JethanandaniTMHMobile collaboration in construction

Summary: Productivity growth is possible even in construction with mobile collaboration

Reconstructing for productivity growth
By Kishore Jethanandani
The construction industry was dealt a double whammy when the go-go days of the long
construction boom ended in 2007. Business revenue growth as well as productivity growth
collapsed. A white paper written by the Stevens Construction Institute reports a precipitous fall in
productivity by 2011 to levels below those of 1997!
The industry has a shot at rebirth with new digital technologies for collaboration between the field
and design offices. Much of the productivity loss in the construction industry is due to absence of
real-time and interactive communications between the onsite and offsite staff. Most large
construction sites are a labyrinth and project delays occur as members of the staff struggle to
communicate with their design offices and their scattered suppliers. Mid-course corrections are
routine when progress is compared with plans and project managers reassess the means to achieve
the project goals. When changes are made, synchronization of action across functional groups is a
challenge because most construction workers are mobile. Mobile technologies enable team
members to keep abreast of the flow of activity on the project in real-time and collaborate with
their team members.
Business Information Model (BIM) provides a toolset for communication of design information and
project status to bridge the communication gap between design offices and the field staff. These
models go beyond the two-dimensional geometric information that CAD models provide. BIM
models also include data on cost, including material use, and time. These models show the interdependencies of dimensions, cost, time and material. Players can visualize and simulate in 3D
alternative courses of action if construction managers feel the need to make mid-course
corrections.
While BIM is a powerful decision-making and communication tool, it has achieved modest
productivity improvements. A recent survey found that three-quarters of respondents had achieved
less than 5% growth in productivity (half of them no change in productivity growth or were worse
off) and the rest more than 5% growth. BIM only increases the volumes of that need to be
processed and the effort to reconcile data and designs. In the absence of real-time communications,
the productivity gains are modest. According to McGraw-Hill Construction, the absence of real-time
communications accounts for 3% of building costs.
Recent acquisitions in the construction industry are an effort to improve the accuracy and speed of
communications with field staff. Gehry Technologies, known for its 3D collaboration software
GTeam, acquired Bimshare to integrate mobile cloud communication capabilities. The mobile
communications will make BIM accessible to field staff. Similarly, Autodesk acquired Horizontal
Systems to integrate mobile cloud communications with Autodesk 360 for BIM which is software
for collaboration among construction teams.