Build in Digital

The Building Innovation Awards finalists will soon be gathering in Manchester to compete for recognition as the best of the best in construction and property innovation. Online ticket sales will close this Wednesday 9th October, if you haven't yet got your ticket, make sure you secure yours today: https://lnkd.in/eKhCw_WW ARCbuild Facit Homes Hollybrook Ultraframe ZED PODS Limited ABAX BAM UK & Ireland Enable My Team (EMT) Fexillon Nemetschek Group Twinview Zutec Environmental Essentials Marks and Spencer Invictus Robotics Operance Aiforsite BW: Workplace Experts Cevitr Converge KOPE Safety Shield Slate Technologies Inc. XD House Advanced Infrastructure DBM Vircon LUNAS Inc. nCircle Tech Pinnacle Infotech Skanska Eckersley O'Callaghan Enistic Limited GRAHAM Group Automated Architecture (AUAR) IES Ltd. Keepmoat EHAB RKH Architecture Ltd. ALICE Technologies Inc. Hospiria #BuildingInnovationAwards #BIA2024 #construction #ukconstruction #digitalconstruction

The joint venture company developing a floating offshore wind farm off the coast of Scotland has reached a significant milestone by submitting planning applications for its onshore facilities. #construction #infrastructure #windfarms #renewables Ørsted Simply Blue Group Subsea7 Hugh Yendole

The government has reactivated a solar taskforce with the aim of delivering an updated ‘roadmap’ for the delivery of clean energy by 2030. #construction #renewables #solar #energy #sustainability #netzero Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Solar Energy UK Chris Hewett

📚 Weekend Reading 📚 A UK university has teamed up with industry to test and verify the performance of what is claimed to be a world-first low-carbon concrete technology. #construction Loughborough University SISK Group Ecocem UK Ramboll Group Creagh Concrete Capital Concrete Ltd BRE

📚 Weekend Reading 📚 A wheel loader powered by green hydrogen is being put through its paces at a quarry in Austria to pilot the switch from diesel fuel to a zero carbon alternative. #construction STRABAG

📚 Weekend Reading 📚 Balfour Beatty plc has been awarded approximately £6.8m by Civic Communities to deliver the next phase of City of San Diego’s Park Boulevard at-Grade Crossing project. #construction

A Sussex brewery has become the first UK business to trial a new type of heat pump that is claimed can cut emissions by up to 90%. #construction #technology #heatpumps #decarbonisation #sustainability Hepworth & Company Brewers limited Futraheat Andy Hepworth Tom Taylor

A UK university has teamed up with industry to test and verify the performance of what is claimed to be a world-first low-carbon concrete technology. #construction #netzero #decarbonisation #concrete #technology Loughborough University John Sisk & Son Ltd Ecocem UK Chris Goodier Sarah-Jane Pisciotti John Reddy

The final session on the digital construction hub at UK Construction Week yesterday, saw Ramesh Menon from Cevitr demonstrate an AI Bot, called Jo. This was a brilliant way to wrap up the Digital Construction Hub stage, as AI has been a running theme, and sometimes the focus, of the Build In Digital sessions over the last 3 days this week. Ramesh started with the question, how can robots can help you in your day- to-day working life? His answer is the introduction of a digital worker, named Jo. Ramesh then demonstrated how Jo can work for you - and we watched the bot search files, take excel information and load it into a database, send an email, upload files to a central software platform, even logging in with a password and loading the report and information quickly and easily to input the data, then going back to the excel file, create the next set of data, manipulate it and import a report from that excel document into the system seamlessly, Jo can also take screenshots along the way, to audit the process as well. The administration process can be completely taken over by Jo, and of course could even work overnight, fully automated, once programmed, and when you think about this, the power and impact of using a bot for this type of administration is immense.  Jo, the bot, for example could work in all departments and help invoicing, reports, payroll, reporting, project handling, HR Onboarding etc etc. Any administration process that human manually now do, can be programmed into Jo, and be completed in a fraction of the time it would take a human to do all these things (which is the current state in most companies). So, what are the benefits of this AI technology? The direct benefits include cost savings and time-savings - for example, if you are working with PDF or Excel files, Jo can work at 10-20 times faster than a human.  The indirect benefits are holistic as well as infinite. These include: - Happier employees (less time at work). - Increased Productive Time - Faster Innovation (ie. You may not have the capacity to do this with various administration requirements but by using Jo, you can be more inventive). Digital Workers powered by automation and AI allow humans to focus on activities that really matter and use skills only humans process. There is a fear (as with all things new) that jobs will be 'lost' if these type of robots are employed, but really, it's just a matter of jobs changing... as long as we are willing to let them change and evolve. Ramesh ended the presentation with an optimistic view of technology helping us along the way, at work and in general, looking to the future. He quoted William Arthur Ward, "Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them." This was the perfect ending to 3 great days of inspiration, futuristic thinking, innovation and a glimpse into the digital world of construction from all angles. #ukcw #digitalconstruction #robotics #automation #AI

Yesterday, at UK Construction Week on the digital stage, the penultimate session of the day saw Shervin Yousefzadeh from GS1 UK lead a presentation entitled 'Unlocking Digital Transformation: The Power of Unique Identification in the UK Construction'. Shervin introduced himself and GS1 briefly, and before diving into the world of unique identification, he set the record straight about the difference between digitise and digitalisation. To explain, if you had a physical written letter and typed it into a word document, you have digitised that letter. But to use that information for another purpose, or by analysing it, you are then digitalising it (e.g. by giving it a unique identifier). Taking a wider view of industries for a moment, Shervin showed that the construction industry is the 2nd worst sector in digitalising their business in the UK, they are behind the curve due to other industries such as finance, media, telecommunications etc. This starts to make sense when you think about buying a bike online, you can do this almost instantly on your phone through Amazon or another online retailer, this is then shipped to your house immediately via transportation and logistics industries, who can only know which product you want, due to the unique identifier/bar codeof the project of which has been digitialised. But, in construction, construction projects (ie. building an office block) unfortunately can't be bought on amazon. It then stands to reason that the Key Driver for digital transformation has to be traceability. Traceability matters in a digital world, because if all products/items have a unique identifier then you can source where an object has come from, get replacement parts, access to warranty information and maintenance records through digitalisation - and if the process is done properly, this can then lead to improvements, and eventually contribute to net zero targets, on a wider scale. GS1 standards then plays an important role, as GS1 is global AND local, there are currently 200 million products that carry GS1 barcodes currently, and this means that almost all industries, through barcodes, have use of GS1 UI's. All organisations need to identify the following - products, places, people and assets. In construction, we need to be more intelligent and work within partnerships to ask the client what is the VALUE, in your segment. Whether you are an architect or a contractor or a facilities manager, you will need different identifiers for your particular job. Digital Transformation for the construction industry starts with the digital tools in the design process, the digital twin - and adding a unique identifer to that digital twin, then starts to digitalise the physical building/project. Soon, every project will have a digital product passport (DPP) - GS1 are currently standardising this project. Pilots have been tested, and it's a matter of watching this space... #ukcw #digitaltransformation