Construction is a sector that cries out for innovation and productivity improvement, it is the world's largest industry, representing about 13% of global GDP, and despite its size, in the last two decades this sector has grown only 1% in productivity, 2.8% in the world economy, and 3.6% in manufacturing. The data are from PMI and alarming for any professionals in the area. But it seems that the winds are beginning to change, at least here in this election year.
Last week the government launched the Construa Brasil program that focuses on reducing bureaucracy in construction in the country, and along with the program a portal to facilitate access to information, ranging from best practices for obtaining permits to videos on how to use BIM.
The measure meets the growing needs of an expanding market. The Brazilian chamber of the construction industry announced that in the year 2021 the industry growth was 7.6% and the Construction Confidence Index (ICST) reached 97.7 points, the highest number since June 2014.
Added to this is a growing environment of constructechs seeking to facilitate access to technology focused on construction, with solutions ranging from IoT applied to construction, to equipment rental marketplaces, are examples of possible disruptions that lie ahead, but the barriers to entry are still stronger than is necessary to make some of these solutions scalable.
Among the main difficulties are:
1. workforce outdated in new practices and methodologies;
One of the main difficulties in the sector is conservatism when it comes to engineering practice, many universities still teach outdated models, and many professionals in the market still refuse to update themselves with practices such as BIM and Agile Methods.
2. Highly handcrafted products with low standardization;
The fact that construction is a factory created to make a product makes this product something extremely handmade, although several solutions have already been proposed, from Henry Ford with his Dymaxion to modular constructions from Brasil ao Cubo.
3. Local regulations;
Each region has its own regulations, master plan and building codes to be followed, the lack of standardization to obtain licenses and the municipalities' own systems is an obstacle to the scalability of constructive solutions, generating restrictions to the constructive activity.
4. Logistical difficulties;
Although closely associated with the second item, the logistics problem refers directly to the supply chain, which is highly complex and subject to political variability and the seasonality of some items in the production chain. Variables such as the price of oil, iron ore, and even wars happening internationally directly impact the price of construction inputs. The result is requests for changes that alter the initial assumptions in an unpredictable way.
5. Construction silos with low collaboration:
Both internally in the companies and in the market itself there are silos that negatively influence the entire productive capacity of the industry. A construction project is usually divided into stages of its life cycle, and each stage involves a large number of specialists and projects that sometimes work separately, causing problems of compatibility, rework, and waste.
There are however several promising bets to solve such problems and help the construction industry become Industry 4.0, among the main ones:
Solution 1: Use of modern practices to increase productivity, such as Agility, Lean, IPD, AWP , ESG and BIM in projects.
Why this solution?: we are living in a volatile and uncertain world, where productive capacity is intrinsically linked to the ability to respond to change and grow with it. Investing in modern practices means increasing your team's ability to navigate through complexity.
How this solution will help: practices such as IPD help with contract formation, breaking down silos at the root of the relationship, AWP seeks to improve predictability by creating a pulled, standardized, and prioritized system. Agility seeks to develop engineering by managing and stabilizing the workflow, increasing the response capacity of the teams, and reducing the damage of unpredictability. Lean, on the other hand, assists not only in "Clean/ Lean" construction but also in constraint visualization and removing impediments, while BIM supports all stages of design, enabling designers to test their ideas with digital engineering. Finally, the ESG will nurture and feed in information and requirements throughout the design phase.
Solution 2: DFMA-based constructions
DFMA stands for Design For Manufacture and Assembly, and refers to engineering development with production and on-site execution in mind. It is a new way of thinking about the construction product.
Why this solution?: DFMA stands for Design For Manufacture and Assembly and refers to engineering development with production and on-site execution in mind. It is a new way of thinking about product construction.
How this solution will help: DFMA seeks to reduce the number of variables in the equation by standardizing construction elements, making them fit together only in a certain way (Poka-Yoke). The practice also seeks to reduce the number of adjustments and customizations in the construction stage, standardizing the logistics chain, facilitating regulation through an already standardized construction, working through all the stages of the project's life cycle, and increasing collaboration.
Solution 3: End-to-end project digitization
Why this solution?: We talked about solutions for people, we talked about a solution for the product, we missed a solution for the process. The process is not seen, it is a work of knowledge, a logical sequencing of interconnected operations that occur cyclically to produce an outcome. At its core, it is information exchanged and produced, and in order to optimize it, it needs to be brought into the digital age.
How this solution will help: Information is blood that flows through the body of every organization and every project, optimizing how it is generated, analyzed, collected and offered is crucial to increasing productivity, building. ERP and Marketplace solutions help with the flow of information and standardization of available solutions. Omnichanell and blockchain solutions for both suppliers and buyers facilitate information flow and increase collaboration between regulatory bodies and their users. IoT solutions can be applied for supply chain management, whether for inventory and demand control, delivery control, or risk management. While solutions such as augmented reality and virtual reality are capable of increasing the productivity and collaboration of the teams that are executing the enterprise.
The construction sector is going through a change, and it seems that the long-awaited disruption is finally starting to knock on the door. Every change is a rupture, a crack with the status quo, and to overcome the abyss it has created, innovation needs a healing mesh, an ecosystem capable of making it reach scalable levels in the market. We are still experiencing the beginning of the innovation curve, with a market heating up and an ecosystem emerging and assisting the adoption of these new technologies. This seems to be a road with no turning back, and now the only question remains:
Are you prepared for what is to come?