There is no doubt that software solutions for the construction sector are becoming more sophisticated and beneficial not only from the design but to the construction and ongoing maintenance of the project.
In an exclusive interview with Inside Construction, Chris Richardson, business area manager (construction software) Trimble, discusses the evolution-taking place in the sector, as more and more projects become cloud based and how it’s becoming fundamental to projects across the globe.
What have the trends in technology been over the last 12 months?
There are a lot of things happening in the industry, and we are going to see that transcend in the next 12 months. From a construction software perspective, which is being driven out of the vertical construction industry is the adoption of BIM technology. The vertical construction sector has had the model in place for a number of years, and that’s accelerating within the industry. What’s starting to happen is that approach, which is about having an intelligent model in your construction software, is migrating very quickly into the civil construction place.
That adoption coming from vertical is being pushed into civil where there is a requirement to move away from the traditional CAD design models to more of a living model. This is where it gets tied to the cloud and where there is a huge adoption of technology to facilitate. Collaboration from multiple cross-discipline teams are involved in these projects. There is an evolution starting to happen and I think we will see this accelerate in the next 12 months.
Trimble is looking at this and our partners are starting to advance in this direction. The direction of data is what it really comes down to. We are dealing with bigger data, which means its more intelligent data, more information to collaborate from different disciplines and then looking at the refinements of having that cloud hosted, with teams from different locations collaborating on different projects. We have been watching that evolve over the last four to five years, where construction customers are starting to collaborate around the cloud and that’s been traditionally sharing filtered information back to the office and cloud was the system that captured that data. Now it’s evolving to the next level, where the data is becoming smarter. For example collecting information and collaborating with the field is the evolution around the communication system, which fuels that. You might have a cloud host system and then the wireless technology and cell phone technology, integratable solutions provide connectivity between the office and the system.
What’s your understanding of the UK mandating level three BIM in all design?
We are seeing that happening in northern Europe, as they are big adopters of BIM technology. It’s the way of the future. We are going to see true level three BIM technology in regions around the world. We are going to see a lot of that in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-pacific market because there is quite a lot of adoption in construction technology down here. Creating efficiencies, which is being driven by the rigors of the construction market, is driving it and construction has to be as efficient as possible. From the contractor side, it’s important to become more efficient but then from the customer or even government’s perspective it’s being able to track that information via a live model or the maintenance of the project once it’s delivered.
In the UK, its been driven by all the underground tunnelling and rail networks which are high dollar high cost construction. The challenges, they faced, have been how to design considering the in-place rail network infrastructure with existing rail and existing utilities. If you think about it with traditional construction you go and turn dirt on a project you don’t have the richness of information to understand what’s underground before you start. You may have some but traditionally it’s been hard to collate that information. They want to have the maintenance information once they come to the delivery of the project and they have that in the BIM model. It is very interesting and there will be challenges.
How important will cloud technology be for the construction sector?
Cloud technology will be a fundamental piece to construction. Cloud based design concepts are starting to move more and more across the industry. Traditionally you might have designed on a PC and then collaborated with a team but a lot of the construction design that is starting to occur is global. Cloud technology supports that. There is a movement where more applications are put into cloud technology and hosts your data but also drives your data from web-based applications, which are part of the cloud. It’s also being driven by the need for the areas where there’s a lot of civil construction like India, Europe and Asia. There is a need for more outsourcing that leverages organisations for design so cloud hosts those design teams. This is an area for so much potential and cloud technology is key. The other thing driving it is that some construction companies want to adopt technology but don’t necessarily have the in-house infrastructure to support networking so having hosted solutions that live in the cloud is a key change in the market. They don’t have to buy the IT solutions, they can affectively subscribe to cloud based technology and have the advantage of doing it that way in their business.
How embracing has the sector been of cloud-based technology?
It’s a little more conservative in the adoption of technology but I think that’s starting to change and there are a couple of ways in which we are seeing that. It’s changing because the driver is becoming more competitive. There is nervousness about putting information and key metrics in the cloud from contractors because of a lack of trust although people are becoming savvier with technology and cloud based solutions. There is conservativeness but it is starting to get adopted more and more. If you look at what’s been happening over the past three to four years, the incremental gains like sharing information, being able to transfer that from the field is an area that has seen a lot of growth over the years and its also driving the contractor to share this information and utilise it on the cloud. There is also a big drive from the Tier 1’s who are either hosting their own cloud base solutions or buying into a hosted system. As they are engage at that level it starts to drive a certain level of behavioural change which impacts on the subcontractors of those large companies. They utilise those solutions as part of a large project and learn about it so they start to look for their own solutions. The evolution is occurring although it is slower than in other industries. It’s accelerated more in the past 12 months and I think we’ll see that even more.
What’s Trimble currently working on?
We have released a couple of products, which is not only about putting information in the cloud but also data applications in the cloud. One of them is a version of sketch up, which runs and is hosted through a browser. More recently we launched Trimble LiveCount cloud, which is a quantities take off solution. It’s about using the processing power in the cloud rather than having the expense of the technology and infrastructure in the office. It’s also about looking at the intelligent collaboration of the data. People are becoming more and more comfortable with the technology and I think that’s a trend we’ll see continue in the construction market.