Chartered surveyors across the world have today highlighted that
cost and a lack of skilled professionals are not only hampering workloads but
are also holding back the construction sector from progressing in terms of
innovation and sustainable practices, detailed in the first RICS Digitalisation
in construction report.
The report, which gathered responses from over 2,500 members
worldwide, set out to assess how advanced practices like BIM and digital twins
were used within organisations, looking at their current use, the resulting
improvements and some of the challenges that were holding firms back from
advancements in the latest technologies.
Whilst companies look to adapt to address the latest world
challenges, including reducing the construction sector’s carbon emissions
(~40%) – almost all respondents (94%) highlighted costs as a medium to high
blocker to their implementation. Somewhat similar to the RICS Global
Construction Monitor results too, a lack of skilled professionals was a close
second with 90% reporting the challenge of finding the appropriately skilled
professionals to support them.
Whilst cost and skills is a major blocker, data is already being
heavily used by organisations to enhance progress monitoring and health, safety
and wellbeing across all or most of their projects, with some 31% of
respondents reporting this as the main way data and technology is used in the
construction sector. At the other end of the scale however, only 19% of
respondents said that they use data and technology to help measure the carbon
footprint and benchmark and report on all or most of their projects.
However, the transfer of data and information flowing between
different participants across the asset lifecycle is encouraging. Indeed, over
half of respondents share their cost estimating data and 48% share their data
and information on health and safety and well-being. However, less than a fifth
share information on life cycle carbon emissions.
This report highlights the advances that are being made but
supports the need for further initiatives across the construction sector to
upskill people in new and innovative working practices to help it drive down
costs across the board so that it can tackle climate change.
Anil Sawhney, RICS
Global Construction and Infrastructure Sector Lead,
commented: “To
address the profound impact of construction on our world, the sector must move
even faster to reap the benefits of BIM and digital twins. Digitalisation in
construction continues to gather momentum, but like the wider construction
sector, adoption of such technologies is being held back by increasing costs
and shortage of skilled professionals.
"The
sector is agile, but with continual cost and time pressures and frequently
criticised lack of spending on research and development the sector runs the
risk of being left behind. Whilst standards such as ICMS 3 and professional
bodies upskilling members is helping, construction needs more support, whether
that’s private investment or Government funding or initiatives to ensure
countries can continue to prosper.”
Andrew Knight, RICS
Global Data and Tech Lead, commented: “Current supply chain issues
and soaring costs are yet another aspect the sector is having to urgently
address. Coupled with incorporating environment, social and governance (EDG)
principles, designing and measuring social value; implementing whole-life and
whole-asset thinking; and carbon footprint calculation, benchmarking and
reporting across projects the construction sector is in the midst of a perfect
storm.
"Whilst
early BIM modelling is now commonplace and participants across the asset
lifecycle are now sharing information more freely, especially on cost
estimation and health, safety and well-being, there’s still a way to go. The
power of BIM, with its higher dimensions of time, cost, and sustainability,
coupled with digital twins will add the most value over coming years, so long
as the sector gets the right support."
