As recently as 2017, the construction industry was the least digitized industry in the United States. While its rate of adoption of new technology and digital innovation is slow, there are no shortage of avenues for opportunity in the industry. In the presentation “Tomorrow’s Dynamic Supply Chain: Creating Value in a New Economy” at the 2020 ProSales 100 Conference, panelists Margaret Whelan, Chris Langford, Ryan Melin, and Keegan Kirkpatrick discussed some potential areas for disruption in the supply chain and in the overall construction industry and how technology is likely to impact the industry in the future.
Whelan, the founder and CEO of Whelan Advisory, said industry trends in innovation are geared toward automation, resilient materials, and off-site construction, many of which will remove permanent labor from the industry. She said the issue of construction waste is also another area where innovation can solve cost and labor problems and may offer an inroad to addressing the issue of housing affordability. Whelan outlined the stages of digital transformation that can lead to disruption, from the C-level executives making digital initiatives a priority to establishing a digital initiative, deploying, and measuring results.
“Most industries are trying to move the needle very marginally, but there are huge opportunities in construction to protect margin and protect value,” Whelan said. “Think about anything you can do from a disruption perspective as an investment as opposed to a cost.”
Langford, a partner with IDEA Fund Partners, said the construction industry is only at the beginning of leveraging increased mobile technology, cloud storage, and computational power. Langford said given the lack of digital innovation in construction, ground-breaking technology is not necessarily necessary to drive change in the industry.
“Construction is just at the beginning of the utilization of mobile technology, cloud storage, and computational power,” Langford said. “You can now communicate with anyone in real time, collect data in the field, push that data down into the field, you can connect suppliers and shipments, and track shipments. It can’t be understated how the mobile phone has changed everything in the industry so we don’t even have to apply exceptional technologies to optimize what we’re getting out of those three technological changes.”
Melin, the president and cofounder of Innovative Construction Group, said opportunities in integrated design is where he sees the most change in the next five years. Integrated design can be a “game changer, according to Melin.
“For our industry to move things forward in a progressive manner, the whole concept of integrated design is imperative for the success of the industry,” Melin said. “The integrated design piece is going to change how people look at things moving forward.”
Melin said automation is another area for great innovation in the industry. However, the technology in design and manufacturing are not yet in a position to drive some of the automated machinery that is being discussed in the industry.
“Redworks started to look for ways to use space-derived technology to make building materials entirely local. We’ve figured out how to make bricks and masonry blocks entirely on-site using the dirt beneath out feet,” Kirkpatrick said.
