The Digital Revolution in Construction: Charles Rathmann Insights

The construction industry has undergone significant changes over the years, and construction professionals have faced numerous challenges during the pandemic, including fluctuating supply chains and adopting new technologies.

Despite being one of the least digitized sectors, the construction industry survived under such pressure. However, many people wonder how this was possible.

To answer this question, we have invited Charles Rathmann, a Technology Editor, to shed some light on the technological struggles of the construction sector.

Let Us Quickly Get To Our Expert’s Point Of View.

Question 1: How do you see the construction industry in the year 2023? Do you think this year will be a "digital year" for construction professionals?

We have three predictions for how construction technology will advance in 2023 and beyond, but we cheated a little because we conduct primary research into what contractors are planning and budgeting for.

We also debrief the leadership of major construction technology companies, so these predictions are conservative.

Market Consolidation

Enterprise and business technology companies tend to consolidate in ownership over time. Economies of scale, and the desire of technology buyers to reduce their number of vendors and manage risk by selecting established, stable vendors will all contribute to this.

Construction technology vendors are also growing by acquisition, resulting in broader product offerings.

Even in the absence of acquisitions, underlying technologies are consolidating—an example is the convergence of various reality capture technologies like photogrammetry from wearables, drones, or handheld cameras and Lidar into a single pane of glass.

Progress on Interoperability

We will see several concurrent movements, the result of which will be increased interoperability between software products used within a contracting business and with the software used by their project partners.

The rise of restful application programming interfaces (APIs) is a major enabler, but some large vendors in the space are also growing partnership ecosystems to drive interoperability.

Organizations like the Construction Progress Coalition are also creating a forum for software companies and contractors to collaboratively plan development initiatives to make it easier for different software products to talk with each other.

Technology coming to the field

On this prediction, we kind of cheated because we had results from our 2023 State of the Industry: Construction Technology Study. The rise of products like ProjectPro shows that software for the back office of construction has had to grow in power and meet contractors' project management and project accounting needs.

But where we will see growth in 2023 is in the extension of more technology into more project sites by more contractors. In the IRONPROS 2023 Construction Technology Study, we see, in particular, contractors already using or planning and budgeting for technologies like GPS Enabled Asset Management, Field Productivity Software, and connected equipment.

Question 2: The construction industry has undergone dynamic changes over the years. What do you consider as the biggest challenge for this industry now?

While I may cover construction technology, I have to admit the biggest challenge in the industry now is the people. It is getting harder to hire to meet project demand.

It's harder to retain people. But technology can help with both of these … there are human capital management software products for construction, with built-in applicant tracking systems.

Technology can do more though—automation is an increasingly reasonable tactic for contractors to use for back-office administrative tasks as well as, increasingly, work in progress.

Robotics is coming to site layout as field printers like those from Dusty Robotics and HP can now print the plan on the concrete slab to eliminate errors and streamline trades work.

Construction equipment guidance technology, which helps an operator execute against a design and automated level, compaction or even steering control on earthmoving equipment is reducing the required skill level for operating engineers.

Construction equipment is even becoming fully autonomous on repetitive projects. Robotics companies that had served to manufacture are entering the construction space with robots for repetitive tasks like bolt tensioning, scraping, painting, and more.

Question 3: What potential do you see in the latest construction technology trends? Are they capable of boosting the productivity of construction professionals?

Since I cover construction tech, I am kind of biased here. But I see technology increasing construction productivity in several ways. Contractors are further along the continuum on some of these than others.

Standardization of Project Management: Where project managers rely on Excel to track the execution of a project plan, it is hard to get a truly standard view of not just the projects but the business as a whole.

Enterprise applications that provide standard methodologies, including work breakdown structures and cost breakdown structures, are now extended with verifiable reporting of production from the field. This enables executive management the visibility required to course-correct in real-time, which preserves the timeline and the budget.

Elimination of non-value-added work and errors: Automating administrative processes like invoice reconciliation, design clash detection, or production processes through equipment automation or equipment guidance raises quality and lowers cost. Some tasks, like complex drip scheduling automation for field service management, can only be done effectively by well-designed algorithmic processes.

Eliminating Processes: As more equipment is fitted with guidance or automation features, and when these features leverage GNSS, contractors can effectively eliminate processes like surveying and staking in many instances. Line marking robots can pre-mark pavement striping, increasing speed and accuracy while replacing a two-person survey crew with a single operator. Financing, insurance, and legal services to support contractors will increasingly be delivered in the context of their business software, eliminating offline administrative overhead.

Question 4: Where do you see the construction industry in the next five years? Please share your valuable insights with our readers.

In five years, I think the industry will be further along its journey toward greater interoperability among construction software products. We will see greater ease, too, in pulling data from reality capture sources like LiDAR or photogrammetry into a project management setting for collaboration and analysis.

We will see more use of AI to turn this unstructured data into measures of productivity to trigger a payment application, documentation of performance against the scope, and more.

Get to Know Our Influencer

Question 5: In four words or less, what's your prediction about the transforming construction industry?

Hold. On. Tight.

Question 6: What's your success mantra?

"I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there is any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." ~ William Penn.

More Details

Charles has also published decades of primary research on enterprise resource planning, field service management, enterprise asset management, mobility and IoT, in addition to being prime mover behind the 2023 State of the Industry: Construction Technology.

He lives with his wife and daughter in the scenic Driftless region of Southwestern Wisconsin. He spends an inordinate amount of his non-working time fishing or playing guitar.