Digital Transformation in Construction: Beneficial Changes in Building Through Digital Technologies
High-tech solutions hit many sectors and industries in the world. Construction is not an exception. Digital transformation takes place in this sector as well. According to the latest data, about $12 trillion will be invested in the global building industry. And this is a matter of time. The amount is expected to grow regarding digital transformation in construction.
For example, building estimating software, drones, BIM systems, cloud-based solutions, and other digital products make a difference in the pre-construction, construction, and post-construction phases. If the digital transformation trends become more widespread, the amount of investments is going to increase to $29,5 trillion globally by 2026-2028.
What Is Digital Transformation for the Construction Sector?
All the benefits digital technologies can promote to the construction sector take place to create an extremely digital-friendly environment that will be more efficient, productive, and safe for all the stakeholders and other market players in the building direction. It is worth noting that digital transformation can touch any area in construction:
- Management – time management, risk management, and other management tasks;
- On-site processes – remote control over the procedures, measurements, etc.;
- Estimating and costing – all the pre-construction processes including bidding can be automated.
This list should not be limited to these points only. For example, communication in construction is also worth digital transformation. The same story if you have too many manual processes and paper-driven workflow in the company. Data processing should be digitized as soon as possible to make your working environment paperless and exclude a range of challenges.
What Risks and Challenges Can Be Excluded Through Digital Transformation?
First of all, this is data loss. If you switch from a paper-driven workflow to paperless processes and a corporate environment, all the information will be processed safer and error-free. Secondly, you will experience a sped-up performance of most on-site and office tasks. For example, estimators and managers can use digital templates presented in modern software to report faster without any poor showings in the e-spreadsheets.
Third, the level of communication will be improved through digital channels (applications, cloud-based databases with commenting and data sharing options, etc.). Among other risks that can be excluded with the help of digital transformation are poor quality of information, slow workflow performance, poor-quality building on the site, and low-level collaboration.
Benefits of the Digital Transformation in Construction
You will mention increased productivity. Many studies prove the fact that digitized corporate environments promote significant improvements in collaborations, communication, and work performance in general. That is why present-day contractors should understand that digital transformation is the baseline of any effective strategy.
Among the main benefits automated and digital-friendly workflows in the building have, there are the following:
- Increased productivity;
- Better safety measures;
- Improved corporate environments;
- Better management and on-site performance;
- Improved risk and resource management.
It is worth noting that each company can find its own advantages for business when it comes to digital transformations. This way many contractors state about increased risk mitigation and switching to the high-level building. Improved collaborations also take place when it comes to digital-friendly solutions and strategies that are built on automation concepts.
To sum up, the range of solutions that bring digital transformation in construction is not limited to drones and AI-based software. Remember that there are other approaches based on automated estimating, costing, bidding, management, and remote-control communication flows.
Pay attention to IoT solutions and software for your office and paperwork management tasks. Cloud-based solutions also can make a difference when it comes to the digital transformation required in the construction sector. Do not forget about machine learning algorithms that are on-trend today for any business.