3 Technologies To Improve Your Profitability In Construction

The construction industry has historically been slow to integrate new technology. It may be that tried-and-true instills confidence, but for whatever reason adopting cutting-edge ideas tends to happen much more slowly than in other industries.

Machines have been getting “smarter,” but how projects get built still includes too much inefficiency, waste, and unnecessarily low productivity. 

For Construction Pros just published a piece highlighting three tools that can make a major impact in addressing these issues. Current Builders Construction is one of Florida’s premier construction companies, and they believe these tools help produce higher quality results in less time. Productivity improvements are claimed to be possible in a range of 30-45%.

Current Builders Construction uses a process that includes three key technologies that they believe sets them apart:

(The following is an edited version of the original article.)

1. Building Information Modeling (BIM): All projects are modeled in Revit before a shovel goes into the ground. The BIM / VDC (Virtual Design and Construction) department coordinates with the owner, design team, project team and all applicable trade partners to produce a unified construction model. With the recent rollout of Procore’s Coordination Issue tool within the Procore platform, our company can assign and track clash detections from the model with greater speed and with increased transparency.
2. SiteAware: A digital construction verification platform, SiteAware uses drone technology, the BIM model, contract drawings and shop drawings to do a complete comparison of actual in-place work against the design, prior to concrete pours. Within hours of the photo scans, a report is generated showing any deviation from the field to the model, making it possible to make the corrections before placing concrete.
3. Robotic Total Station: The robotic total station allows remote operation to be employed during the layout process by taking the BIM model and using robotic surveying equipment to implement the plans. This technology removes human error and replaces it with robotics to ensure accuracy.

BIM seems to be the biggest game-changer in the last decade: 

Different departments are now able to coordinate easily between design teams, partners, project stakeholders and on-site staff, providing physical drawings and files for the system to lay out.

The difference between today and 10 years ago is that the processes were siloed. It took far longer to finish all aspects of a project, because of the disconnect – paperwork would have to go through multiple hands, internally before being reviewed with external clients and architects. For example, in the past, a change order, a process repeated dozens (if not hundreds) of times for each project with multiple steps and revisions,  would have to through seven to 10 hands before it got out of the door. 

The use of BIM has allowed us to utilize and gatekeep data about every spec of the structure from start to finish, gathering information on everything from mechanical equipment to material costs and anything in between. It has also allowed for information collected to be used to gauge the planning schedule and assist in the on-site construction organization. This information has allowed all parties involved in project development to merge and create one model where all data about the structure is in one place throughout each stage of the building process. The data within BIM also can use simulation to track and plan the construction process every step of the way, allowing for more efficiency and less room for mistakes.