Many of the causes include enhanced safety rules, increased reporting and compliance and the paperwork that comes with it, along with the sheer complexity of construction, which involves multiple stakeholders, community and political considerations and myriad rules and regulations. While these factors have made construction projects much more complicated, they’ve also helped make the industry significantly safer and more sustainable too—which are positive developments that the entire industry should be proud of.
However, one factor that wasn’t examined in the article is the incredible pace of technology that’s already begun to reshape the industry. Many construction firms are undergoing huge digital transformations, connecting their data and utilizing tools that are enabling them to streamline their operations and build with greater precision and accuracy. As a result, projects are being built better, faster, safer, greener and more cost effectively than before.
While these technologies are primarily driven by the desire to improve productivity and reduce costs, many contractors are also realizing the environmental benefits they bring in the form of less waste, as materials can be more easily measured, and less rework, as errors can be caught earlier or avoided altogether. Plus, having technology that connects field productivity to office systems and operations means everyone can work off the same information in real time, eliminating duplicate or manual entry, which saves time and money and cuts down on paper.
But don’t just take my word for it. Below are two real-life examples of how contractors have successfully implemented technology and the productivity, cost savings and environmental benefits they’ve seen as a result.
3-D Scanning Can Help Premier Mechanical Save Time, Money And Materials
A mechanical contracting firm that Trimble works with, which specializes in commercial HVAC design and construction projects, began using a 3-D scanner to help capture data on new and existing structures five years ago. One of their design engineers said the 3-D scanner was originally purchased to help the company more accurately capture and collect data within the tight areas they worked.
Instead of having to guess how much material would be needed, the scanner provided them with much more accurate specifications, enabling them to start prefabricating the vast majority of their work, which means most pieces were built off-site and then assembled on-site. Prefabrication is a cheaper and more efficient way to build since it’s done in a more controlled environment.
While the 3-D scanner was initially chosen because of its ability to save time and money, they soon learned that it also enabled them to streamline their prefabrication workflow and cut down the number of component deliveries to worksites. In fact, they estimate that they have become 50% to 75% more accurate for existing building prefabrication, which in 2022 translated to 70 metric tons of carbon savings in deliveries alone.
Now, instead of having to go back and forth to the jobsite, the majority of prefabrication happens in the shop with materials, tools and workspace designed specifically for this type of work, and less time is spent on the worksite, allowing for simple installation of the prefabricated components.
GPS-Guided Controls Enhance Precision, Reducing Errors And Rework
A self-performing general contractor that Trimble works with found similar benefits when they started using 3-D design modeling and incorporating GPS-guided equipment controls on their excavators and dozers.
Whereas they used to spray paint marks on the ground indicating roughly where to dig, they now build a 3-D model of the excavation and use GPS-guided controls to tell them precisely where and how far to excavate. Providing accurate data and analysis has helped inform decision-making, resulting in work that is significantly more accurate and less error prone.
The ease of use and efficiency of the technology have been a huge time and money saver, and it has also enabled them to find errors in the design much sooner. When errors are identified upfront, rework is minimized, which can lead to reduced fuel costs and carbon emissions.
These are just two of millions of examples where contractors have incorporated technology into their operations and processes, resulting in productivity gains and cost savings, with the byproduct of helping the industry become more sustainable as well.
Tips For Implementing Technology In Your Operations
While technology may not have the ability to completely override the many factors that are making construction an increasingly complex industry to work in, it is giving contractors better insight into their projects and helping them run businesses that are more profitable and sustainable. If you’re a contractor looking to incorporate technology into your workflows, be sure to keep these tips in mind:
1. Focus on technology that addresses your biggest pain points. For many contractors, this means adopting software that can connect internal siloed data, which can help provide insight into how work is getting done—and could be done better—via actionable, usable data. This not only streamlines workflows but also enables the measurement of specific outputs, providing the data baseline needed to reduce emissions.
2. Evaluate technology through the lens of productivity and sustainability. While productivity and cost reductions will continue to dominate technology adoption, emission reductions are quickly moving from “nice to have” to “must do” due to the increasing mandates imposed by governing bodies. Evaluating technology through the lens of productivity and sustainability will provide contractors with the future leverage they need to meet emission reduction targets once they’re required.
This hardhatNEWS was first published in Forbes 
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