Business Post Focus On30 June 20, 2021

COMMERCIAL CONTENT

CIF Digital Construction Summit 2021

Hosted virtually on June 17, the CIF’s fourth digital con-struction summit addressed digital transformation on

an industry-wide scale. Taking stock of changes brought about by the pandemic as well as the introduction of new technologies, the event brought together en-gineers, construction managers, architects, BIM managers and other construction professionals to discuss the latest innovations in the sector.

Sean Downey, director of spe-cialist contracting at CIF, delivered the opening address. “The way that we deliver projects has already changed,” Downey said. “The challenge is bringing that change to all projects.”

Discussing the advent of issues including climate change and sus-tainability, digitisation of the sector and supply chain optimisation, Downey said that addressing these issues will benefit the sector as a whole and boost the resilience of the Irish economy.

The first panel of the day was on offsite and modular construction. Deborah Smyth, country partner of Tempohousing, UK and Ireland, said that the greatest challenge facing the industry at present is adopting a digital approach and bringing in zero net carbon emissions.

“We’re one of the early adopters of using renewables and net zero carbon,” Smyth said. “We’re hoping to share this knowledge via BIM. We’ve been collaborating with the Irish Green Building Council and BRE, and working to their guide-lines.”

Paul Carty, director of con-struction in Ireland at Bally-more, said that while Ireland has not had the same mandate as in the UK, BIM Level 2 is now in place, but that further down the chain, contractors are not quite up to speed. “The rate of change is happening,” said Carty. “But not at the pace that we would like.”

Speaking on “the next gen-eration of construction firms in Ireland”, PJ Rudden, managing director of Aengus Consulting and chair of the Innovation and Dig-ital Adoption, Construction Sec-tor Group, said that collaboration

across all teams, strategic com-munion on Project Ireland 2040, climate action and construction skill set development will all be key issues in coming years.

BIM (Building Information Mod-elling) will help address these is-sues: “It enables the life cycle of a project, eliminates waste and allows for imagining projects in the real world,” said Rudden.

Speaking as part of a group pan-el on ‘construction game chang-ers’, Timmy Falvey, operations manager at GagaMuller, said that wearable technologies will gain traction in the construction indus-try in coming years, especially as applied to training.

“We can now harvest data back from sites,” said Falvey, “and start tying it to construction pro-grammes with machine learning.”

Darrin Taylor, lean programme director and lecturer in manage-ment at Waterford IT Business School, said that digital technol-ogies can enable as well as disrupt: “It really is all about productivity . . . So much of construction is fast-track, one off, highly complicated projects, and there are challenges

here. I would always put processes and people to the fore here.”

Nick Erasmus, technical director at Real Data Systems, discussed challenges facing the industry in terms of capturing and integrating data. “Although we’re following the same workflows and methods of capturing the data, each applica-tion captures it in its own manner,”

Erasmus said. “You have various compa-nies involved in a proj-ect using completely different systems . . . That’s where segre-gation of data begins

to happen and data is lost.” Tom Noctor, strate-

gic product consultant at Procore, added that without

a good reason (ie capturing and making use of data), companies risk adopting technology for the sake of it. “If information is discon-nected, you won’t get the value of knowing where issues arise from, and the impact and cost they’re adding to your projects.”

Speaking as part of a panel on the ways in which government and the industry can support R&D and innovation, Bart Ingelaere, director of digital construction and depu-ty general director of the Belgian Building Research Institute, said that the Covid crisis has helped

to speed on innovation and cre-ate flexibility within the industry. “Never waste a good crisis – and that was actually what we did,” Ingelaere said.

Martin Taggart, lectur-er in building and civil engineering at Galway-Mayo In-stitute of Technol-

ogy, said that education can react faster to innovation by partnering with industry organisations.

Discussing the future of the digital construction industry, Tom Boland, global head of digitisation at Zutec, named the pandemic, government policy and the objec-tives of owners and operators as the three most important factors driving innovation in the industry. “It’s all about digital fingerprinting – knowing what is installed, how it’s inspected, tested and main-tained, and when it was done . . . the drive towards digitisation and evidence will have to stand up in

court later on. Customers are look-ing for accountability.”

Enda Grimes, director and founder of Strata Project Solutions, said that partnering with others in the field can help share experienc-es and learning between smaller organisations: “Within Strata and other like-minded companies, it’s about partnering with others, learning from them and adopting these practises within your organ-isation.” Establishing a dialogue with third-level institutions has also helped speed digital adoption.

A panel asked how Ireland’s construction can prepare for a BIM mandate, Simon Crowhen, sales manager of geomatics at Topcon Positioning Ireland, said that digital adoption was key. “We’re now able to use BIM alongside geographic positioning,” Crowhen said. “It leads towards cost savings, be-cause people don’t need to rework projects and can use prefabricated parts.”

David Purdon, technical direc-

tor of the Diatec Group, said that technology is a facilitator rather than a panacea. “We’ve had to change our business model as a result,” Purdon said. “We don’t teach products any more – we teach workflows and methodologies.”

Dr Avril Behan, direc-tor of dean of the College of Engineering and Built Environment at Techno-logical University Dub-lin, said sped-up digital adoption was an upside to the lockdown over the last year: “We don’t always have to be face-to-face with people, but are able to use technologies to hear more feedback. We’re also becom-

ing better at collecting data and using it to inform our practices and training.”

The programme then split into two separate streams, the first on data analytics and the ’new age of construction’, and the second on ‘helping SMEs get on board with BIM.’ The tracks were moderated by broadcaster, Jonathan Healy and Vicki Reynolds, global vice-chair of Women in BIM and Chief Technology Officer, i3PT and Cert-Central. As the day’s programme neared its end, Emily Hopson-Hill, chief operating officer at Zutec, spoke on the ways in which SMEs can embrace technology, overcoming barriers to adoption which are often more cultural than technical.

Highlighting collaboration and working from home, AR, VR and drones, modular construction, IoT data and sustainability among the factors currently creating change in the construction sector, Hop-son-Hill said that these elements must be balanced with preserving a sense of company culture.

“Change can create fear if it’s not approached correctly. There can be a feeling that management is disconnected from everyday ac-tivity, as well as the suspicion that technology is just a fad.”

For these reasons, companies need to work to create an aware-ness of technology as a tool for making life easier day-to-day, rather than as an end in itself.

After a turbulent and frustrat-ing year, digital transformation is helping the construction sector to recover. The next challenge will be to maintain this rate of change, and to direct it towards goals includ-ing sustainability and increased productivity.

CIF’s 2021 Digital Construction Summit was a showcase for some of these technologies and the ar-guments for adopting them more widely. Ireland’s housing crisis hasn’t gone away yet, but with

higher-build qualities, faster construction and stra-

tegic use of BIM and off-site construc-tion, the potential is there for availabil-ity to finally catch up with demand.

CIF summit takes on digital zeitgeistThe virtual event took stock of changes brought about by the pandemic as well as technical advances, writes Roisin Kiberd

David Purdon, technical director, Diatec GroupClockwise from top left: Jonathan Healy, broadcaster; Tom Noctor, strategic product consultant, Procore; Nick Erasmus, technical

director, Real Data Systems; and Darrin Taylor, Lean Programme director, lecturer in management, Waterford IT Business School

Sean Downey, director of specialist contracting, CIF

Sarah Murphy, chief executive, iQuest and Business Post Live and Timmy Falvey, operations manager, GagaMuller

Mary Flynn, 5D BIM QS, Dublin City Council; Simon Crowhen, sales manager Geomatics, Topcon Positioning Ireland, and Dr Avril Behan, director and

dean of the College of Engineering & Built Environment, Technological University (TU) Dublin

Enda Grimes, director and founder, Strata Project Solutions; Elisabeth O’Brien, DASBE manager, Limerick Institute of Technology, and Anthony McCauley, strategic adviser and business development, Skillnet Pictures: Maura Hickey

Paul Carty, director of construction in Ireland, Ballymore

Emily Hopson-Hill, chief operating

officer, Zutec