Just like any other industry, the construction industry is also undergoing a radical change, and it’s essential for project managers to be able to act accordingly.
As 3D-printed buildings begin to emerge, the trend of robotics and its optimisation continue to improve. Likewise AI (artificial intelligence) is also playing a crucial role in various areas of our lives, but the construction industry is likely the one that feels its impact the most.
From smart wearables to smart traffic signs. In this article, we’ll be shedding more light on the four construction technologies that are improving efficiency.
Headsets
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about AR, VR, or something else. Experts believe that the best way to depict earphones is that they are handy tools in the industry.
They are sometimes used to spot design coordination errors and other possible issues. Apart from that, it has also been proven that they work great when it comes to detecting mistakes that are made during installation and even if they are missing any elements. Something like this would reduce wasteful change orders.
Furthermore, despite that augmented reality in the construction domain has not yet been improved on, no one can deny that its development is rapidly growing and that makes it an ideal visualisation platform for everyone.
From permitting real-time building maintenance information, down to improving the collaboration between AR and BIM, construction teams and designers would soon turn into useful tools for projects of different scales. This would transform the construction industry further.
There is also a lot of global construction services company that are embracing AR and VR as a way of staying ahead of the competitors in this field. This is among the reasons why laser scanners are now being used to record every ‘square inch’ of a building before fully concluding a project.
This also permits the clients, as well as facility operators, to have a record of what is happening on the project.
Drones
Ever since drones were integrated into the construction industry, there has been a lot of impact regarding the safety of workers. There are also those that have to utilise drones to record not just spatial locations but distances, ambience, temperature, material humidity, and it can also be used to capture digital images for workers to analyse and rely on.
For an affordable price, it’s possible to use a drone in carrying out site surveys, compiling of the database of pictures, and the use of these images to come up with a 3D model of the site. It can be used for different purposes, such as project rendering, or something as simple as owner communication.
It’s worth noting that drones are replacing the traditional land-surveillance methods as well. As they become more popular, more companies are becoming more neutral into switching to a more advanced way of monitoring the whole site.
There’s no doubt about that as drones are capable of reducing labour and the time needed in creating accurate surveys. Drones can also lessen the risks humans face and best of all, it helps to capture essential data in much less time than traditional methods.
Drones offer endurance on the job and superior intelligence. They are capable of gathering and reporting data to complete the work at the shortest time possible. You can kiss manual labour goodbye as these crewless aerial vehicles are expected to be widely used in the nearest future.
Tablet and Mobile Devices
We are in the era of technology, and almost everyone on the job sites uses smartphones, and more than half of the site workers are using tablets while performing their duties and obligations.
Based on research, these gadgets give easy access to mobile applications which could help streamline businesses as well as photo documentation and daily reporting.
Laser Scanning
This has been proven to be very useful in improving and expediting operations. For instance, there are pre-pour scans used to spawn rebar and other valuable elements and a post-pour scan which is used to help workers have a closer look at deflections, and it also helps to determine if nothing is interfering with the design. However, this does not only improve the quality of the job, but it also allows the whole team to leverage data that are collected.
Usually, whenever it comes to reworking accounts, 12-15% of the costs of construction is spent. Though with laser scanning, it offers the ability to determine the possible conflicts before they can occur, and this could minimise the possibility of having to deal with a rework for as much as 1-3%. Even though this might seem like a small number, it can be of great help in the construction industry.
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