Keeping Up with Construction: How Machinery Can Meet the Demands of Tomorrow

Until recently, the use of augmented reality (AR) in architecture and construction was the preserve of big corporations with equally big technology budgets. No longer. The technology is being democratized, very quickly. Even small firms, often using cloud services, can take tablets onsite and use AR to see how their plans will (or won’t) fit into the real-world environment.

And it’s not just AR. Technologies such as data analytics, predictive maintenance, prototyping through 3D printing, automated site-management solutions and drone-enabled inspections are now taking the sector by storm. Driven by the need to meet ever tighter deadlines and ambitious client specifications, the sector is rapidly digitizing previously manual workflows and information systems.

The rise of the digital construction site

In previous waves of digitization, companies adopted discrete technologies, each designed to tackle a single task. Today, using digital construction site management solutions, firms feed data from a range of systems into a single-site model and a single, dynamically evolving project-management plan. This allows many previously separate systems to now interact to become more than the sum of their parts.

For instance, GPS trackers on the equipment help site managers see exactly where each piece of machinery — every backhoe, boring machine, bulldozer, cement mixer, excavator and forklift — is on the site, both in real time and across time.

Using tablets and geo-trackers, engineers can locate existing underground infrastructure before work begins. And connected sensors on key structure and sub-systems provide information about variables, such as temperature and humidity, that can have a significant impact on whether any given task runs smoothly and ends well.

The result, at least in theory, is a construction site on which every job is done in a sequence, and under conditions, that maximize the chances of success and minimize cost and risk. Thanks to GPS-tracking and data-driven planning, machine utilization rates are kept as high as possible and idle or unplanned downtime as low as possible. Every person and piece of equipment is where he, she or it should be at any given time.

At least, that’s the theory. To ensure that it translates into reality, all the machines and equipment on site must be as available in the real world as they are in the virtual one. And that’s why maintenance is more important than ever.