AI is poised to become an important lever for staying ahead for construction businesses. Let's take a closer look at how it is changing the face of the construction industry.
A decade ago, if we were to talk of relating AI to construction, we might have had to
struggle. AI was burgeoning into a workhorse, while the idea of construction was still rooted
in the accepted concepts of designing – though we had professionals employing some
software tools.
What if we are to relate AI to construction today?
Well, Artificial intelligence (AI) has now penetrated most industries, and the construction
industry is no exception. As per Global News Wire, AI in the construction market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.3% from 2019 to 2026, generating a staggering revenue of around USD 2642 million.
The construction industry has thus begun seeing value in AI adoption. It no longer wants to
restrict itself to manual work and processes, obsolete practices, or even customary
applications that work on age-old principles.
AI is transforming the way construction projects are planned, designed, and executed. It
brings with it the promise of enhancing productivity and reducing costs. Let’s move ahead to understand how AI can surely bring massive gains to construction businesses.
Enabling Paradigm Shift in Construction with AI
AI transcends traditional boundaries, overcoming the norm that technology can only be
applied to certain areas. Rather, it extends itself across the entire construction value chain,
offering stakeholders the flexibility to identify an opportunity to apply it. As the scope is
huge, here we see some important areas in construction where AI can bring transformation.
Quality work and Compliant Processes
Quality control is crucial in the construction industry. AI can analyze images from
cameras to identify defects in construction materials, such as cracks or deformations,
that may not be visible to the naked eye. When there are deviations from project
specifications, it can trigger alerts and inform project managers in real time.
AI-enabled QC capabilities while enhancing quality can also optimize the time of
construction teams. Most importantly, AI can help ensure compliance with project
specifications, reducing the risk of project delays and legal disputes.
Protected Health and Safe Sites
AI can detect if workers wear personal protective gear while working in hazardous
conditions. When workers are not complying with safety norms, it can send alerts to
safety managers and supervisors and prompt them to initiate the right actions.
Construction professionals can also use AI to predict the most hazardous processes in
their construction projects. AI can thus provide holistic insights into safety to the safety
team and assists them in developing flawless safety systems for worksites.
Precise Resource allocation
Optimizing resource allocation is key to maximizing efficiency in construction projects.
AI can analyze data on equipment usage, labor hours, and material usage to provide
real-time recommendations on resource allocation.
By optimizing resource allocation, AI can assist construction businesses in reducing
project costs. AI can thus help in ensuring that resources are allocated where they are
needed most, resulting in significant resource optimization.
Finest Building design
You might have already heard about Building Information Modeling (BIM) an AI-
powered tool that construction businesses nowadays use heavily. It comprises
algorithms that analyze data around building orientation, materials, internal
components, and layout. With these inputs, it helps you build the most efficient design
for your needs.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are prominent concepts dwelling on AI
with which construction professionals can build 3D models. The project team can offer
a clear view of the future building, allowing prospective customers to suggest changes
in the design.
Optimal Material Usage
Material waste is an area of concern in the construction industry. Notably, the
construction and buildings industry accounts for up to 50% of raw materials. With half
of the renewable sources being consumed by the industry, construction professionals
face the tough task of optimizing material usage.
AI comes to the rescue as it can analyze data on material usage and identify
opportunities for optimizing material usage. For instance, AI can help identify
opportunities for using recycled materials or recommend the use of alternative
materials that are more environmentally friendly. Similarly, with AI-driven decision-
making, you can perfectly analyze material availability, pricing, and quality and make
the best material selection and sourcing decisions.
Resilient Project schedules
Combining optimization and AI techniques allows you to create the best project
schedules for your construction project. The process includes employing meta-
heuristics like Genetic Algorithm (GA), and modeling techniques such as fuzzy logic.
Undeniably, AI-enabled construction scheduling greatly improves the scheduling
process. It leverages past data to produce the most ideal schedules. Recognizing the
plan elements from previous projects, it offers suggestions on work duration,
sequencing, risks, and costs. Based on whether the suggested schedules are accepted or
rejected, the AI models evolve and become more precise.
Getting practical insights – How is ODA’s offering bringing turnaround
ODA is providing it’s client, a known digital verification notice repository portal, an advance
solution which extracts fields from the input images of notices and map it with associated
entities.
At a higher level, the solution includes an OCR service to scan the images and convert it into text format. Next, an annotation tool generates the training data from regional languages followed by extraction of the expected outcome by NER (Named Entity Recognition) model. Finally, the text in regional language is translated into English.
At a time when, language can become barrier in construction process, ODA’s solution is
providing to be of crucial importance to the company, bringing uniformity to data and
transaction.
It's time you embrace Smart Construction
As a cutting-edge technology that remarkably increases efficiency and aptly addresses
problems, AI is poised to have a significant impact on the construction industry. Because of
the growing amount of data produced over the course of a building's lifecycle and the
development of other digital technologies, AI has the ability to use this data and other
technologies' strengths to enhance the construction process.
Having understood the impact AI is capable of taking on your construction business, it’s time for you to quickly come to terms with it so that you take the lead in the competition. The
industry is not far from reaching a point when AI will no longer be employed for just driving
improvements, but for emerging victorious.