Millions of dollars in public funds could be saved through the adoption of digital construction strategies.
Last week, UK national Adam Matthews, head of strategy and engagement at Digital Construction International Programme (DCIP), Connected Places Catapult visited T&T to meet with key stakeholders on the potential use of digital construction in this country. Connected Places Catapult (CPC) is the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport, and place leadership. CPC is the host of the UK Government’s DCIP.
Matthews explained the fundamentals of digital construction to the Business Guardian during an interview last Thursday.
“Digital construction is the moment of digitalisation for the construction industry. Most other industries have gone through a digital transformation, bringing digital technology, information standardisation into their workflows and into their output delivery. But construction is somewhat of a laggard industry. It’s yet to fully embrace the power and benefits of digital and so really what digital construction is, is about bringing those things, technology, standards, improved skills, into the construction delivery process.”
The UK’s DCIP is currently leading the push of the UK’s strategic and technical expertise for the introduction of digital construction to national and local infrastructure organisations, to public policy units and project programme teams. Matthews argued that digital construction has great potential to enhance the productivity of construction projects in T&T as well.
Matthews said the projects can be influenced right from the start allowing for adjustments or corrections to be assessed and predicted before the mortar is cast.
“You can build that building five times, 10 times before you actually start any construction,” he said, “ You’re able to design with great accuracy before you do anything, then you’re able to reduce the likelihood of those faults occurring. So that’s, the first thing.
“The second thing is that there is this—you were speaking before of construction as a manual, traditional sector—but also with digital you can become more precise, more accurate. And so you’re able to, for example, ensure that the building parts, the components that you bring to the site exactly fit, because it is such a precise thing, it’s more like Lego, because it’s so much more precise and accurate.”
Matthews noted that the process did not exclude existing infrastructure or small renovations, as assessments can be made through laser scans which would gather the information needed to guide the construction team.
“Whether they are small extensions to schools, for example, through to the design and construction of those projects, even right through to the operation and maintenance of those facilities. So it’s a whole life cycle approach. It’s not just the planning piece and how it does that is because it creates, at the heart of it, a digital model, a virtual twin, if you like, of the actual building or road or railway, whatever the infrastructure asset is,” said Matthews.
He said digital construction creates this model, which is more than just a visual representation as it actually includes the information about the particular asset.
“So if we think, for example, about a building, then the glazing, the type of glazing, the orientation even to the sun, has an effect on the energy that you need to cool or to heat that particular building so you can perform all these simulations before ever putting a spade into the ground.”
While he acknowledged that cost overruns are often a risk on most construction schemes, Matthews said the use of digital construction can increase efficiency and ultimately reduce costs associated with building.
“One of the greatest costs for construction is within the actual construction phase. What happens is they overrun and time within the construction cycle is the highest risk. That creates the greatest problem, and it is the greatest problems for the public sector around the world, actually, because you’re tied into building that physical asset, whether it’s a road or a hospital, school,” Matthews said, “What digital construction does is two things. First of all, it optimises that construction window down. So the time it takes you to build is significantly reduced by 10 to 15 per cent. Also it impacts the actual cost changes.”
He continued, “The likelihood of cost changes is reduced by 40 per cent. There’s evidence to this effect. In addition, the benefit, in terms of efficiencies, goes to the infrastructure owner. And this is why we think it’s important for governments to play a role in this, because they’re the largest client for most countries, and they’re actually also, if you think, a proxy and a guardian of public taxpayer money. So they almost get the benefit back by encouraging this approach, because those projects are then more on time, and they’re also coming closer to expected budgets. There is a really significant benefit to the public sector.”
While Matthews acknowledged that the Caribbean faced unique challenges as a result of climate change, he was confident the technology could be implemented in the region. He explained that digital construction strategies had been successfully used to augment buildings that had been affected by natural disasters in Peru, which heightened his confidence that the technology would be beneficial in the Caribbean.
“In Peru, in 2017 El Nino, of course, you’re aware of the impact of it was devastating for the western seaboard of Peru, and so they were looking to rebuild their infrastructure that had been devastated for communities, including schools, hospitals, flood defences. What they needed to do is to rebuild those with a change. They call it a change and improved delivery for those schools. So it wasn’t just building the same things back. It was building them back better, more resilient for the future,” Matthews said. “Now, specifically, what you can do with this approach is that you can model those sorts of natural events, floods, earthquakes, all of these sorts of things. Because you’ve got that, that digital model we spoke of, you can then simulate the effects of those different natural environments, including climate change, which is significant.”
Matthews had the opportunity to discuss the potential of digital construction with various stakeholders, including Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Eli Zakour last Wednesday at the British High Commissioner’s residence. He said there was tremendous enthusiasm from both the private sector and the public sector on the topic.