Big Data Analytics in Construction

In our daily lives we keep up with the advancement of Internet of things. We all want to have wearables such as a smart watch, smart phones with various sensors, smart vehicles, smart appliances, smart everything ... in order to know how much we run, how many calories we burn or simply to receive calendar reminders.

Interestingly, the construction industry is not welcoming such advancements into its daily works as we do in our personal space. The construction industry resists those advances because people need to get acquainted with the new technologies and get trained to use them efficiently. The common excuse is that those advances are costly.

The solution is Building Information Modeling (BIM). It unites all those computing devices and provides architecture, engineering, and construction professionals the insights and tools to be more effective in planning, designing, construction and managing buildings and infrastructure.

The most obvious benefits are explained bellow:

1.      Contract Management

• Within BIM, if a party places a variation instruction, it could automatically lead to a notice of claim from the party implementing that instruction. In other words, when a variation instruction is made, multiple documents will get updated automatically. This will save much time sending out revisions to every involved party. It will illuminate unnecessary confusions which usually adds unnecessary complexity to projects.
• Any updates to the contract documents will be real time and will appear to every team member.
• Design changes will be passed on every team member responsible for implementing those changes. This will eliminate the possibility for passing a wrong technical analysis to the owner. 

2.      Assets

IoT sensors equipped on machines could provide valuable information on active and idle time as well as fuel consumption for more efficient asset management

3.      Logistics

Geolocation data of the machines will allow logistics to be improved, spare parts to be made available when needed and downtime avoided.

4.      Planning

Weather, traffic, community and business activity data can help optimized planning.

5.      Inspections

Temperature, humidity, and stress can be analyzed to determine how it affects a particular structure.

6.      Costs

Economic and political activity can determine labor and material costs.