Taking the first steps on your path to digital enablement in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Day in, day out, I’m thinking of digital evolution. One would say that it’s in my blood as a Digital Leader. But, more than that, I’m amazed, excited, astounded and a little cautious to experience today’s technological transformation that is unlike anything humankind has experienced before; we’ve gained so much but also risk losing some hard-earned common ground if we don’t maintain our focus, get the basics right, and truly open the path towards hyper connectivity and super-intelligence.

Excitement first, enlightenment follows...

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam to power the mechanics of production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is what we’re experiencing today. It is characterised by a fusion of digital technologies that are evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace.

Disruption is happening before our very eyes; in every industry and every country; to entire systems of production, management and governance.

Combined in harmony with us ‘ole humans, digital disruption can be the perfect complement to creativity, empathy, stewardship. Working together, we can shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution and direct it toward a future that reflects our common objectives and values.

A living digital jigsaw

In digitally-enabling business, asset and project related information for improved decision-making, asset owners and operators are tasked with establishing and maintaining a living digital jigsaw in relation to their built assets; a topic I’ve written about in the context of transport infrastructure. Engineers, designers and architects are combining computational design and materials engineering to pioneer a symbiosis between our movements as human beings and the transport infrastructure we use.

Fully leveraging a digital version of a public infrastructure asset could change the current state of play in the industry; unlocking further value from enabling technologies and methodologies. It could improve information sharing, drive productivity, provide greater transparency and increase sustainability. It is the cornerstone to ensuring sustainable whole-of-life public infrastructure assets.

An underlaying theme in my conversations with clients and colleagues is that digital approaches of value are about creating a culture of integration, education, skills and aligned processes, information and technology.

Importantly, it could form a structured container for all the information and data on a project – before, during and after construction, and prove its value when the asset owner or manager is delivered a complete, consistent and accurate set of inter-related digital information. This can provide increased efficiencies for the management of their assets and open up greater opportunities for leveraging technologies such as machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence.

Technology alone will lead us astray

I am a great enthusiast and early adopter of technology, but sometimes I wonder whether the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could fuel some less desirable human capacities – greed and morality. I explore this concept in my Just Imagine blog post for Aurecon.

Over hundreds of years, common and legislative laws have been honed, perfected and applied to the understood principles and modus operandi governing a capitalist society. Now, however, the rules of engagement are changing. The furious pace of technology is transforming the business landscape at unprecedented rates, and captains of industry are incontrovertibly entering unchartered waters where our lawmakers and policies are slow to catch up. In our new digital economy, are we heading off the grid on matters of legal precedence and ethical objectivity?

What happens when we gain ‘first mover advantage’, capturing a corner of a new emergent market in disruption, but there are no rules to guide us through the choppy moral waters of commercial benefit? How do we ensure that free-market capitalism in the digital age remains morally in-check when we currently lack the navigation chart?

Shaping the future

The new digital era admittedly is casting us into unmapped territory. In the end though, it all comes down to people. We can shape a digital evolution that works for all of us by enabling a Fourth Industrial Revolution that combines the human, digital and physical to reflect our combined future.

As Sir Isaac Newton said after his second law of dynamics “to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” – or, in other words, “there is a wake we leave behind in all we do”.

I've both delivered and learnt a great deal over the past 15 years whilst leading the digital enablement initiatives of my employers. I’m now enthralled to turn my focus firmly to our clients and partners in my role as Director, Digital Enablement with Aurecon.

I’m assisting clients in navigating the nuances and subtleties of improving their information and leveraging it as a digital asset. This can add real value to decision-making across the life cycle of built assets, which is exactly the impact and legacy I wish to leave through assisting our clients!

Having supported VINCI Construction UK through the BS1192 pilots of 2005, led Transport for London (TfL) in aligning to the UK BIM Level 2 directive of 2016 and more recently leading Aurecon in becoming one of the world’s first organisations to gain BSI kitemark certification for ISO 19650, I look forward to bringing all of Aurecon and some hard lessons and real successes to your teams at a time when being connected through digital enablement has never been so important.

#Aurecon #justimagine #DigitalEnablement