Going digital: Singapore’s construction organizations embrace artificial intelligence and virtual reality
10 February, 2020
The built-environment industry has been going through a steady transformation in recent years in a bid to boost productivity, keep your charges down, improve safety and create better jobs. These efforts are the main Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) Construction Industry Transformation Map launched in 2017, with digitalisation as its key plank.
One main thrust is an activity called Integrated Digital Delivery (IDD) which leverages data and digital technologies to hook up the different parties involved in a project.
At the BCA-REDAS Built Environment and Property Prospects Seminar in January, BCA CEO Hugh Lim noted that the industry was “making steady progress” towards the agency’s 2020 target. BCA hopes to have 40 to 60 IDD projects and IDD capacities in 150 to 180 companies by 2020. Currently, there are 35 public and private sector projects piloting IDD.
WHAT'S INTEGRATED DIGITAL DELIVERY?
With IDD, businesses use digital technology to integrate the complete construction process, from building design to operations and maintenance. IDD uses a collaborative 3D modelling technology called Building Information Modelling (BIM), advanced infocomm and smart technologies.
A number of the projects piloting IDD include: the Land Transport Authority’s Kim Chuan Depot, PSA Corp's Tuas Port Maintenance Base, and CapitaLand’s Rochester Commons mixed development.
EFFECTS OF DIGITALISATION
Construction firms that have embraced digitalisation reaped increased time and resource savings, they told CNA.
One of them is BHCC Construction, which includes been using BIM technology for approximately seven years, a spokesperson said.
It has allowed the firm to shave enough time spent in the construction stage by 25 % by giving real-time updates to all or any project partners, including status tracking of precast components, the spokesperson added.
The firm also aims to save lots of more time using other technologies. It hopes to slice the time spent in the look stage by 30 per cent through a Virtual Reality (VR) collaboration system. VR allows clients and contractors to start to see the building design in 3D through goggles.
And by digitalising its management of site safety records, the firm hopes to shave 25 % of that time period spent updating those documents.
Pan-United Corporation Ltd, a concrete and logistics firm, has seen cost and manpower savings after developing their own digital platform in 2014, said CEO May Ng.
The business reaped 45 % in costs and manpower savings since using AiR, said Ms Ng.
AiR (Artificial Intelligence for Ready-Mix Concrete) is a centralised procedure system for ready-mix concrete companies that manages ready-mix concrete batching plant production, oversee trucking fleet management, quality control and inventory management.
In addition, it helps ready-mix concrete customers to put orders, track deliveries and manage their data electronically.
The machine is deployed in Pan-United’s entire supply chain of business operations, said Ms Ng, including replenishing raw materials for concrete production, taking customer orders, deploying plant equipment and fleet management and automating back-end processes.
“It we can get rid of the manual work and upskill our employees, enhancing their career development. The AiR System also promotes transparency and timeliness of information, leading to more cohesive teamwork among employees and our providers,” she said.
Replacing paper documents with electronic delivery orders and e-invoices also allowed the firm to save lots of 13 tonnes of paper annually, she added.
CHALLENGES OF DIGITALISATION
Still, there exists a “time and effort lag” of digitalisation in actual industry practice, noted, Associate Professor Robert Tiong.
Citing a 2019 study, Assoc Prof Tiong, who is from the Nanyang Technological University’s School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, said the results could imply IT usage was low in most construction projects.
“Put simply, traditional approaches still dominate information transmission and collection,” he said.
One reason for this can be a challenges that have to be ovecome when implementing digital technologies, organizations which CNA spoke to said.
BHCC Construction found that there have been many different types of software in the market, and the firm encountered problems in merging software and using it properly.
For Pan-United, a big challenge was “going the way of technology - in to the digital space - in a traditionally brick-and-mortar industry,” said Ms Ng.
“One of these is changing the mindsets of heavy vehicle drivers such as drivers of concrete mixer trucks, and tipper truck drivers of recycleables,” she said.
“A lot of the drivers are more used to walkie-talkies, basic cell phones and hard copy delivery order, instead of using programs in smartphones and ipads.”
Experts highlighted other challenges, including the lack of collaboration across the industry, the affordability of technology and the lack of expertise.
Different parties in the construction industry may use different IT systems, said Assoc Prof Tiong.
“Such standalone systems will often have their specific interfaces and data formats that inevitably causes information inconsistency, which might bring about inefficient communication and hamper collaboration in virtually any construction project,” he said.
This fits in with the highcost of developing base technology and infrastructure, said Assoc Prof Goh Yang Miang from the National University of Singapore School of Design and Environment.
“There is a need for the industry to interact to build up useful data or basic IT infrastructure that may bring the industry forward in its digitalisation process.
“There must be deliberate effort to build up open source datasets and affordable IT infrastructure for the industry,” said Assoc Prof Goh.
NEW AND BETTER JOBS
Nevertheless, the digitalisation of the the built-environment sector is necessary not only to boost construction processes but also create new and better jobs for Singaporeans, said Minister of State for National Development Zaqy Mohamad at the BCA-REDAS Built Environment and Property Prospects Seminar.
Already it has generated positions such as for example ‘Digital Delivery Manager’ or ‘Buildings Digital Lead’, which will attract more local professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs to join the sector.
Their proportion in in the neighborhood construction industry has fallen in the last decade regardless of the rising population of local PMETs.
“It is vital for firms to purchase a local core in order for their business growth to be sustainable for the future,” said Mr Zaqy.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
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