This year we had the pleasure of delivering three presentations as part of ‘Digital Construction Week’, showcasing the GRAHAM digital journey to an audience packed full of industry leaders.
Our three presentations focused on our ‘digital by default’ strategy, with our first talk ‘Technology Solutions in Action’ focused on the overall implementation of digital tools at GRAHAM – what steps we have taken to become a ‘digital by default’ company, and the technologies we incorporate into our daily workflows.
On the second day of the event in the ExCeL London venue, the presentations looked at ‘Virtual Reality; from the contractor’s perspective’ and ‘From Point Cloud Survey to AR - The Transformation’, which provided detailed insights into the processes required to successfully integrate these technologies to site.
With exhibition stands packed full of innovative ideas covering a wide spectrum of digital technologies, from Artificial Intelligence to Robotics, we were introduced to a range of new tools that we are confident will become part of our daily workflows in the not too distant future.
One thing was clear from our first day at the conference, is that more and more companies are beginning to embrace technology in their day to day business.
‘Digital Construction Week’ is the perfect opportunity to learn from other industry experts, and we fully capitalised on the chance to network and discuss the exciting developments transpiring in other fields.
So, what did we take away from ‘Digital Construction Week’?
Our takeaways
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is happening. And it’s happening now.
AI is invaluable for construction. Machines with their own sense of intelligence to gather, process and analyse data allow for a degree of prediction.
Brendan Chamanay, Snr Director at Wipro explained how AI is not new. We have been using it every day; when we speak to Alexa we are using AI, when we speak to Siri, we are using AI. AI is not new, it’s here already and is being used already. How we use it is what is key.
The three Cs
The future of construction revolves around three Cs – Connected, Content-Enabled, and Constructible.
We need to stay connected; accurate data allows digital-twin builds, leading to content-enabled projects where data rich libraries drive workflow productivity. This in turn will helps to provide more constructible projects; enabling more informative decisions throughout the construction phase. The three Cs are an endless cycle with each one empowering the next.
Big data = big results
The importance of data was emphasized during the conference and how it is being transported. Different stands demonstrated how data is captured, processed and transferred, and we saw interesting developments in the realms of cloud sharing and computing.
Virtual Training
So many stands had Virtual Training and demonstrated some great examples. Although we have looked into this, it was great to see VR used for different purposes, especially in helping to improve health and safety on site.
We attended ‘Digital Construction Week’ hoping to offer some inspiration, and whilst we are confident we have done just that, we also left feeling inspired. We can’t wait to begin applying some of that inspiration into our daily workflows and progress even further with our GRAHAM digital journey.