How to Overcome Challenges of Implementing Technology in Design and Construction

In our most recent article, we discussed some of the challenges that design and construction industries face when it comes to implementing Technology. While understanding challenges is the foundation for any transformation, today we’re focusing more on ways and methods to address the said challenges and overcome them.

As we discussed before, “Computation”—using computers instead of humans to complete tasks—can potentially save the design and construction industries valuable money and time, but these new technologies are often implemented in inefficient ways leading to employee dissatisfaction and fail to improve a firm’s productivity. 

Construction is especially criticized for its inefficiencies, when compared with manufacturing. Research shows the compound annual growth rate of the manufacturing industry rose 3.6% between 1995-2014, while construction’s remained almost flat. 

Based on our last article, the main challenges of implementing technology in design and construction can be summarized in five categories:  

• Diverse projects

• Diverse teams

• Fragmented technology

• Limited R&D

• Outdated contracts

To better understand these challenges and how they pose resistance for our industry to adopt technology, we will continue our comparison between the construction and manufacturing  industries by examining real projects: The building process of SFO Airport Harvey Milk Terminal  and the manufacturing of a 2021 Ford Mustang. While these projects are very different, it is important to draw this comparison to understand the unique challenges that the design and construction industries face in overcoming their productivity gap. 

Diverse projects

In  design and construction, almost no two projects are exactly the same. This makes it challenging to apply processes built and lessons learnt from one project to another. In the case of SFO Airport Terminal 1 project for example, after years of visioning workshops, processes built and innovative methods implemented, the outcomes are left only for SFO project alone without the possibility of being implemented anywhere else. 

In contrast, the manufacturing of the Ford Mustang is much simpler. It starts with building a prototype, researching, testing and applying lessons learnt along the way not only on one Mustang but on an entire product line. In 2019 alone, 99,174 Mustangs were mass produced based on a single design. This also enables Ford to achieve economy of scale unlike what is happening in the case of construction. 

Diverse teams

Design and construction projects demand expertise from multidisciplinary teams of Architects, Structural and MEP Engineers, Lighting consultants, Contractors, Sub contractors and more. A single design project can include dozens of companies from all across the world, and the SFO Airport terminal is no exception. Design and construction of this project took over 20 teams each having their own standards, systems and skillsets, which makes it challenging to adopt new technologies and implement them across the board. 

Ford, on the other hand, has all teams from design to manufacturing collaborating under the same umbrella of Ford company, making it significantly easier and more efficient when it comes to implementing and rolling out new technologies. 

Fragmented Technology

What construction lacks in efficiency it certainly makes up for in the number of software solutions available, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. There are numerous technology solutions targeting specific segments of the design and/or construction process resulting in a highly fragmented workflow across the industry.

Here are a few of the numerous software solutions used for delivering the SFO Airport project as an example:

Sketchup, Rhinoceros, AutoCAD, Revit, BIM360 Collaboration, BIM360 Docs, BIM360 Glue, Navis works, Lumion, Enscape, Procore and more. In contrast, Ford has only leveraged more or less one technology solution since its inception, Catia, making it significantly simpler, more efficient and streamlined to design and manufacture cars and implement and roll out upgrades.

Limited R&D

While Ford spent $7.1 billion on R&D during the 2020 fiscal year, a decline from the $7.4 billion spent in the 2019, we don’t find nearly a fraction of that budget in R&D space across the construction industry.

Overall, research and development, as well as technology, in construction accounts for less than 1% of its revenue, whereas manufacturing gets 4-5% of revenue. 

Outdated contracts

Even though technology solutions are progressing, contracts are vastly outdated in the design and construction space, which is emblematic of a larger trend: even though technology has changed, our industry continues to carry out business in the same way as before. For example, although per Macleamy curve, resources, time and change is significantly different on a project leveraging BIM, contracts leveraging this technology are still drafted based on traditional delivery processes, not taking into account the changes necessary to delivery timing, resources and expectations. 

Now let’s take a look at strategies to help teams overcome challenges of implementing technology in design and construction: 

1- Focus on Impact

Instead of focusing on the technology itself, focusing on impact on the overall business enables organizations to prioritize goals and navigate a digital transformation and its potential challenges more effectively. In order to increase the chances of success, organizations have to think about what their outlook is 2, 5 and 10 years down the road and what impact they forecast on the overall business with implementing  certain technology. This would help them achieve the set goals and pave the path towards a successful implementation of technology across their firms and projects. 

2-Promote Collaboration

While currently, majority of digital solutions are handcrafted by individual tech gurus and SMes across organizations, on the long run this would result in a fragmented system where solutions can no longer be applied to future projects and used by other teams. Instead there needs to be a more collective approach similar to that of design processes and creative workshops where a collaborative effort in addition to proper document management is put in place so the digital transformation can be impactful in the long term.

3-Invest in Training

Digital technologies have introduced profound changes in the way we carry out design and delivery. Therefore applying these technologies requires the teams to not only learn the skill sets but also adapt to the changes that come with the new way projects are being designed and delivered. That is only possible with building a solid foundation with a highly trained workforce.

4- Capture ROI

One of the challenges of implementing new technologies is understanding the impact they have on the bottom line. In order to make informed decisions on adopting new technologies, there needs to be a clear assessment on productivity gains from adopting new tools and identifying the cost of the technology itself in addition to the framework necessary for its success such as, firmwide standards, workforce training and document control. 

5-Promoting Transparency

Promoting transparency can reduce the risk of failure in adopting new technologies. This is specially the case for larger firms where different departments might have their own technology leads and initiatives. While it is easy in these scenarios to overlook the firmwide use cases, promoting transparency can help resolve that and unlock bigger values for the entire organization.