An article in Fortune magazine (September 15, 2016) titled “A Drone for every Job Site”, claims that 15% of materials delivered to construction sires end up in landfills because schedules are not synchronized or purchasing issues. Thus, with $1.13 trillion in US construction spend, the waste is estimated to be $160 billion. The article claims that drone data from job sites, integrated with structural models, will enable better synchronization of purchases with needs. What coordination models can be expected to emerge to realize these savings? Will builders cut their cost estimates to expect these savings and thus force their adoption? Will the added information regarding worker productivity, from camera data, impact cost estimates or will it change worker behavior?
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Global Supply Chain Musings 
The coordination method should sharing delivery information to both parts immediately.
Simply cut the cost will not force the adoption. Related management and process update should also be covered at the same time. Also, it is better to lower the cost gradually to push the adoption smoothly.
More data of workers will help company re-calculate cost and other operation spending, and the new cost will influence employees’ behavior. Because, workers will find a new way to adapt the lower cost environment according to the corresponding management improvement or process updates.
The most important aspect is that any new changes will bring risks and the corresponding management improvement or process updates will be the backups for any new changes.
Different from my first guess of using drones to deliver materials, it is an interesting idea to use drones to collect and analyze on-site information to reduce any wastes as well as to save cost. My opinion is a little pessimistic to utilize drones in construction sites because it is usually extremely hard to standardize data in construction projects. For example, even when building two same chemical plants, the situations causing delays in material installation can be totally different according to drawing changes in different stages, specific requirements by the owner, rules and regulations of the construction site, and so on.
In order to utilize the information collected by drones, in my opinion, builders should clearly define individual tasks done in entire construction process and share the definition with drone operating companies to help them deliver “right” information. (Builders may begin with very basic tasks and see if the strategy works.) Otherwise, the massive amount of data will only cause another inefficiencies in the project. Sharing profits from cost savings might be a good motivation for information providers.
If I were a person in charge of cost estimation, I would not apply this anticipated savings in project cost forecasting because it is too risky. However, to force related departments to adopt this new strategy, I might reduce their budget and keep the savings as a contingency.
Autodesk and Skycatch are proving to be the leaders in this emerging market. With Autodesk’s investment in Skycatch, it may be the the first mover in the market. We will definitely see the advancements in this area of drones for the construction industry as time passes. Being the first mover definitely has its advantages of receiving the most publicity and sticking to people’s minds. Especially with the rise of 5g, data processing can happen remotely. While the drone feeds data into a computer offsite that is able to analyze the amount of sand and gravel needed along with other topographical needs. With lower latency for the data connection, more data can be processed wirelessly over the air. As the infrastructure for the connection gets better, we can see rapid improvements in the range of the drone.
Waste is 15% of the total purchasing cost, this is a huge number without doubt. In order to fix this problem, innovative technology must be developed and used.
This coordination model will be widely used in the future, but till now, this is still a technology with risk. Anyway, builders can try to use it without cut down the whole budget, instead, the whole budget can be divided to the fixed and variable cost, if the materials are not enough to carry on the whole construction, then they are allowed to apply for the variable part of budget.
Speaking of workers’ behavior, the drones can also be used for monitoring, builders can examine the video shot by drones and do irregular spot test,
All cut-down-cost change need test and adjustment, I believe with some trials, this coordination model will become mature and widely-use eventully and the process of test is worthy.
15% of materials delivered to construction sires end up in landfills because schedules are not synchronized or purchasing issues. This means that the information transmission between both sides are severely low efficiency. In my opinion, coordination models would surly have better synchronization of purchases with needs. And the models must include sharing and distributing information. Moreover, with the added information from camera data, I believe it would change worker behavior to become more prudent. However, there are always two sides to every story. Nobody would like to be monitored while working… Anyway, if it is used in a good way, the camera data can tell where the builder needs to do to make the whole building plan become more efficient and productive.
In my opinion, and with little knowledge in this industry, I see two issues that are worth noting. First, I find the drone incapable at analyzing KPIs or other building measures once the initial construction has taken place. Like mentioned in an earlier comment, construction isn’t necessarily standardized especially when bringing in different geographical construction sites (may be different time planning fences when considering construction in the Midwest in winter and the Southeast in the winter). Second, I don’t see this changing worker behavior. The mere presence of an item watching you doesn’t increase efficiency. In total, I believe there will always be inefficiencies in worker’s behavior but I see drones providing minimal assistance in reducing the scheduling disconnect which could be worth justifying the decision to implement these on all sites.
Even small percentage savings in inventory can translate to billions of dollars in the construction industry. The drone utilization in this industry will be effective if its able to analyze data and not just dump data on engineers who already have tight deadlines to meet, thus the drone and software technology providers need to understand what data and meaning is important to the engineers for it to be helpful to be able to make decisions without much analysis on customer side. Looking at the competition we can expect builders to push contractors to work more efficiently using new technologies and for construction companies to be competitive and remain in business, they need to adopt the technologies which will make them efficient and save billions of dollars. The added data on stock, workers, will give a clear insight on productivity and efficiency, and thus will change the worker’s behavior, and they will tend to perform the job more efficiently, but we can expect demanded wages to go up, considering potential savings overall.
The first thing came across my mind after reading the blog and the original article is that, how will these drones collect data and how will them be operated in the construction sites? If the drone is used to oversee the construction site by merely taking pictures or doing simple data collection, it can just help to monitor the material waste and construction progress. What the business really needs is the analysis done beyond surface. Using drones might change the worker’s behavior to some extends, but it may not have a direct impact to the productivity in the construction work.
The 15% of the material saving will not necessary lead to 15% of cost savings. The cost of operating drones with high capability might outweigh the cost savings in materials. The procurement of high-quality drones with the capabilities of what construction site needs would not be a simple task since you might need to spend time to invest and develop the specific type of drone for the construction site’s need. Overall, I think using construction site drones might not be implementable at this stage.
Drones are actively being used by construction companies to monitor job sites for project management, tracking real-time progress and improving safety by reducing the need to put boots on the ground in dangerous areas. But using drones for materials management at the sites would require more work than just getting pictures or videos from drones. To some extent the videos might help with tracking quantities but due to my limited knowledge on the functionalities of drones, I am not sure how accurately material quantities could be tracked but it could definitely help monitor usage and wastage of materials and improve procurement decisions to some extent. If drones are capable of providing accurate tracking, in my opinion considering the additional benefits, it could be adopted. With respect to worker productivity, it would definitely help push contractors/workers to work more efficiently and help the business improve billing accuracy. It also helps workers by reducing rework as more on-site monitoring helps catch mistakes before they become bigger. Ultimately, the cost trade-offs will decide if the overall savings with respect to the wastage as well as all the other benefits of drones make up for the investment in this new technology!
As many others have pointed out, merely imaging and scanning a construction site might not lead to the type of savings that construction companies would like. Presenting the data obtained into actionable intelligence that also holds up to the constraints of the real world would be key. The drone tech and its applications are not at a stage where construction managers can take advantage of them immediately. Testing out basic use cases and developing from there, while causing time and money, would be the way to go. An agreement with companies who operate the drones based on incentive based contracts would serve better rather than full scale adoption at the onset.
Furthermore, purchasing issues or delivery mismatches will not disappear with just the 3d modelling of the construction site. A coordination model which enables proper data sharing and management between the companies, analysts working with drones, and the suppliers would be essential to cutting wastage. As the tech infrastructure is not ready yet for a full scale adoption, a more gradual approach would be necessary.
With drones in the play, the cost prediction will change completely. As discussed in class, the Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) model can be used with drones in the picture. The drones owned by the vendors can use the data collected to check for the need in any particular material, and re-stock the same if required. With such a partnership with the vendors, the Builders can save the waste of materials that is mentioned as well as reduce the inventory holding costs. Such contracts are a win-win for both the vendors as well as the Builders. If this concept can be put into practice, the builders should reduce the cost estimates and increase savings. The added information gathered from the drones, like worker efficiency can help the builders make better estimates regarding the requirement of workforce. However, with a constant monitoring using drones, the worker behavior is bound to change. The increased efficiency of the work force comes with a trade off in higher stress amongst the workers with a fear of constant surveillance from their managers.
This case reminds me of Internet of Things (IOT). Nowadays, data and technology are popular in supply chain management. In my opinion, using drones is similar to using sensors in some of the manufacturing factories and they collect data without human interactions. In this manner, data can be transferred to the manager and customers immediately. From the saving perspective, I would say that technologies that make synchronization happen definitely is a trend. However, the prior investment must be seriously considered by the decision makers. Also, using drones may be one of the ways to supervise workers, but if this is against some of the privacy rules would be under consideration. Sometimes, it is not the problem of supervision, it is the problem of incentive mechanism for changing workers’ behaviors.
Construction projects, in general terms are more complex in nature. They vary in each project. On doing a fish bone analysis, we can see how many different factors affect these and how each factor has a different weightage in each scenario. Many factors such as temperature and climate, distance and availability of resources, outsourcing of certain parts of the project, type quality and grade of materials used, constructions techniques applied, types and quality of equipment used, willingness of the stakeholders to spend, these are just some of the factors of the top of my head and there are many more. In each case, these vary. Also, the weightage of each factor may be different. In California, setting concrete at sub-zero temperature is not a big issue, hence the project schedule can be more flexible, hence the general costs in terms of this factor might be very different from construction project in mid-west, where setting of concrete in sub-zero temperatures is a major issue. Hence, is it not possible at this point in time to be able to put drones to analyze from historical data and deliver products. What however is possible at this point in time is, using drones as and when requirement arrives, so as to have a better handle of delivery times. Even if the projects will be different, the project managers working on a project and seeing the development and flow of the project can still have a good estimate of when the building materials are required. So from my perspective, the cost savings can come from delivery streamlining at this point. Talking about worker behaviour, the use of cameras can to some extent be used assess the idle time. This however shall have to be viewed by a human at this point in time, to use it to address worker behaviour. At this point the drone technology is probably not advanced enough to check worker behaviour and give recommendations to increase efficiency by itself.
The coordination model may be periodic drone check up on the construction progress in comparison with construction site’s reported material usage to avoid the miscalculation of simply doing assumption with drone sent back construction progress images.
I believe builders may not cut as much cost as expected at least in the beginning of adopting to this new coordination model, before it runs maturely and smoothly, more mistakes may occur, as well as the human work that may be required to do real-time tracking of material usage in sync with drone’s progress feedback.
Data should be feedback at same progress timing of drone and material usage from construction site worker to avoid apple to orange comparison which ends up in over or under-stock of construction material, as delay in construction may result in significant loss as well.
Careful pilot run should be done with error rate measured before it’s implemented.
As the profit margin is getting reduced in construction industry with increasing competition, 15% cost saving is a huge value addition to the industry. Now we can look into some use cases to understand how the data collected by a drone can help achieve this goal of cost saving. Drone data can help in two ways such as it can provide the real time monitoring and guidance to the current project and secondly the historical data collected by the drone can help increase the efficiency of future projects. Many times waste in a construction project is generated by reworks. If any deviation from the design takes place and the deviation is identified at the later stage, a part of the construction structure might have to be demolished and reconstructed, generating a huge amount of waste of material, time and money. These situations can be avoided by real time monitoring.
Builders would definitely adopt a more conservative approach to cost estimation and they would be able to offer better prices to the customers in order to achieve competitive advantages. And this would be a clear incentive for the adoption of drone technology.
Worker’s inefficiency is an another source of waste in construction projects. Drone data will definitely help to identify those inefficiencies and help to train the workers better. Drone data can be used to prepare specific training materials to improve the efficiencies of individual workers. Therefore, it is evident that the worker behavior would change if the workers become more skilled and more confident about their jobs.
There is no doube that use drones can save 15% of material cost. However, I will doubt the cost that each construction company pay for the drones operations system will significant higher than how much they saved from material waste, as the saving of $160 billion is focus on the industry. As ordinary drones could no directly used for construction stiuation, extra cost of equipment or operating system development could bringing a heavy load of cost for construction company.
Besides, the more drones that construction companys decided to uses, the more worker resource they will waste. A large amount of idel labor could increase those extra cost.
Construction has always been a labour intensive business and a lot of the work has depended upon required personnel/teams inspecting or visiting the real site. All the quality inspections and safety inspections are done by visiting the site. All the civil inspections, architectural and topographic inspections involve the qualified personnel visiting the site physically. One of the major advantages associated with drones in this field is the expedition of all the auxiliary process and of the main construction itself. With all the data, leads and patterns that drones can help generate, several teams can collaborate on a construction site virtually, many of the inspections can be aided by the visual data as well as the quantitative data generated by the drones and the inventory/materials can be better tracked, down to hourly basis.
Drones are now an edge device. Drones are not only used in photography or as a toy as it had been in the past, but industries have also adopted drones for their functionality. Journalism, agriculture, construction, mining have started utilizing drones in gathering valuable data. With $ 45.2 Bn markets just in Infrastructure usage of drones as video analytics, monitoring, surveillance device have surely grown. Machine learning and artificial intelligence have developed a cost-effective, and viable way to optimize our processes using drones in their IoT device. In one use case, Aerial maps produced by drones were used to help a mining company in Canada evaluate the lifespan of mining waste to developing a plan for expanding the sites where they store waste. Read the news here: https://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Building-Operations/2016/2017-December/Drones
The vast data gathered now are helping industries become smarter in their decisions. In this case, the construction industry, with the use of drones, could utilize analytics to detect faults, prevent accidents, monitor work. The drones could also be used as a life-saving tool to go into places where it’s hazardous for humans to go, and bring in very critical information. One such application is the use of drones in Oil rigs to check for damages on pipes.
All of these advancements push the industries to move towards the efficient frontier. When current technology is optimized, innovation follows.
The use of drones in the construction industry is an emerging and potential market, not only because it is cheaper than manned aircraft, but also because it can continuously collect more data. More accurate information helps builders increase efficiency, reduce failures and limit delays. But for workers, they are not willing to be monitored anytime, anywhere. In the past, their productivity did not affect their wages, but things changed as technology advanced. In my opinion, builders will adopt this new technology and follow this trend, which will affect cost estimates and change workers’ behavior in a good way While this may involve private issues, we should now consider countermeasures to prevent violations of the law before we use it extensively.
The article suggests efficiency problem is the result of mismanaged scheduling and purchasing & estimate $160 billion in waste.
With that kind of scale, small gains in efficiency can translate to billions in savings for the construction industry
Identifying strategic activities and potential delays while ensuring the timeliness of all work & Integrating coordination are the most important steps in construction
The first step is to assess the current process across the supply chain in order to detect actual waste and problems. The article claim that drone data will help to synchronize the supply with demand, but the last thing you need on a construction project is more data that you don’t have time to process.”
Drone data on worker productivity will help to understand the pace of work & efficient use of available workforce. Will also help to track the site’s progress with a degree of accuracy. But again, using drone data for waste reduction will be a time-consuming activity & will require skilled labor.
How the methodology of SCM can contribute to the understanding of construction supply chain problems, and in giving direction to improvement efforts. The bottom-line is the effective resolution of interdependency-caused issues in the construction supply chain, including basic problems and their control.
Better project management is always a basic foundation for any construction. Instead of going for Drone strategy, I would suggest driving this issue under project management guideline & risk mitigation plan.
How the basic methodology of SCM can contribute to the understanding of construction supply chain problems, and in giving direction to improvement efforts need to be studied. The bottom-line is the effective resolution of interdependency-caused issues in the construction supply chain, including basic problems and their control.
Using drone to improve the efficiency and decrease the waste in construction site would be an expensive solution because it assumes that all the players in the construction industry have the capabilities to analyze big data and take decisions accordingly. Therefore, it is not yet a viable solution. According to Gartner.com “75% of supply chain organizations worldwide have reported concerns about the governance of digital projects.” Digital supply chain is still an emerging field which requires more and more companies to adapt and evolve. In addition, using a drone to monitor employees is not a good idea as it might not prove efficient because in business there is no one solution that works for all situations. Being said that, when we think of other coordination methods, information sharing among the players might prove effective.
At present, drones are actively being used at construction sites to track job progress, monitor quality and serves as an efficient surveying tool. It is an innovative idea to extend the use of drones to collect and analyze information that would be used to simulate optimum order quantities which would in turn be used to generate savings.
Two important points to be thought about here are:
1. Compare the savings generated due to material wastage vs the investment to be made on the drone (since this is a new technology there would be an initial lump-sum investment). This would help us assess if cost saving opportunities exist.
2. One also needs to think about to what extent can the drones predict the optimal purchasing quantity. To some extent human intervention may be required (depending on the site under construction). Would it then result in the same situation as present?
The information from drones will certainly impact worker behavior and may result in increased productivity. However, an accurate estimate to cost savings cannot be quantified at this stage.
In my opinion, the problem of waste at construction sites is a co-ordination problem. The better synchronization of demand and supply of material is the key to reduce waste. Coming with this perspective, I find drones to be one of the multiple solutions to ensure better management at construction sites. Drones are trendy and expensive way to achieve the required synchronization. One must consider the high set-up cost for drones which includes a controlling system, data sensing and analyzing facility, maintenance, and recharging of drones. Depending upon the potential saving which can be achieved at a construction site, drones use must be justifiably. Moreover, one must consider using alternatives which can ensure self-motivated workers rather than forced discipline through technology to reduce waste. Drone Technology is an emerging technology, with few years down the line it must be more mature, sophisticated and cheaper than the present technology.
Information sharing is important to all industries as well as those companies run within them. The issue mentioned in this blog is the typical example of how bad information sharing leads to huge waste in the process. 15% waste led to 160 billion. With this scale of waste, eliminating this 15% waste will help construction industry to save a lot. Drone data will provide real-time data sharing to all parties involved in the process so that all parties can response and make corresponding decisions in timely manner. Real-time data sharing also can eliminate information asymmetry which is the root cause for construction companies incurring huge waste. Therefore, I think the drone data will definitely help with current situation and drone data will become mainstream in the construction industry. There are serval concerns with implementation. For instance, maintenance cost should be considered. Drones should be periodically maintained to yield the best outcome. Workers behavior will change to some extent. It will take a while for them to get use to this new technology. They may initially resist the change because of extra effort and time they need to spend to learn how to use it. For on-site workers, drone implementation can increase their productivity because what they do will be captured by drone. However, in the meantime, on-site workers may feel uncomfortable working under surveillance. Therefore, for companies implementing drone technology, knowing how to balance benefit and drawback is important.
I believe that the implementation of drone could result in better material data collection / usage monitored and this could influence the construction project in two ways:
For short term impact, the situation of being monitored may force workers to get rid of unnecessary waste and could also decrease their productivity as they’re working in a more uncomfortable environment. These changes on field operator will require corresponding work instruction or regulation to demonstrate the correct and more efficient way to complete a task.
For long term impact, the project manager and budget owners can expect to gain better understanding about actual needs which means, better forecast accuracy. With better accuracy, the inventory level may expected to decrease, thus result in more saving at the beginning.
I don’t think it is feasible to use drones on the construction site. Although it claims to reduce material costs by 15%, I feel that the operating and maintenance costs of drones will increase significantly. According to my work experience, the supervision process of construction sites is very complicated and rigorous. The amount of materials cannot be accurately obtained only by remote observation by drones. At the same time, the construction environment of the construction site is very complicated, and each area has different safety rules. The intervention in the drone will greatly increase the management difficulty and safety risks. The potential cost in this aspect cannot be estimated, and may exceed the material cost by 15%. Therefore, I think it is not feasible.
The projected savings are huge, and thus there is full potential for new start-ups to come and capitalize. We can expect that third-party companies will come with this service and take up the job of smoother coordination between construction contractor and his suppliers. The inventory of materials and its delivery scheduled can therefore be outsourced to these start-ups. This will ensure no additional workload for the builder, which is the first step in encouraging adoption.
I don’t see builders cutting estimates unless and until the technology is widely accepted and becomes industry standards. May be some reduction to appease the client can be seen, but I doubt that builder would pass on the complete or fair share of the savings to his client.
Use of camera data for measuring worker productivity is a great idea, especially in the construction industry, where workers have full incentive to extravagate their work. But by use of this data one can easily plot performance of individuals over a period, to asses his competence. This data can allow supervisors to find the weak links and replace them. Ultimately, I believe that this productivity data can be used to alter the worker behavior.
Like most of my peers have rightly pointed out, immediate adoption of drone technology may not show any improvement, rather it might just lead to additional costs to the construction projects. A more gradual approach with a drone being deployed to monitor a smaller project with well defined variables might give better results.
As Abhishek rightly pointed out, a VMI model would be the most realistic way to achieve high efficiencies. The drone would be required to transmit real time data through pictures or videos and human resources will be needed to monitor the data transmitted, analyse it and make immediate decisions, adding to the investment. The construction company would then be required to justify constant surveillance to their employees as well. It is a well known fact that micro-management often leads to drop in efficiency. All of these cost trade-offs would need to be rightly managed before concluding that drone surveillance would lead to 15% material savings.
For my perspective, “Drown for every job sites” will be leading and innovative behavior in this field.
Before the application of the drone for every job site, the construction company still need to consider the trade-off between the benefits and the costs of introducing drone to supervise the job sites. The premise of applying this technology is the company have to be sure that the cost of this new investment is lower than $160 million which is the saving could get from the waste.
Also, the application of the drone definitely will affect worker behavior and increase productivity. But how long does it work and what extent of the impact still needs to be measured. And the time cost needs to be considered as well.
Drone technology is an up and coming area, wherein drones are increasingly being adopted across industries. Some of these industries where the adoption is high include IT-intensive industries like e-commerce and sensitive industries like defence, etc. But due to ease of use and high benefits, drone technology is being considered as a valuable add-on across many different industries, construction being one of the easiest to implement and fastest to realise savings
The co-ordination for the construction industry are synchronisation between raw material suppliers, drone team that constantly monitors material, and the procurement department. The key here is efficient information sharing and quick turnaround time at all levels. Builders would cut cost estimates based on savings realised due to less wastage of raw materials. Forcing a new technology would work post some successful pilot runs of the drone
Post success of the drone technology, the waste created would already be reduced. Additional information in the form of worker supervision would increase productivity not only in terms of work done, but also lead of better supervision of materials used, thereby resulting in optimised material usage by workers
Both planning process and purchasing process are necessary. Especially, for construction industry, a not synchronized schedules and a bad purchasing strategy can lead to 15% waste, which is estimated to be $160 billion in the US. I believe applying drone data in this industry is useful since it can decrease a lot of cost. Because of the save in decreasing waste, the company will have a lower debt, and the company will have more budget on other aspects, such as better design and innovation. Also, the company’s working capital turnover rate will increase, which can attract more investment. Thus, I believe the companies in construction industry should utilize drone data. However, implementing this technology will increase the training cost and maintaining cost. Also, workers may feel uncomfortable because of the monitoring from drone, and their productivity may decrease.
The realization of savings that can happen with the adoption of drones at the construction sites will enable new co-ordination models that will likely become the norm soon. Reduction of wastes, which amount to 15% of the materials procured will benefit the buyers as well as the suppliers. Real-time materials inventory level will enable the companies to come up with better budget estimates, leading to competitive prices and bidding. A competitive environment thus will further push the adoption. Work productivity can be expected to improve with real-time monitoring using camera data. It will most likely affect worker behavior when they become aware of themselves being monitored remotely. Improved productivity will more likely improve savings.
The drone can help with efficiency and accuracy of shared information but may not do some much good to workers behavior. The problem of waste is caused partly by lack of information synchronization. The main problem is still the management on construction site. However this real time synchronization really helps to improve efficiency of the whole supply chain management.
The drone can help with efficiency and accuracy of shared information but may not do some much good to workers behavior. The problem of waste is caused partly by lack of information synchronization. The main problem is still the management on construction site. However this real time synchronization really helps to improve efficiency of the whole supply chain management. Application of drones can cut labour cost, which is used to monitor the sites and also avoid man-made ignorance or mistakes
Drones at the construction sites can definitely help to they synchronize with the production schedule and organize their purchasing needs. Though these drones and software for construction models can be expensive initially to set up, these can quickly break even and realize results. They can monitor the daily material consumption and worker productivity rate and thus alert workers to be more disciplined.
One important thing to make it succeed is to constantly update the data that comes in from these drones and make it autonomous in the long run. In the current age of Big data and optimization, this will not only help save time but also records data sufficient enough to predict the needs and generalize the costs, material and labor needs in the future.
Drones have consistently been utilized as an impactful technology in all domains. Particularly in construction industry, Drones can be utilized in many ways- In mapping the real time condition of job sites , measuring the amount of project/construction material utilized, guarding materials from any theft etc. Not only will it provide visibility to the builders, it will also serve as a tool to plan for future projects by capturing the data, thereby effective in future construction project bids.
By capturing the amount of construction material utilized on site, and closely monitoring the process of construction Drones will serve as an efficient tool to coordinate with the construction team to suggest for any discrepancies, the procurement team for ordering materials and invoicing, with the Project H.S.E. team to trace for any probable hazards of leaks, fatal damages etc. and with the project estimation team by giving the maximum data to convey the best possible cost estimation for future projects.
With the real time traceability of drone, builders can detect for any probable issue with deliveries of their suppliers, furthermore, workers will always be more efficient as the drones will monitor all the activities of the project. Thus, the drone data will suggest best efficiency of the workers to implement better prices to bag construction projects.
After the businesses deploying the drones, the remote coordination model may start to emerge. With the help of the valuable bird-view, distribution and control team no longer need to be on-site. The size of the team will also decrease, since only one centralized control center is needed for the entire construction site. Schedule synchronization will be much easier. I believe the cost that comes from synchronization and purchasing issues will be saved. However, as the article mentioned, the number of licensed pilots is limited. The optimal solution would be completely autonomous drone which can land in charging pads itself and able to be operated by the control center. Also, the inventory can be managed smoothly. The distribution team can have the real time information of all inventory which are across the construction site.
I don’t believe having drone deployed can increase worker’s productivity too much. But I do think that the rate of human error might dropped, because workers know any waste from them can be observed by the drone and may become more careful.
Right now the autonomous technology is still a constraint, I don’t think builders will expect to see the savings immediately. But once the technology is matured, company may cut the budget and expect the savings by deploying the drone.
Drones can collect historical data from construction sites regarding the purchase schedules of raw materials and lead time for every raw material. Aerial data collected by the drones can include the amount rate at which the construction materials have been consumed and the waste up till date. The aerial data can be combined with the historical data from construction sites to develop an optimization model that minimizes waste while maintaining enough raw material to suffice demand during lead-time. For the drones to become a primary means of reducing waste in the construction industry, apart from the accuracy of the model outputs, it will also be expected that the drones will generate enough savings to offset the initial outlay for data collection and model design and integration services.
Using drones at a construction site for analysis is antecedent to using satellites to analyze land and water data, although the former is at a more micro level. Drones are nothing but a flying camera, which can capture a lot of information, using enhanced camera hardware and software, to construct 3D models and recognize and quantify construction material, which helps in scheduling, ordering and inventory management. Commercial drones are definitely cheaper than flying aircraft or setting up a number of cameras and establishing a network, since the drones can be used at any construction site, at any given time.
Drones may even help in increasing worker productivity through reconnaissance and planning activities. The coordination models expected through implementing drone activities in construction would be to see the flow of material and estimate the amount of material used and left, which will help in scheduling orders and maintaining inventory. Drones can also be used to capture data and form models in AutoCad, which will help architects and engineers better plan the design and construction and make room for changes if required.
These activities will definitely enable builders to cut on losses and will help them work in the budget, instead of over or needless spending. This will eventually impact the bottom line of a construction project and increase the same.
Before suggesting a solution like bringing in drones for better purchase synchronization and material savings, cause analysis for the failure is very important. As construction industry is very labor intensive, bringing in drones maybe an option but not very easy to implement. Also, platforms like predictive analytics could be used to improve the various functions and thus savings could be realized. Drone is one of the latest and very useful technology, but implementation of the same in an industry which is not standardized if geographical locations taken into consideration maybe not the most optimal solution.
Drones might be a doable scheme. That can cover the fluctuation of demand of materials. However, before we use it into the consruction site, we should fighre something out. Is the drones easy damaged? Since the construction site is dusty and complex, we should make sure the drones have a long enough lifespan working in the construction site. The cost of drones would be high, and if we have to change the machine frequently, the cost would be higher instead of saving money. Also, emerge an additional transport mothed would lead a huge mount of assiociated cost, like the cost to create a new system, new database, new receiving method, etc. Therefore, we could not say drones would work before getting these information.
The material wastage that is currently taking place in the industry is no doubt massive as it translates to an estimated 160 billion USD, thus the incentive to reduce this wastage is very significant. Utilizing drones for information gathering, inventory and material tracking, performance tracking allows for a significant advantage as the drones can save a large amount of time and resources in comparison to traditional surveillance and audits meaning the data, in theory, could be actively shared with suppliers and vendors leading to very accurate scheduling and shipments. The drones can be utilized for much longer, can be easily maneuvered at any angle or height and can be utilized at any time compared to human surveyors even remotely, the data can be transmitted immediately to the company servers saving time in communications as well. All of this information gathering and transmission will result in massive amounts of information that needs to be stored, transmitted and analyzed. All of these advantages though will only come into practice if there is effective information management system that can handle the massive amounts of information store it, transmit it and above all analyze it in an efficient manner.
The constant surveillance of the employees means that in theory the performance should improve as the workers cannot slack off and performance will be tracked and any problems identified quickly but in practice the employee morale could seriously be affected and they could become stressed and demotivated due to being constantly monitored by an eye in the sky with absolutely minimum amounts of privacy which In itself could lead to legal problems in regards to employee rights and working conditions. Initially I believe the builders will utilize the drone surveillance system in preliminary runs at a limited level instead of forcing its adoption, due to the significant IT management system and network requirements associated with this system the builders might also conduct cost-benefit evaluations for this system as it is also dependant on the IT capabilities of the suppliers and vendors to fully achieve the efficiency gains and savings that are desired.
One relevant example that i have read in the news regarding the use of drones at construction and job sites is that of the Polavaram project, a joint initiative by the central government of India and the state government of Andhra. The estimated cost of the project is USD 8 billion and it is the most prestigious river-linking projects undertaken in recent times. The project has been delayed several times due to irregularities in scheduling purchases that costed a fortune for the government. Therefore, the government of Andhra developed a real-time governance (RTI) system wherein it utilises drones to track not only the progress of the construction activity of the project but also the worker productivity along with the estimated time of completion of the left or right canal construction activities. By use of such drones, the efficiency of construction activity has improved and looks much better now than it had been in the past.
With respect to scale and size of the project, in my opinion, drones can be used to collect data across different construction activities of a certain project and provide visibility to different department heads so as to allow for synchronisation. Also, such information can be directly transmitted to the contractor in real-time to allow him to purchase any materials or utilise any which are already in stock. Builders or contractors in such cases can also benefit from the use of drones (since its cheap) as opposed to the use of human surveyors, which would take longer time, and is prone to errors. In addition to providing detailed information about worker productivity, data collected from drones can also impact behaviour of workers as in they tend to work effectively under surveillance, thereby leading to improved utilisation levels of workers. Transparency in amount of material required and the associated costs can also be achieved by use of such information.
As most my peers have rightly pointed out, hasty decisions to deploy drones to the construction sites may not necessarily lead to changes, rather they could end up costing the company more than it seems to be losing at the moment.
In my opinion, a small site with well defined variables could be used as a test environment. The drones would then be required to transmit real time data in the form of photos or videos that a human resource would analyze and take appropriate decisions, basically like a video input VMI. These would contribute to the overall cost of switching to the new system. Additionally, the company would be required to justify the need for constant surveillance to it workers. It is a well known fact that micro-management often leads to decreased efficiency in a workforce.
If these cost trade-offs can be justified with a large enough margin to accommodate for miscellaneous costs, they can then move on to implementing the system to larger sites.
“15% of materials delivered to construction sires end up in landfills” is a huge number. Data coordination from drones with the purchases needed can definitely reduce the wastage.
Easier said than done, using drone technology will add cost to builders bill. Using drones to capture data maybe useful for large constructions projects, but not with small projects.
Also the risks and the disadvantages of the technology should be properly analyzed before integrating this technology. The data captured of the worker productivity will not have
much impact on the workers’ working behavior as they will always find a way to go around it. Using drones, continuous surveillance of workers is not advisable, as the workers will
loose trust with the builders, which may adversely affect the constructions.
It seems to me that worker productivity would be affected. Job site progress can be very variable, but almost always behind. They often are waiting on 1 approval or another to start another phase of work. If drones watched they might trigger a slower release of materials which in turn would cause another delay. Workers might be incentivized to slow down their work so that they aren’t waiting at transition points as much. This obviously all theoretical, it totally depends on how human the release of materials becomes. It is becomes more automated then it’s puts it at risk, if this is just another chunk of data project managers can use then it adds huge value.
Real time monitoring is something which is becoming popular these days in most of the industries. It is also important because the person monitoring this data can identify the problem and rectify it immediately. Drones provide such real time data to the construction companies who use them to identify any mistake in the design during the construction itself which saves a lot of time and avoids rework.
With this information available readily, the planning becomes more efficient. The progress of a construction project can be tracked easily, and future planning can be done accordingly. Drones also give accurate measurements which helps to save cost on the materials. This also prevents purchasing of excess material or having shortage of materials.
Drones also help in avoiding accidents by providing access to the areas which are difficult to access and dangerous. Drone data can help to focus on areas of concern by a 360-degree inspection using VR safety goggles instead of focusing on unnecessary tasks. They can also be used to identify the inefficiencies of the workers and help to overcome them.
Streamlining of operational job in order to cut on operations costs has been a pressing point since last decade. This makes sense when your margin are going down owing to the fact that due extreme competitive and free market economics not a lot of space is left at the revenue front. Having said that, it also means that operational costs cuts should be budgeted in its real terms and not on the expected estimations. This means that the market still needs proof of concept in emerging technologies in order to adjust to its benefits. Or what I mean is its tough to say that their is a need to cut cost estimates. As far as adoption is concerned, the starting fixed cost and other overheard related to it will make sure that no real benefits are immediately available. But! We need adoption anyway which can be promoted by having a phased and targeted cost cut approach as compared to an outright one.
Secondly, drone technology with precision tech is a vital part of phenomenon called Industry 4.0 . Its adoption and all together technology adoption will serve as the differentiation factor for many companies in the 21st century hence hesitation should not be given any room but yes a rational approach to budgeting should be.
As far as People’s reaction to this is concerned, with proper training and adoption journey, all those things have and will be sorted out.
Drones will enable better synchronization of information flow and material flow. It will monitor data real time and help the companies to take decisions according. Drones will not only help in increasing visibility in the system but also provide access to safety pitfalls for example can help in surveying the land properly and caution for safety issues in the construction site. Reduction in 15% waste ,decrease in the number of accidents and increased visibility and worker productivity will boost savings and will enable the adoption of sites in the construction sites. It will impact worker’ s behavior as they need to be more efficient and well trained to bridge the physical and technology gap.
The new fad of drones is leading techs companies to come up with better applications. Although I am not sure that the this tech would be appropriate to collect the apt data required to decide purchase quantity of construction materials, the idea of it seems promising and the implementation would surely save costs in the construction industry. Coordination models using speculative capacity may seem to be used more often. If drones are able to provide accurate data then there would not be a great need for inventory thereby reducing costs further. I believe that that changes such as these must not be made with immediate effect. The process and savings of this strategy must be analysed in depth before adopting it blindly. As for the worker productivity, it is bound to increase as this technology gets more popular. The reason for this would not only the fear of the workers to be constantly under scrutiny, but also that major faults can be identified promptly.
In accordance with the article, the immediate advantages of having a “Bird’s eye view” are profound. It would lead to better coordination between different teams. For example, a structural designer will be able to communicate the changes needed to the architect in a much better, faster and more transparent way. There would be no need for the collaborating teams to be on site, issues would be detected earlier which would lead to quicker deployment of countermeasures. Apart from that, communication between builders on-site, material planning and purchasing department would be much more synchronized to reduce material wastage and save costs.
Initially, builders would have to spend more to get acclimatized with the drone tech. Any substantial decrease in cost estimates would require collection of several data points and comparison between similar projects. All of this would require several years of data collection to get dependable data. But, it would pay-off in the long run as builders would be able to quote lower prices than the competition. Eventually, every construction company would use this tech to be competitive. This is similar to any “breakthrough” technology which quickly becomes the norm when it proves to reduce costs or provide other tangible benefits.
Workers on the other hand might not be too happy with this change. It is an obvious response to be intimidated by something unknown and something that does not have a human element attached to it. Change will always be resisted and the introduction of drones would follow this norm. Nevertheless, it would lead to better monitoring, reduction in supervisory roles and increase in productivity as a single person would be able to monitor multiple places at the same time. this would also save costs and eventually coerce workers to improve their productivity.
After reading the article, it is crazy to think that so much waste comes from just the construction industry itself and there is certainly room for great improvements with the use of drones to get better synchronization of purchases with needs for the job site. While it seems like a good idea in theory, drones are a newer technology and I feel that construction companies would be slow to adopt the new technology for the fear of it delaying their projects. The last thing they want is to have to delay a project end date because they lose money and it reflects poorly on their company. A coordination model would have to be built that shares the shipping information of purchases for the job site with both sides immediately. When considering the competitive environment in the construction industry to win jobs, you can expect builders to push the companies to be more efficient so they can quote lower prices and win job bids. Adopting the drones has the potential to save construction companies a lot of money, and the first companies to do it will have a temporary competitive advantage over their competitors when it comes to bidding jobs.
When it comes to using the drone camera data to measure worker productivity it is likely that you will see a change in worker behavior over time. Workers will feel like the boss is watching them all the time, so they will stay more busy at work and will be much less likely to slack off. Based on the change in worker behavior, construction companies might start to see an impact in cost estimates.
To reduce the excessive purchasing costs developers and construction companies may implement a revenue sharing, profit sharing, or buyback model. The buyback model is particularly promising because of the prevalence of raw materials used in construction. Unused lumber, rebar, etc. can be taken back by the suppliers and re-sold for other construction projects thanks to low product differentiation. The optimal model largely depends on where the inefficiencies originate. If the builder is responsible for sourcing materials, then the builder is incentivized to reduce costs to preserve the margins on their bid. However, if these costs are also passed on to the developer or end customer, then much more coordination is required. Ultimately, whoever can reach a higher level of cost reduction through cost savings will be more competitive. Most construction projects are sourced through bidding, and thus there is extremely high price visibility for customers.
The use of drones to monitor employee productivity would have uncertain consequences. The drones may detect labor inefficiencies and allow for greater accountability, but it would also have a detrimental effect on morale. A better initial use of drones is to inspect the current status of a construction project to determine what materials will be required next and when. This would directly effect the purchasing timing problems that are the root of much of the 15% waste. This would then allow builders and developers to reduce cost estimates and win more bids.
I think that in order to achieve coordination, a take-or-pay coordinating contract, where the construction companies only pay what they consume and reimburse a fee to their suppliers for unused materials is needed. This would incentivize construction companies to return unused material or otherwise pay the full amount. On the other hand, visibility would create an impact on worker behavior, adding to the reduction in waste.
All these savings would create cost reduction opportunities, allowing construction companies to be more cost competitive when presenting price proposals in project bids.
It’s no new concept that construction sites often tend to become breeding grounds for large amounts of material waste considering the lack of communication between those planning and those actually working within the site. Schedule synchronization using drones to monitor materials being used and materials needed I think should be expected in order to significantly decrease the detrimental amount of cost wasted in materials.
Implementing a trend model of base material inventory on site for different types/sizes of construction jobs and then having the drones monitor the level of inventory needed in potentially a JIT model would decrease material waste significantly as well as regulate the amount of work to be done each day by workers if they were to utilize the amount of materials given at the start of each new cycle in their construction. Not only would the use of drones force workers to adopt the new model, it would also undoubtedly increase the productivity of the workers if they know that they are being held accountable regularly for their work progress which would in turn make project completion dates reach their goals sooner along with dramatically decreasing the loss of costs incurred.
If we continue to create waste and use all of our nonrenewable resources, I am afraid that our planet will be beyond the point of saving. The first step that needs to be taken to limit the amount of waste that is produced should be taken by organizations, since they are contributing to the largest proportion of the waste. With the increase in use of drones this first step for companies will be easier and more cost efficient. The coordination model that companies should follow is the revenue sharing model. This model provides the best outcome for organizations to work together, since cleaning up the world is not within the primary objectives of the firms. I do not expect for current construction builders to cut their costs. If they were able to implement a strategy to cut their costs and force the adoption of the clean of process, companies would be far more profitable in the short and long term. I believe that the additional information will change the way workers behave. With all of this new information, top managers are going to be analyzing this new data to improve their overall efficiency. For a company to have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, their employees must be performing at the highest level.
If we continue to create waste and use all of our nonrenewable resources, I am afraid that our planet will be beyond the point of saving. The first step that needs to be taken to limit the amount of waste that is produced should be taken by organizations, since they are contributing to the largest proportion of the waste. With the increase in use of drones this first step for companies will be easier and more cost efficient. The coordination model that companies should follow is the revenue sharing model. This model provides the best outcome for organizations to work together, since cleaning up the world is not within the primary objectives of the firms. I do not expect for current construction builders to cut their costs. If they were able to implement a strategy to cut their costs and force the adoption of the clean of process, companies would be far more profitable in the short and long term. I believe that the additional information will change the way workers behave. With all this new information, top managers are going to be analyzing this new data to improve their overall efficiency. For a company to have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, their employees must be performing at the highest level.
Take-or-Pay Contracts can be expected to emerge to realize the savings in this case. By introducing drones to the construction sites, the information gathered can reduce the inventory and material wastes. Take-or-pay contracts and are found commonly in Just-In-Time contexts. The constructors will know the exact demand thus carrying minimum amounts of inventories. They will choose a capacity level that is the same as the supply chain profit maximizing level.
The savings can be achieved thus builders will cut their cost estimates. Like the article stated, any small gains in efficiency can cause huge savings.
The added information regarding worker productivity will have impact on cost estimates and it will change worker behavior. The managers will be able to know exactly which areas they need additional workers to increase productivity. It can also reduce the workers on site as drones are more efficient on some tasks. For workers, as the philosophy changed to JIT, they will think from efficiency point of view rather than the traditional approach.
Mismanaged scheduling and purchasing are the main reasons for construction inefficiency. The use of drones allows construction companies to deploy resources more efficiently, minimize potential issues, and trim costs. For supply chain coordination, I also think the take-or-pay contract is a good idea here to generate Pareto-improving outcomes for participating companies. In this way, constructors are motivated to choose an optimal capacity level and use the material more carefully for JIT benefits. Also, models based on information sharing also need to be considered after the use of drones as information transparency is important. Drones would push workers to get more proactively involved in the process improvement. Because if they cannot be good ‘complementors’ for drones, they have the risk of losing their jobs.
Meanwhile, companies need to put more factors into ROI calculation such as drones’ maintenance, and should always take into account downsides from drones, especially for excessive information collecting.
Mismanaged scheduling and purchasing are the main reasons for construction inefficiency. The use of drones allows construction companies to deploy resources more efficiently, minimize potential issues, and trim costs. For supply chain coordination, I also think the take-or-pay contract is a good idea here to generate Pareto-improving outcomes for participating companies. In this way, constructors are motivated to choose an optimal capacity level and use the material more carefully for JIT benefits. Also, models based on information sharing also need to be considered after the use of drones as information transparency is important. Drones would push workers to get more proactively involved in the process improvement. Because if they cannot be good ‘complementors’ for drones, they have the risk of losing their jobs. Meanwhile, companies need to put more factors into ROI calculation such as drones’ maintenance, and should always take into account downsides from drones, especially for excessive information collecting.
Mismanaged scheduling and purchasing are the main reasons for construction inefficiency. The use of drones allows construction companies to deploy resources more efficiently, minimize potential issues, and trim costs. For supply chain coordination, I also think the take-or-pay contract is a good idea here to generate Pareto-improving outcomes for participating companies. In this way, constructors are motivated to choose an optimal capacity level and use the material more carefully for JIT benefits. Also, models based on information sharing also need to be considered after the use of drones as information transparency is important. Drones would push workers to get more proactively involved in the process improvement. Because if they cannot be good ‘complementors’ for drones, they have the risk of losing their jobs. Meanwhile, companies need to put more factors into ROI calculation such as drones’ maintenance, and should always take into account downsides from drones, especially for excessive information collecting.
The coordination between related department is required. From the data collected from the labor’s sides to the operation of the procurement, the coordination models may have better synchronization of purchases with needs. From my point of view, this kind of revolution will have impact on the worker behaviors which motivates them to work more efficiently or reduce the waste.
However, maybe it will also contribute to extra costs to train the employees or to make the labors be adapt to this policy, the cost for fixing and maintain the drones and so on.
It’s really concerning to read about the percentage of material that goes to waste due to lack of coordination or synchronization in construction sites. The idea of incorporating new technology, as drones, that would help construction companies have a better control and access to updated data, in real time, would contribute to huge savings. At the same time another way to incorporate saving in this industry would be using coordination a contract models with their suppliers. Construction companies need to think strategically when negotiating and signing contracts, in order to find a balance and a win-win agreement they could consider celebrating return contracts, where contractors would have the option to return back the material that has not been used, with an agreed salvage cost to be assumed, this way it would reduce the downside risk, and being able to avoid the loss of billions every year.
But with the additional incorporation of drones the construction industry, real time information would influence positively in project’s control, hence more precise coordination with workers and suppliers. This would as well influence in the productivity of workers, having the right tools and materials when is needed will have positive impact in the flow of work and progress of their project.
The volume of construction waste generated worldwide every year will nearly double to 2.2 billion tons by the year 2025, according to Construction and Demolition Recycling. In order to solve this issue, supplier and construction companies may use a buy-back contract where unused material can be sold back to supplier, thus reducing the waste. In the last few years, drones have helped make several improvements in construction, from increased accuracy in reporting, to improving safety conditions, to cutting costs and increasing efficiency. Savings from waste reduction, decrease in number of accidents could push builders to cut their cost estimates and to adopt such measures. As far as workers behavior is concerned, knowing that drones are continuously monitoring, workers would be more active which might increasing their productivity. But such surveillance might also have a negative impact on workers behavior, decreasing their morale and increasing stress levels.
A returns contract could be useful in realizing savings for the both the construction contractor and the supplier. If materials are still in good condition, the supplier can offer to buy back unused supplies at a value which is less that the supplier’s original cost. This would motivate the contractor to be cautious about their supply use, as they could recover costs by returning said supplies. Less would need to end up in landfills and the contractor’s disposal costs would decrease. This also benefits the supplier, as they can recover materials for less than their original cost and re-sell them at (or close to) retail price. The supplier would therefore reduce the number of units its needs to produce, as returns would consist of up to 15% of their products.
On the other hand, drones could be used to monitor supply inventory and stabilize the frequencies of purchases and total quantity purchased. Builders should be able to reduce their spending on supplies while still ensuring there is enough present. The same technology could be used for productivity purposes. If workers know they might be monitored, they could be more willing to work efficiently to avoid disciplinary actions. Personally, I don’t think this would be a good strategy as it comes across to workers as controlling productivity through fear. Their could be other reasons to increase productivity or reduce waste, such as implementing incentive pay for finishing a project early or being able to use fewer supplies.
A return contract model can be useful, it will help to increase the coordination and thus having beneficial effects. I do not believe that the 15% of waste will translate linearly to a 15% savings, as technology will have its costs and also the return of materials will play a part.
Drones will influence the behavior of workers if they take more than just pictures. That would be just scratching the surface.
Drones can be also be set up in a way that they provide more data to the construction firms, and can be used by the suppliers to begin “servicizing” their business to construction companies.
Much like airlines and their airplanes suppliers, where airlines pay a monthly fee to receive the processed data and know when each of their airplanes will need maintenance, the same could be applied here. Drones can supply the companies with a lot of data not only material shortages.
In Argentina there is a saying that roughly translated would be like “the eye of the owner fattens the cattle”. I believe that employee behavior will definitely change, for good or worse, if the drones collect data of their workplace, especially if it is another company the one holding the information. It would be also good to understand that before implementing this measures. It can save money, prevent accidents, but can also lower the morale.
$160 billion waste due to the unsynchronized schedules and purchasing issues in the construction industry. As the article said, drones would enable better synchronization, which promoted the coordination between suppliers and construction companies. Since drones are able to monitor the sites and send back real-time information to construction companies. Then companies would be able to adjust the amounts of inventories they carried, and the excess inventory could be returned to the suppliers. $160 billion is a huge number, if builders could save this amount of money by adopting the drones, they would definitely cut their cost estimates.
I believe this strategy will change worker behavior in both positive and negative ways. I remember that several years ago, the intersection in front of the Rawls was under construction and it took several months to be completed. It was a nightmare driving to the Purdue campus. If drones were used to monitor the construction site, workers would know their performance was being monitored, thus, it is likely that employees would become more productive as a result. However, this may cause workers to feel uncomfortable during work time. It’s like your boss keeps staring at you when you are doing your job. But in general, I believe the outcomes would be positive.
I think this is a good idea, but objectively there are still many challenges. First of all, the role of drones depends largely on the development of its own technology. Although many industries have begun attempts to work with drones, they have not been able to achieve maximum efficiency at least at this stage. For example, Amazon started an attempt to deliver drones a few years ago, but it has also created some new problems and risks. Similarly, the use of drones in the construction industry may be helpful to a certain extent, but we should still be alert to the problems that may accompany it. On the other hand, the integration of drone technology into the construction industry is bound to face the demand for high-level information sharing. Generally speaking, it is difficult for the construction industry to independently develop drone projects, so it is likely to need to cooperate with a third party. Under such circumstances, information security will also become a big challenge. So I think in the long run, the introduction of drones into the construction industry is a trend that can be expected, but how to face the problems that may arise is also a big challenge.
No doubt drone will help in analyzing the construction site and provide data support for future research. However I highly doubt if this can help in saving construction materials. My understanding of the situation is the construction materials were wasted more because of the misconnection between the construction site and vendors – so the data collected might be better used to inform the vendor of the construction progress and then the vendor can further adjust delivery and production. With this being said, most likely the savings would not be directly deducted in spending as how efficient is the data would still be in doubt. The cost estimate is the same situation. However, knowing there is a drone up in the sky would probably increase worker’s productivity – if no privacy concern is raised.
What coordination models can be expected to emerge to realize these savings?
Coordination between software and hardware will create a much better understanding of the degree of accomplishment for buildings and therefore will give a better understanding of how much is left to do. Indeed, if you compare the BIM maps of the building with the real time data from the drone, construction companies will have a much better understanding of what is left and therefore procure in consequences.
Will builders cut their cost estimates to expect these savings and thus force their adoption?
Companies that will implement successfully this technology will be able to better monitor their construction sites and therefore create some savings. Those company will have a significant competitive advantage over the industry and by cutting costs. However saving are not straightforward for companies. Those new tools will only give data to be analyzed. Finding way to cut cost is another layer of work that need to be done.
Will the added information regarding worker productivity, from camera data, impact cost estimates or will it change worker behavior?
Being monitored will obviously impact workers behaviors. Indeed, they might be more careful about the way they use materials but also will feel more pressure to increase their productivity. Indeed, it is now very difficult for companies to track performances of their individual workers but also who is doing what and when. By having all those data, it is going to completely change the way construction and team are managed and performed.
The use of cameras to monitor the status of jobs/employees was mentioned in class as a means to hold people accountable. The aerial security camera idea would likely do that. The workers would feel pressured to do the right thing, not cut corners, and reduce waste from being constantly surveilled. In addition, if this information was shared with suppliers they can use the footage to assess progress. This reduces the information asymmetry, and could allow for a more vendor managed inventory system.
I also thought that there is potential to incentivize recycling and the reduction of waste with a (potentially) win-win solution. This drone system would likely bring to light inefficiencies, inefficiencies that may be able to be capitalized upon. If the builder sold back the waste, especially if it was raw material waste, to the vendor, then the vendor could repurpose this material and integrate it back into their inventory at a reduced cost then selling the same materials more than once. They could even scrap it and possibly turn even more profit. The builder is able to reduce their waste management costs while being able to credibly advertise that they are environmentally friendly. This could have unforeseen fiscal benefits.
The issues are caused by the unsynchronized information flow and delay of information update. The coordination model should be information sharing which bring real-time elements together. The role of the drone is to collect data at any time and analyze the data to expect the cost correctly. In my opinion, the builders should not cut too much cost right after the adoption. It needs time to adapt this saving model. If they hope this is the only way to save much costs, it will be too risky. Besides, the camera data will change worker behavior. Under the drone monitor the workers, it may improve the productivity and save some labor cost in future.
Based on the content in this passage, I would like to say take-or-pay contracts can be further applied as a saving tool in this case, however I think direct buyback might can work better. When we talk about the buyback model, both parties can be better involved since is this industry lots of raw materials are being used and wasted. If they can apply the buyback policy, the whole process can be recorded and reflected in a more accurate manner. Especially the builder will put more effort into the bid and material control process. In this condition, less wastes will be produced and the whole production will be cleaner.
As for using the drones to monitor employee, it would be controversial since everything has two sides. Its is true that by using the drones the process might be viewed as a better and clearer picture. Also, it can potentially detect some obvious less insufficient activities and some hazard related actions. But, in the meantime it creates an atmosphere that less trusts can be given among to parties. It might hurt the long-term healthy growth for those two. It would make more sense if the drones are using for inspect the current status of the project and make future recommendations
Drones can be used to monitor the material inventories, and and collect data to understand when to re-stock, somewhat tied to a VMI model. For waste reduction particularity, buy-back contracts between the supplier and construction companies can be used to sell any unused material back to supplier, thus reducing the waste created, in turn creating savings. There are many challenges however, with implementing drones. The technology, maintenance, investment and experts required for drone operation as well as real-time progress updates, and the sharing of procurement and distribution information have to be kept transparent for such a coordination model to work,
Only after seeing the benefits and realized savings of adopting such models, will builders cut their cost estimates and force adoption. A lot of research and development has to be done, with several trial runs and large data collection, but if successful, may definitely encourage builders to confidently and adamantly adopt this.
Yes, I do believe this will change worker behavior and lead to savings due to increased productivity. Focus will be put on idle time of workers, and the data can be used to assess how much more productive the workers can be. But it must be said that, even boundaries should be put on how much we can utilize our workers, because after all, they are human. The camera data should be primarily used to assess idle times and increased productivity standards, to a certain point.
According to McKinsey, the sector’s annual productivity growth in the United States has only increased 1% over the past 20 years. According to other data, from 1947 to 2010, the compound annual growth rate in the construction sector was 0.1%, in contrast to the growth for example in agriculture – 4.5%. There is no doubt that this industry needs a colossal increase in operational efficiency.
On the one hand, it is important to improve coordination between clients and the construction companies. If the client is willing to pay extra from to 15 to 40% of a house cost to the contractor, then there is no incentive for construction companies to improve operational performance.
On the other hand, close coordination with a highly efficient IT industry and tight relationships with its suppliers can bring huge benefits to construction companies. Incentives like revenue sharing agreements would help the large customer, such as corporations, suppliers, and to performer work more closely to profit from coordinating the entire value chain. As well as to, rise supply chains goodwill. Also, large customers can leverage their cost modeling analyzes of their construction service providers to prepare the foundation for negotiations.
The facts for the last 50 years show that builders do not cut, but rather increase their irrational costs. In the case of using innovative and effective solutions, of course, costs will be reduced.
In my opinion, using camera data is an ethical issue. And, I am strongly convinced, that it is not possible to make a robot out of a person without making serious changes. The cost estimate can be changed. However, whether it will work in practice, if the work is carried out as before? However, the use of new technologies instead of human labor, and incentives for coordinations will be more beneficial for construction companies.
The two reasons for which 15% of construction materials are going to waste, according to the article, are scheduling issues and purchasing issues. To combat these two causes, a take-or-pay contract can be introduced. With this model, the suppliers can commit to holding onto inventory and negate loss when the construction company withdraws from the purchase. Because of the nature of construction materials, the fright cost is usually high due to large volumes and heavy handling. Thus a return nor a buy-back contract is no preferred.
Builders are will not cut their cost estimates and they will not force the adoption. The 15% wasted materials serves as room for safety stock and margin for profit in interest of both vendor and builders. There is no reasons for neither parties to precisely calculate the material needed.
The added data will work as a reference tool whoever hired the construction team, yet retaliation would be expected from the team as well. Sadly, some sacrifice is always needed for the human nature.
In the article, it says that 15% of materials delivered to construction sites end up in landfills. This is no doubt a large number in such a huge industry. It also says that they can use a drone in the construction site to get the data so that they can better deal with the needs to reduce the waste. In that case, I believe a buyback contract can help them with that. Because the most materials in the construction site might be sands or lumbers, they can be used by all construction work. If they are not used in this one, they can be collected and sent to another one if needed. So, in that scenario, the cost and waste can both be reduced. But some suppliers may not want to sign this contract because their profit are reduced in that way. They best way to solve this issue is to share the information between suppliers and the site so that they both know how much material will consume. Then suppliers can make a promise like supplement with the same price or low-price buyback to prevent excessive purchase or waste.
For builders, I doubt if they are willing to cut the cost estimate and force the adoption because for a builder, the most important thing when constructing a building is to finish it on time. They definitely don’t want to see their work being interrupted because of the shortage of the material. That’s might be another reason there are so many wastes because they always order more to prevent shortage. Although 15% is a large number in the whole picture, if we look at every single site, the material doesn’t cost that much. At least I believe they’d rather run the risk of more cost in that part in delay because that will cost more for them.
After adding a camera in every site, there must some reduction in the cost estimates, but I still think there will be much waste due to the reasons above. And workers may be more careful in dealing with the material because they don’t have much to ‘waste’.
I disagree with the article that drones could improve this coordination process through monitoring of worker productivity. This is an expensive digital solution that would not be applicable to the whole industry. Additionally, regular industrial drones have a short battery life (20-30 mins) and require specialized training, leading to high set-up cost, higher operating cost and increase worker safety risk as well. Other alternatives should be considered for a construction project with many dependent factors such as design, waste, skilled contractors, raw material availability, budget and environment. Here, I think coordination between purchasing and operations can be improved by uninterrupted sharing of information on changing needs, designs and pace of project completion. Additionally, project management and regular planning meetings can bring further reduce waste in the process.
The huge waste of construction material caused by the unsynchronized purchase with need should be paid more attention. Recently using drones to collect data on construction sites can reduce such costs. To realize these savings, Take-or-pay contracts will be the most suitable coordination models. The Take-or-Pay contract will force the builder to pay more attention to the accuracy of demand forecasting because they will get a penalty if they order too much and coordination with suppliers. Drones are cheaper and efficient than manned aircraft and human surveyors and coordinate with computing tools it can turn data into 3D structural models, topographical maps, and volumetric measurements, which will motivate workers to save more material and improve their productivity because their performance will be collected by drones.
This article presents an interesting innovation for the construction industry. Due to the complexities around selecting what data to collect and understanding the data, I believe the builders that decide to partner with the drone and software developers would be the ones to have an operational product first and be able to leverage the cost reduction to win more contracts. The proposed improvements in coordination would come from allowing purchasing and management to see a better overall picture of the progress of all the construction sites and pair the ordering of materials with that progress. It would take a while for the builders to start adjusting their cost estimates since they would need to develop confidence that the drones could achieve a steady cost reduction. In terms of worker relations, the data from the drones could help develop methods to improve worker productivity but risks demoralizing workers by putting a constant supervisor over them.
$160 billion worth of materials wasted in construction sites is alarming without any doubt. Use of drones in construction sites will enable better synchronization of purchase with needs. However, it is very important to understand in what detail the drones will be able to collect data. Do they just take pictures of materials from the construction site and report it to a central office or do the drones can measure the quantity of material available and perform analysis to come up with an approximate requirement? If it can, then drones can substantially reduce the amount of waste and thereby dollar amount spent.
Proper feedback provided to workers at regular intervals regarding the performance observed from the drones, can help improve worker productivity. However, if the drones are used merely as a surveillance camera, I do not see any improvement in worker productivity in the long run.
As i saw that some of my classmates think that profit share model should be implied, however, i personally think that this method is not applicable, since companies are less likely to share their profit in case it becomes public. I would recommend to apply data sharing model, since the application of drones would have better performance in data collecting more efficiently, in-time and more accurate. The share of these data would help suppliers know a more accurate amount of inventories, and thus have less inventories in-stock, and therefore reduce cost. As mentioned in the article, a small number of percentage reduce in cost would result in a large number of saving in total costs, since the scale is as large as $1.13 trillion.
Besides what stated above that the inventory costs would be reduces, the efficiency of workers would increase and waste of inventories would reduce a lot for sure with the use of drones. However, i am not sure if drones would really help reduct costs as a total, because apply new technology is expensive. The cost of having drones is large, including managing, cleaning, repairing and installing. Also, we would need extra workers working on analyzing data collected by drones, and this is project that consumes large amount of labor and time. Will the save in cost cover the new cost? That is a question.Therefore, i would not recommend the application for drones.
To achieve these savings, it is expected that more efficient information sharing between different teams will be required. This will allow collaborative teams to monitor remotely, so as to discover and solve problems promptly.
I don’t think the builders are going to cut costs right away, and they’re not going to force it. Because it might run into resistance and might not work smoothly.
Drones could help make information sharing more efficient, and more employee data may help companies reduce labor costs, but the potential added cost is hard to estimate. At the same time, it might not be a good way to change employee behavior. Since drones may or may not be able to accurately monitor workers and improve productivity. The risks here remain uncertain.
This is a classic example of how disruptive technology could be! But to implement it in the given setting, we need to take a systems perspective of the current process. In a construction industry, most of the supply is not stored but is processed, and directly consumed (for example: Cement) due to its limited life before consumption. This causes the unused inventory or the excess inventory to be wasted. Now, what causes this excess? There is a gap between the scheduled project and the actual rate at which the project progresses, due to different factors like worker productivity, weather conditions, etc. So, we are not at a stage where the material is required, but since this material has already arrived, we need to dispose this off and order another. That’s a big source of inefficiency. Through coordination and maintaining close ties with the vendor, we need the supply to be in sync with the current progress and not the planned schedule. But the supplier has a lead time and cannot instantly supply the inventory. This is where drones come into picture. If we can adjust the forecast based on the current rate of progress and integrate this data into our system, we can reduce the gap caused due to scheduling errors.
At the same time, surveillance will act as a monitoring & control system, similar to a reinforcement method, for workers to be productive and an incentive system could be applied to increase productivity. Thus, matching forecasts based on current level of progress and maintaining close relations with suppliers through incentives, on service level for example, will reduce the wastage in inventory. And mechanisms to improve worker productivity will reduce the controllable aspect of deviation from planned schedule.
The construction industry is booming rapidly and the role of technology is increasing at every level. The use of drones in construction is likely to result in significant growth. Unfortunately, 15% of materials delivered to construction sites end up in landfills because schedules are not synchronized or purchasing issues result in inefficient data transmission. Drones can help fix this issue, due to their capabilities to access otherwise inaccessible and hazardous areas and easily collect data (photographic visualization, thermal cameras that can detect leaks and cracks in the building) to provide real-time information. Drones can also lower project costs and increase worker productivity by tracking their performance on-site, therefore encouraging efficient work habits and leading to significant improvement in surveying accuracy. Furthermore, drones can also create new jobs and add value to the construction sector.
I think for coordination, the first thing is that companies should agree to show their job sites for drone companies to shoot pictures from them. Also, they should list some important information to let drone companies to reduce the waste of the time of shooting unimportant things. I think builders can reduce some costs if they get to know which types of constructions have redundant wastes because this method can show the whole process or route and can analyst these information. Combined with new system, Data of these could also give the right optimal answer for builders to curtail wastful activities. These concept can be intergrated to lean production, whcih focus on reduction of wastes and unnecessary activities to make more savings. From the sky to observe these things, drone with camera actually could work and provide some data and information that are difficult to be found. By sharing these to builders, they can coordinate well to avoid making another mistakes that cost more budget. Therefore, in my opinion, this method could work if builders are willing to share these information to cooperate with drone companies.
From the article, 15% of materials are waste. Construction should depend on software and hardware to model their supply material, historical data, supplier information, project information, and construction progress. However, from my experience in the construction company, using drones can be harder than the article said to inspect the construction site or get data. Many of the skills and technics an only be supervised by engineers in person. For example, how well is the concrete filled? How well is the Scaffolding installed and tighted? Building construction sites have many details and special methods by labors’ skills. This is a new way of thinking. But it still needs more time to be maturer.
Savings are always something that is most sought after by any company. 15% savings is a lot and definitely the constuction industry will be targeting to exploit coordination upstream to prevent or mitigate the wastage. I would say since construction is an eternal business and that is omnipresent, a coordination using warehouses is a good option. Construction material other than cement can be held at these and then distributed from there. Cement for major constructions are anyway made locally and do not have to be taken into consideration for coordination. Since video is a strong evidence, worker productivity is bound to increase and workers would become more ale. Thus the worker behavior is going to improve for sure.
Builders will not immediately cut their costs as they would want to realize the benefits for sure. They would want to test whether they are actually getting a 15% savings and unless you want to increase demand why would you reduce costs. The cost reduction would just help in achieving operational efficiency and an increase in margin. Also, these savings are subjective and might not be realized everytime.
It is necessary for any organisation to see if the new emerging technology is feasible to them rather than picking it up as everyone is. The article says that Drone technology would be “sending data from job sites, integrated with structural model will enable better synchronization of purchases with needs”. But in my opinion the problem of 15% wastage of materials is deeper than gathering data from the sites. Therefore, I believe builders would not factor this savings without trying it first hand at their sites. Builders can try out this project on pilot basis and see the results and later account for savings instead of creating un-realistic estimates and taking a hit later on.
Any sort of surveillance would bring in certain discipline in the working class but overdoing it will take away the very essence of innovation and creation. But I believe a drone in a construction site could monitor things such as material wastage and long un-used raw materials effectively and therefore increasing the accountability of the workers.
In my opinion, allowing drone monitoring of construction sites has advantages in several forms. Firstly, wastage can be prevented by identifying areas where the material is required so that it is adequately purchased and also by analysing pictures of stockpiles of material present on the construction sites to prevent them from going into landfills. Secondly, drone monitoring can lead to a resolution of various compliance as well as safety-related issues. This will change worker behaviour when they know in hindsight that real-time monitoring is ongoing. This will ensure compliance with their KPIs. Thirdly, the information collected needs to be shared to derive the maximum value from it.
The savings obtained from reducing waste, need to be weighed against the capital expenditure and operating costs for the hardware and software required for the drone monitoring. This will be able to tell us if this a financially viable solution or not.
According to the article, the coordination between related department is required. The idea of incorporating new technology, like drones, that would help construction companies have better control and access to updated data, in real-time, would contribute to huge savings. Ultimately, whoever can reach a higher level of cost reduction through cost savings will be more competitive. Most construction projects are sourced through bidding, and thus there is extremely high price visibility for customers. The process and savings of this strategy must be analyzed in depth before adopting it blindly. As for worker productivity, it is bound to increase as this technology gets more popular. The reason for this would not only the fear of the workers to be constantly under scrutiny, but also that major faults can be identified promptly. So this still uncertain.
Drones can definitely help with regards to surveillance and video analytics on a construction site. In my opinion, it can help in tracking of projects and ensure that accidents are avoided. It will also increase safety for people who could be onsite and are now not there due to the drone capabilities.
The analysis needs to be made about whether investing in drones offsets the benefits it provides with the data, surveillance and tracking advantages and then the decision to incorporate them can be made.
Another advantage could be that it could become an important source of information and data that could be used to improve safety, avoidance of wastage in future projects.
Construction waste comprises 25 – 40% of the America’s solid waste and one major contributor for this waste is the unoptimized purchases of the construction materials. Using drones to create a digital twin of the construction site is a good idea because unmanned aerial vehicles are known to reach areas that are inaccessible or difficult to reach. Collecting data using the drones and analyzing the demand should significantly lower the wastage, help in monitoring the site in real-time. From a capital expenditure point of view, the cost of purchasing and operating cost should be able to justify itself by the amount of savings it can derive. Moreover, from an environmental point of view, reduction of wastage through the coordination between the raw material and material purchasing will decrease the load of the environment by reducing the waste dumped in the landfills
Landfills waste was constructed of up to 40% from the America construction industry. The reason for this high contribution is from the unsynchronized materials planning between schedules and purchasing. Coordination between these two departments should be encouraged to minimize the cost for construction companies.
Drone technology is being utilized in recently for automatic delivering and analyzing. In this case, drones could be used to investigate the construction site to report real time progress in order for materials purchasing coordination. However, implementation of new technology associated with risks, these implementation should be applied in a small scale before being used as a major tools. Builders should gradually reduce their cost estimates to encourage the adoption of new technology for more effective resource planning.
The data coming from drones could cause workers to worry about their privacy, however, the software could be designed to only pick up the layout of the construction site instead of human activities. This way, workers can be assured their privacy while information can be obtained effectively.
By using drones from job sites, it helps to coordinate and make work easier. Additionally, it changes the traditional model by applying data, transform data into useful information and then capture the business value. From the standpoint of laboring cost, the drones saves the costs, increase the productivity as well. Working with both clients and suppliers can coordinate for the whole chain and maximize the benefits for both sides.
The coordination between the purchasing department to the project manager is really important to give on-time update on the status of job in order to avoid excess purchasing. Drones have been widely used recently for investigating, takeing photos, or even making delivery. Although it is still a new technology, however, the reliability of this technology has been proven. Using drone to send job site data, is not only saving labor human cost, but give live information of the construction site that helps improve the synchronization between the resources planning and the construction manager. Cutting cost estimate will encourage companies to adopt this technology faster. This will not violate the privacy of the workers, because the drone data could be modified to only pick up job site layout instead of human movement.
This is a clear example of how inefficiencies occur in construction operations. Improving coordination with the different parties can be a great opportunity to address these inefficiencies. In class, we discussed how different agreements could be reached in order to generate win-win situations for suppliers and customers.
An example of this is buy-back model, in which having a better view of the whole supply chain can help to address overstock inefficiencies. Having drones may help to have a better understanding about where this saving opportunities can occur, but it is just a small part of the equation. I believe that it very important to understand the nature of data and identify what are the major contributors of cost (ABC analysis) and it is also key to manage the workers’ handle the feeling of being observed all the time.
An interesting model has been adopted by a company called Falcon Management Partners in South America. It is a modification of revenue sharing model that has enabled tremendous growth for the company. They basically help companies find saving opportunities and charge a percentage of the savings that are generated due to a particular project. The company has been successful for taking advantage of “enlarging the profit pie” for both companies. I think there is room for this kind of services to be implemented to drive significant savings and add value in construction.
Regarding co-ordination models, drones can be helpful in mapping visual progress of site construction activities. This information can be analyzed in order to ensure purchasing needs based on current progress. This shall help cut down procurement costs and reduce delays. As builders have several projects running simultaneously, investing into drones seems appropriate since they can be easily used on other projects as well.
Data captured will three things: 1) potentially mapping areas where efficient workers are needed 2) Analyzing potential scope for automation 3) Increasing workers efficiency
By using drone data from job sites, integrated with structural models to calculate the accurate synchronization demand would help to avoid unnecessary costs on raw materials, holding costs, transportation costs, etc. Applied drones would impact cost estimates and worker behavior during the project. Under cameras, worker productivity can be improved as well as material usage rates. Adding information regards worker productivity would help to conduct more accurate models.