DIT’s attributes
Academics
Practitioners
Stakeholders
Relative advantage
Drivers and benefits
(…) Industry quite rightly actually needs to be making a profit in order to stay in business and we need to understand how we can actually number one help industry to increase their productivity and profit through new technologies, we have to actually demonstrate that to them and support them in the process. (…)
(…) If we embark on circularity and suddenly tracking and tracing is begging again. It is actually high importance because this is the only way you can actually guarantee circularity. (…)
(…) There is there is a cost involved (in digitalisation), but let's say an asset is a is $1,000,000... even if there's a 5 or 10% cost overrun… And also the risk of delay. So, by digitizing that process and making it more efficient, you can save a part of that. Then the cost is only a small fraction of the amount of money saved. (…)
(…) What does radio frequency identification (RFID) enable straight off the bat? You do not actually need to read it with line of sight, it can actually be automated. So, something like a fixed dead reader on a crane or on a forklift time or a gantry, but it also enables a lot of other things like Geo location, real time tracking, stock control. (…)
(…) You are getting all these inefficiencies because it is a combination of paper-based stuff, stuff in emails, stuff in drawings, and you know you can't put them all together as in a true database because there's simply not compatible. (…)
(…) During the operation and maintenance you actually can get the data about the condition of the asset itself…
They have sensors inside the concrete, to test the vibration and the loading and all these things and they have access to the data from these sensors inside this building. (…)
Barriers and challenges
(…) The entry point for technology can be quite expensive for some companies in particular in the SME sector… and because the government has not really taken an active role in that part, it's a combination of all of those which I think is keeping the sector behind. (…)
(…) The price point of each individual product is not as high in revenue. It doesn't really justify those (digital traceability) initial costs (…)
(…) How we can ensure that there are cost effective ways and, you know, technologies that are accessible for the smaller players (…)?
(…) It takes a significant amount of investment. in technology, both in people and then and putting the solutions in place and some of them (other organisations), will be just getting by on our day-to-day basis. (…)
(…) It is not as if every single thing is worth tracking. (…)
(…) We have a 60% adoption of building information management (BIM) tools, so we have 40% of companies, probably very small companies that cannot afford or they are not interested and that creates a lot of troubles. (…)
Compatibility
Drivers and benefits
(…) It should be a given that they can readily access their mobile phone or tablets to scan the code, get the necessary (material) information. If there is a non-conformance, they can easily you know. (…)
(…) It (near-real time tracking) builds customer confidence. the customer doesn't have to make that phone call and ask ‘where is my product’? They can see it without actually interacting with you. And at any time they can actually adjust their plans based on where a product is so you know it's really delivering on the customer. (…)
(…) If you can make it cheaper and easier for them to demonstrate compliance (through technological solutions), then they'll jump on board with that and will address things like your flammable cladding. (…)
(…) Government, it is to be acting as the as the expert client, the heavy responsibility in in that role. And if they as clients are not introducing processes that would increase quality and increase uptake of some of those technologies, the sector is not interested. (…)
(…) If construction is going to change, it means that those existing relationships need to dissolve more design needs to be a collective in needs to be the responsibility of whoever builds. …there might be 50 trades on a certain package, like how do you get all those guys to agree and to be doing things that collectively and holistically or benefiting? (…)
(…) To have that as a 4D model, it just makes it so much easier for everyone to understand. What happened quicker or slower and where it happened and where the hole points were… without having intimate detail of that project physically, go oh OK, this is what happened. This is where the hole point. So, I think it can help you plan for the next one. Much better even in that sort of rough digital format. (…)
Barriers and challenges
(…) Even though we've seen people coming up from trades doing really well with modern technology, but still proportion of them who are very hesitant to use all these modern technologies (…)
(…) They have lot of data in the front end which is in the digital design in the BIM drawings and other things. But it does not flow from there into their procurement, into their sourcing, into material procurement and then coming back into the site. There is no data. It's all sitting in siloed Excel sheets. (…)
(…) Trace ability requires the entire supply chain be interested, up to the end user. (…)(…) This is the problem with the industry. Everyone says they're using standards, but they're all different. And then people go and modify them and add new attributes to it. And the software from all the different vendors are all slightly different. (…)
(…) Vertical integration in the sector is just not happening. You know, we have been talking about it for 20 years and it's just not happening and the reason for that is because nobody wants to move away from this flexible resource model. (…)
(…) Any of the original market's or suppliers of a product they normally have good systems of tracking their products right? The hard part is how those materials then land up into a subcontractor's hand and then how that transforms into a product that comes to the site. (…)
(…) There is no standardization and so you would end up for every single manufacturing of building management systems having different connectors so to speak with different capabilities. (…)
Complexity
Drivers and benefits
(…) When it comes to prefabrication, I think that is the next step in the sector already. I think that is happening to certain to create through RFID, others as part of these kind of smart cities agenda. It is very important that that is taking place. So, I think the change is coming from the product supplies perspective and end of things and still manufacturing effectively they had to do that because there is very little variation inside that you can do with that product as opposed to anything else. (…)
(…) The beauty of a prefabricated element is that we actually are then in control of the trace ability that goes along with that, and we can actually apply a tag or a label to the finished product that actually identifies that product… it does give you more control and it is a really good path and I think you know prefab is certainly one way of improving robustness of trace ability. (…)
If offsite manufacturing of more and more things and modularization can come in. It almost solves that (traceability) problem automatically because now you've got a bunch of different people manufacturing things in a in an environment where they control it and, therefore, they are able to enforce it.
(…) This whole submission (project handover) that we have to make at the end is usually pretty significant and we were ringing round suppliers and sort contracts. Get all this information of you know what's this? What's this product here? What is it made of? What's the? What is the part number? And God knows what else but you must think there's an electronic solution or electronic solution to that. (…)
We are trying to get all of those things of different standards into one common data environment.
(…) Every company in the future will have to have a (digitised) model of their product. They could just be picked up and be incorporated into design (BIM model). (…)
Barriers and challenges
(…) Within our industry there are lots of different software providers, and they're all trying to lock their customers in and they're not really interested interoperability, because they do not want them to escape. So, the problem we have is that there are that many different providers, that many different software platforms, that a single supplier needs to understand how to use half a dozen different systems. (…)
(…) We can trace who it was sent too, and then that is sort of where, and when it was delivered to them and how it was delivered to. And then that sort of stops and that goes into a separate system…. there's no connecting back with those two systems at all. (…)
(…) It takes a huge amount of work to create a IoT industrialized platform.
(…) All these formats or the files are in general different because they're stored in different formats and then there's different engineering and architectural kind of. Things which may need to be combined and they they are done. There are some software’s which do it in a limited way. But there is no one single source of truth where you can actually construct a true database. (…)
(…) As all these suppliers have their own app, how do you bring that together? (…)
(…) We are attaching RFID to a product that's not really conducive to RFID. RFID is all about signal and attenuation, and we're trying to attach it to steel. So that's actually you know, shielding or scattering. It's wreaking havoc with the ability to read RFID. (…)
(…) Many of the components are large and heavy… So, if you stack them up three in a sandwich horizontally, an RFID tag that's in the middle piece signal will not be able to get out. (…)
Trialability
Drivers and benefits
(…) This process of code development of things is super useful in organisations when you make them (trades) power off. ‘OK guys, we're doing this. Do you want to help us to see how this work?’ Develop pilots, trials, engagement workshops, and all these… the buy in of workers can be excellent if the if there's a well design process to implement this thing that consider there. (…)
(…) We are just starting up the trial (to see how) those Technologies of the next generation of a full model can be utilized to increase the efficiency of our daily operations. (…)
(…) which software they should they be using? Is it going to be the same one in a year's time? What system should we be using to develop the model in so we know that it will be usable in 10 years for the next 50 years? (…)
Barriers and challenges
(…) We have had a go at with a package to be able to use that BIM model to track the extent of the installation… we probably had the bleeding edge project for about two years, but we couldn't get it done on a reliable, consistent way. (…)
(…) There is more and more experimentation, but there's also more and more offerings. (…)
(…) which software they should they be using? Is it going to be the same one in a year's time? What system should we be using to develop the model in so we know that it will be usable in 10 years, for the next 50 years? (…)
Observability
Drivers and benefits
(…) I always think that putting an RFID tag gives you more transparency. You can see where every single item is, (…)
(...) If the client was clear with what they want and all the tier ones are clear as what they want, then all the supply chain, subbies, suppliers, can then adapt to it. And they are keen to (adapt) but it's just when they're not sure what you want. (…)
(…) One of the requirements for buildings is to have their occupancy permit displayed, which means that if there is any variation from the building code you need to actually list it there. What are the variation and how would you justify those variations? From memory, more than half of these buildings don't even have those things displayed. Which means that you’re sort of running blind half the time. (…)
(…) Providing enhanced visibility and possibility to the whole supply change is very important to being able to track data and track the monitoring (of) the performance of different stages, tiers across the supply chain. That is super important because the industry is very fragmented… So, if we are able to make it apparent, that traceability of data across the supply chain, that's going to be super helpful to improve transparency and integration and start breaking down this this fragmentation of the industry. (…)
(…) We want full transparency or knowing where everything is and it's very hard for us to do that, just being one cog in the chain. (…)
(…) How do you make sure that what do you accept, it actually meets the requirements and specifications? Because right now it's probably emails right? A few days later someone sending email I got it, but I think this is missing on that spot and solve part of the problem. So how do you get that whole block chain up, which is clear visibility for all of those partners in the supply chain? (…)
Barriers and challenges
(…) Our large contractors do not build. Everything is subcontracted out. So, if you're not doing any construction work, then what's the point of tracking materials? (…)
(…) we don't actually self-perform a lot of work, we really don't self-perform any work, it's all subcontracted.So that detailed kind of granular tracking and tracing of material and equipment is probably something that that we would be more expecting the subcontractor to take care of and then and then report up to us (…)
(…) Contractors are less concerned about trace ability in some ways because they manage that through risk of contracts… they're paid to manage that risk, and they do not really have an incentive to innovate or pass on any savings. So, it is not really a centralised, controlling system. (…)
(…) that contractual relationship is created only for a particular project. It is not as strong as a subcontractor or supplier relationship in manufacturing. In manufacturing you work with the supplier or subcontractor over a longer term… We can never improve on our supply chains because we are a project-based organisation. (…)
(…) How do we actually ensure that the information on labels or RFID tags or QR codes, it is actually the right information? (…)
(…) A big part of the reason that you don't see more technology-based automation in this industry is the big guys go out and spend the money in the little guys will say I cannot afford to do that. (…)
(…) One of the problems that that the main contractors have is they don't really have any direct control. They sub everything out… You're not able to integrate all the systems, so you have one system for all materials. (…)
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