How Robots Will Solve Construction's Last-Mile Communications Problem
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➜ This article is for you if you’re a VDC or field leader frustrated by information gaps that prevent flawless field execution.
The construction industry invests big in preconstruction and VDC—to the tune of about a quarter trillion dollars annually. Despite the price tag, we all agree it’s a smart investment. That’s because the point is to reduce construction risk, which carries a far higher price tag.
In fact, VDC is one of the industry’s more important workflow innovations aimed at de-risking projects. That’s the opinion of Joshua Marriott, Director of VDC and Field Solutions at The Weitz Company. “As a VDC guy, my job is to overcome collaboration problems,” he said. “Our industry has made a lot of progress.” VDC has become an effective way to create a detailed and tactical plan for execution.
Here’s the problem: it’s not enough to plan ahead. That plan also has to be communicated in full detail to the teams that will execute it. And that’s not happening.
Steve Jones, Senior Director of Industry Insights Research at Dodge Construction Network, has new data to prove it. He points out that only 11% of field personnel say they can always access the information they need to build. The result? Half of daily jobsite interactions center around conflict. 98% of contractors say they suffer quality problems in their work. And profit margins fall by an average 10%.
And if that’s the case, the industry has to ask itself: how good an investment really is that quarter trillion in precon and VDC?
VDC Is Great—But a Last-Mile Challenge Still Blocks ROI
When field teams face a lack of information, they have to choose between making assumptions to keep moving, or tapping the brakes to ask questions. Both choices are problematic: either they risk building defects into the project, or they risk impacting the schedule.
What’s frustrating for VDC professionals like Marriott is that the answers exist. The point of preconstruction is to foresee questions and answer them ahead of time, creating a plan that sets the field up for success. And VDC produces that plan. A well-coordinated model is a packaged, information-rich, detailed single source of truth for what to build and how to build it.
But that resource is not being used by the field.
“When I talk to superintendents and foremen, they say ‘I wouldn't know a Revit model if it bit me in the butt,’” said Tessa Lau, founder and CEO of Dusty Robotics. “And that's because they don't see the information that's coming out of VDC. That's a communication problem. The information exists. But it's invisible. The field can't touch it. They can't make use of it.”
“The information exists. But it's invisible. The field can't touch it. They can't make use of it.”
“It’s heartbreaking," said Marriott. “It explains why it’s so hard to show the ROI of VDC.”
The industry is well aware that the problem is a last-mile problem. In fact, over the last two decades or more, there has been a wild proliferation of technologies and workflow innovations aimed at bridging the gap between design and execution—between office and field.
But it hasn’t worked. That is, ultimately, what this new study shows.
Robots Are Different Than Other ConTech
The rush to digitize the industry has overlooked the fact that the industry’s product is physical. Software for design, coordination, planning, and construction management are incredibly valuable to the industry. But at the end of the day, all of that information must be translated into physical work on a real-life jobsite.
“Information is still locked in the digital world. It's not physical. It's not tangible like the rest of the job that's being done by the people in the field. And yeah, there are tablets now. But you're still putting down your hammer in order to pick up that tablet, and that's not how the field works,” said Lau.
Robots are the first technology poised to truly bridge this unique gap because they exist with one foot in the digital world and one foot on the jobsite. A BIM-connected robot can leverage all of the information in the model—all the rich work product of VDC teams—to take physical action on the jobsite.
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Marriott says the industry is moving towards a “highly collaborative process in the office, a highly collaborative process in the field, and a big efficient pipe of information between the two.”
Dusty Is "a Big Pipe of Information" Between Office and Field
The Weitz Company is leveraging the Dusty FieldPrint Platform as that pipe. It brings collaborative, cloud-based coordination software and a BIM-driven layout robot to bear in completely transforming construction layout, turning the jobsite floor into a physical view of the digital model.
“The truth is that robotics is the only technology that can bring information out of the VDC process and make it physical and tangible for field workers,” said Lau. “This is a paradigm shift in construction. When you put all of this information on the job site floor, everyone can see it. Everyone can work off of it and talk about it. And that's what's enabling better communication and collaboration on site, which is how you deliver quality. And that's only possible through this combination of VDC and robotics.”
“The truth is that robotics is the only technology that can bring information out of the VDC process and make it physical and tangible for field workers.”
Listen to these three industry leaders dive deep in the webinar recording below. Additionally, we encourage you to download the full report to access comprehensive data and insights about the state of robotics in the construction industry.