Tracking progress on construction sites using traditional methods is a largely inconsistent practice. Information gathered through paper-based reports and manual measurements is often misleading. Due to the workload in the field, there are situations where all stakeholders in the field cannot find enough time to share information. Within the scope of digital transformation, mobile applications come into play at this point, enabling troublesome follow-up operations at construction sites to be carried out faster and more efficiently. It automatically presents the data to us, freeing you from the time-consuming tracking of daily field operations. This way, subcontractors, contractors and owners have a consistent view of how much progress is being made on their site on a daily basis.
The collection of field information with drones has become very popular today in order to evaluate the human resources in the field in more efficient works. 64% of contractors in the world use drones in their projects. The important thing is to make sense of the collected drone data. 3D digital twins obtained from drone data are used to automatically obtain construction site progress information. Thanks to these digital twins, the construction site stakeholders can automatically follow the progress from anywhere without any margin of error. The fact that they can follow the project transparently helps prevent manufacturing errors and related money losses. The combination of 3D models with artificial intelligence offers a fully automatic project life cycle.
Using artificial intelligence to analyze drone data can unlock far more valuable information than manual and human-based analytics. Artificial intelligence helps make daily operations much faster by making sense of 3D models and drone data. Drone data, semantic segmentation, artificial intelligence, and 3D modeling combined can unlock construction insights that manual analytics simply can't keep up with. Site data includes more than just informing stakeholders without on-site, face-to-face inspection. Analyzing this valuable big data helps to uncover inconsistencies and significantly reduce audit costs.
The construction industry accounts for almost 13% of the world GDP and the digitalization market of this industry is close to 1.3 trillion dollars. It is unbelievable for such an industry that productivity growth in construction has not exceeded 1% in the last two decades. Experts claim that there is a $265 billion annual profit pool awaiting the industry with radical innovation and adoption of the latest digital technologies.
For those managing a construction project in an environment where businesses continue to change the way they work with the Covid-19 pandemic, they are likely to be familiar with the value digital technologies bring to a job site. Being able to remotely visualize and monitor a construction site with data collection tools like drones is what has kept construction companies on track over the past year.
The Perfect Combination of Digital Twins and Artificial Intelligence
High-resolution drone photogrammetry and data contain a wealth of information. Machine learning and AI in construction use this data to focus on semantic segmentation of geographic data. This means classifying each pixel in drone orthomosaic and digital surface models to detect what and where it is in each image.
When successfully trained, AI models can analyze drone data and recognize dozens of classes of objects on a construction site such as asphalt, concrete rings, piles of earth, rubble, rebars, trucks, pipes, cable wells, and more in minutes. In this way, it makes it even more meaningful as data on 3D models. Quality control, material tracking and project time flow can be followed automatically. It offers a miraculous solution such as detecting with a single button that the project manufacturing is progressing correctly, which enables automatic detection and display of manufacturing changes over time with the support of artificial intelligence. Most importantly, retrospective 3D records and change analysis can be used to provide evidence of work done and avoid conflict between subcontractors, contractors and owners.
Compared to traditional quality measurement methods, AI solutions can be 510 times faster. Not only does this increase productivity directly, but when they can get information in the tiny levels of detail that AI provides, project managers have a much better view of site progress and use of materials. Near real-time analysis of field data strengthens decision-making and makes the way for better operational planning.
AI solutions can even predict whether construction schedules will be met, depending on the pace of work. By integrating the project timeline with artificial intelligence, 4D models with time dimension are obtained. In this way, artificial intelligence, which has the speed of project progress with 3D model and drone information, can now support time-based prediction. Thus, it acts as a critical supporter in keeping the projects within the calendar. It ensures that plans such as project work breakdown and completion time come to us in a few seconds. It enables the creation of a quick decision mechanism. It supports being one step ahead in creating the necessary action plans.
In summary, The combination of 3D, 4D with time dimension content, 5D with cost dimension content, and artificial intelligence offers incredible big data analytics. The construction industry is ripe for artificial intelligence applications and automation of complex processes. With more and more engineering and construction companies incorporating drone programs, the data needed for 100% site coverage in all three dimensions is already there. With the developing technology, on behalf of all project stakeholders (subcontractors, contractors and owners), all necessary information can be obtained in seconds thanks to an artificial intelligence assistant that works 24/7 without sleep. In this way, increased situational awareness enables early detection of any discrepancies in the work carried out by subcontractors, resulting in less loss for investors. And the increased visibility, efficiency and control that comes with artificial intelligence enables a transparent money transfer system to be implemented in an industry plagued by chronic late payments.
Digital transformation has a critical importance for the future of companies, this awareness is increasing day by day. In order to grow and stay big in the rapidly changing and developing world, it is inevitable to adapt quickly to the technologies of the future.
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