, etc. Also, instrumentation should be in place to check the quality over its design lifetime, to take preventive maintenance which is required to maintain the life of infrastructure created."

AI to provide multi-pronged answers:

KPM Design Services Pvt. Ltd, Regional Director-MEP, Anil Kumar M highlighted, "The majority of the designs in today’s date have shifted from 2D to a 3D model, which is a digital representation of the project."

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help one see their options. Anil mentioned, "For instance, in the case of laying out the pipework, AI can give options based on your constraints, and the engineer can select one of those options, following which the software can do modelling accordingly."

Kumar underlined that AI has other important roles too. He said, "AI can help identify delays and accordingly provide various possible ways to mitigate it. Also, from a maintenance point of view, it can help identify the occupancy of a building and help provide customized, tailor-made settings accordingly."

Fostering greater collaboration:

Sunil is optimistic about the use of 3D printing in mainstream construction. He also underlined the convergence taking place between the manufacturing and construction industries. He said, "80-90 per cent of buildings are manufactured making it important to be able to seamlessly connect both the processes of manufacturing and construction."

Sunil also highlighted the importance of a collaborative platform. He said, "The ability to use a single source of truth is critical, and with time, we see AI playing a major role in construction industry."

The discussion concluded with the leaders agreeing to the fact that, going forward; the adoption of digital tools is a must for the construction industry.