The future lies in adopting new technologies and changing mindsets, concludes a report presented recently at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
The report, Shaping the Future of Construction: A Breakthrough in Mindset and Technology promotes the effort needed by all stakeholders for the industry to fully realize its potential for change. The construction industry has been slower than most to adopt technological innovations. This is particularly surprising considering the industry’s central role in everyone’s daily life and its powerful impact on other industries, the environment and the economy as a whole.
The construction sector now accounts for 6% of global GDP, and about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to buildings. Given the industry’s size and weight, even small improvements in performance would generate huge benefits for the world. Fortunately, change is already underway, headed by the construction firms themselves. Emerging digital technologies will boost productivity, enhance the quality of buildings and improve on-site safety and environmental compatibility: 3D models for guidance, robots for the dangerous work, and drones and embedded sensors to check on progress, for instance. “If you also optimize the planning and the processes, you could easily end up cutting costs by 15% and reducing the completion time by as much as 30%,” says Santiago Castagnino, a partner and construction expert at BCG, and also co-author of the report. Governments are key contributors to the industry’s evolution. A government is often not only the regulator but also the owner and a major client of infrastructure assets. By accelerating regulatory and environmental approvals, it can reduce project delays. It can improve competitiveness by inviting foreign bidders to tender, promote technological innovation by supporting academic and corporate R&D, impose environmental standards and weed out corruption in procurement practices. One of the megatrends shaking up the construction industry is an increase in the population of the world’s urban areas by 200,000 people a day, all of them needing affordable housing plus social, transportation and utility infrastructure. Challenges of this scope pressure the industry to change.
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ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
1. LEVERAGE NEW TECHNOLOGIES BY INTEGRATING PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL SYSTEMS
EXAMPLE: Komatsu, a Japanese manufacturer of construction equipment, is developing automated bulldozers incorporating various digital systems. Drones, 3D scanners and stereo cameras gather terrain data, which is then transmitted to the bulldozers; these are equipped with intelligent machine-control systems that enable them to carry out their work autonomously and thereby speed up the pre-foundation work on construction sites, while human operators monitor the process. On mining sites, autonomous haul trucks are already in common use.
2. NEW CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGIES
3D PRINTING
It is expected to have a disruptive impact on the construction industry. The technology enables the production of purpose-built shapes that cannot be produced by any other method; it promises productivity gains of up to 80% for some applications, together with an important reduction in waste.
Construction time for some buildings could shrink from weeks to hours, and customized components could be provided at much lower cost. However, 3D printing in the construction industry is still at an early stage of development. Several issues persist, including resolution problems (large-scale printing often produces rough, chunky results), a trade-off between scale and speed (big printing remains slow – standard 3D printers are constrained by their size), and high costs.
At present, 3D printing is still mostly applicable to low-volume, high value parts. It remains to be seen how quickly companies will overcome the main technological challenges, and whether they will be able to bring down costs and achieve economies of scale.
Many companies are optimistic in this regard and point to other industries, such as aviation, where mass production of 3D-printed components is already common practice. The following are some examples of pilot schemes within the construction industry itself, with steel and concrete components now being 3D-printed for purposes ranging from bridges to complete homes:
EXAMPLE: In a project on 3D-printed steel components, Arup achieved a 75% weight reduction and 40% reduction in materials compared with traditional production methods.
EXAMPLE: The Skanska 3D Concrete Printing project aims to demonstrate that 3D printing can be used to manufacture concrete objects in shapes that were unfeasible through traditional casting methods.
EXAMPLE: MX3D, a Dutch start-up working with partners such as ArcelorMittal, ABB and Autodesk, has developed an external six axis 3D printing robot capable of printing lines in mid-air, and has used it to print a footbridge across a canal in Amsterdam.
EXAMPLE: WinSun (China) has been building 10 houses a day by using 3D-printed building components, and has concluded a deal with the Egyptian government for 20,000 single-storey dwellings leveraging this technology.
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