The evolution of our civilization has directly impacted the construction and has not only played a key role in the overall development of economies but our way of living also. Whenever I look at our history, I realize that Construction Industry has been an instrumental element of the entire economic growth and is a catalyst of social-economic development for many generations.
Whilst the past has been highly productive, the Construction Industry is facing a challenging future, in the current scenario. These are challenging times for everyone and call for optimization, cost-effectiveness, meeting the deadline, efficiency, etc, more and more.
When we talk about Mr.Akhilesh Srivastava, IT Advisor to the Government of Uttarakhand, Ex-Chief General Manager (Highway Operations & IT), NHAI, the first thing that comes to mind is the ease of travel across the length and breadth of the country.
After a record-breaking success of best-selling books, "Digital Construction Management" and “Artificial Intelligence in Infrastructure”, Akhilesh Srivastava has gone above and beyond in instilling a sense of how applied technology can further simplify and revolutionize the Construction Industry in yet another excellent read in his new book, which is currently available on Amazon on “Construction Industry 2.0”. This book talks about the use and deployment of Digital Technology to improve end to end process of delivering and operating the built environment, known as Digitally aided Construction. Over the last few decades, we have witnessed almost all the construction companies continue to improve their financial stand. This can be attributed to employment, ease of doing business, stronger consumer protection rights, and the most important one, the implementation of intelligent technologies. Our cities are getting bigger, better, and smarter day by day and this requires a more than an ever smarter way of construction.
In the book "Construction Industry 2.0" Akhilesh Srivastava, outlines the global transformation of the construction sites, which are no longer simply a place for cement, bricks, and concrete, they are changing the world—physically and theoretically. These construction sites are a hotbed of all sorts of data and thus construction sites are being leveraged to drive operations and improve efficiencies in the industry.
He narrates, field data tracking, for instance, and talks about what used to be a tedious and manual process that involved clipboards and filing cabinets has become streamlined through mobile, cloud, and big data analytics technologies so that users can capture and analyze the data in near real-time. The digitization of that process now means construction workers can easily gather and share data with key stakeholders, both on-site and back at headquarters, using a range of tools including apps, smartphone cameras, drones, and even robots. Our modern and digitized construction sites are collecting data through cell phone devices as a strategy for success in today's digital age. Information reported and accessed using handheld equipment is no longer seen as a "nice to have," but rather a valuable and inimitable resource to help firms stay competitive and understand how resources can be better leveraged to get work done.
Artificial Intelligence for Immediate actionable Intelligence on the site:
The mass and accessible usage of digital techniques, and the transition to a digital economy are also playing an important role in transforming the Construction Industry. By facilitating better planning and preparation for "what if" scenarios, construction companies are looking to technology to help make projects more profitable.
Traditionally, information used to be and has been stored in myriad different places—floppy disks, compact discs, USBs, spreadsheets, and even the human brain. But as data volumes become larger and the demand for actionable intelligence from these receptacles of information grows, the need for adequate capturing and processing techniques will has increased manifolds.
Akhilesh Srivastava has done the analysis of every process, at the most minuscule level in his “Construction Industry 2.0” book. It is an excellent read for those who want to make efficient decisions based on technologies, which were never a few years back.