As digitalization progresses, the construction industry is increasingly collecting and processing large amounts of data, from project plans and construction schedules to real-time monitoring and maintenance logs. This data forms the basis for data-driven decisions that allow construction projects to be planned more precisely and executed more efficiently. By analyzing this data, construction companies can make informed decisions, minimize risks and reduce costs. However, these advances also bring new challenges, particularly in terms of cyber security, as protecting sensitive construction data is essential. Cybersecurity is becoming an integral part of the digital transformation in construction, making data-driven decisions possible.
In the following expert discussion between Karoliina Torttila (Director AI, Trimble) and Jim Coleman (Senior Engineering Director of the Trimble Innovation Technology Group), the focus is not only on how Trimble is driving digitalization in the construction industry with its tools, but also on general issues of cyber security, data analysis and making data-based decisions as a factor for greater efficiency and productivity.
You can watch the full expert discussion in the video below with German subtitles or read it on this page.
How can Trimble support the digitalization of the construction industry?
Karoliina Torttila: Trimble is very well positioned to find an answer to many of these challenges of how to maintain and renovate our existing built environment, which is becoming more and more topical for most industrialized countries.
Jim Coleman: We take this term "physical" and have to understand it in the sense of "digital". How do we do that? By collecting data and processing the data. You've always said, and I keep quoting this, that Trimble has done a really good job of building sensors and tools to produce data for customers. But we haven't done a really good job of building tools to help them understand or sort through that data. This is where we are now in this fantastic area of AI. We can even talk a little bit about cybersecurity here because the data is so important. We want to make sure that the data remains accessible to the customers who need it, but not to the customers who might want to exploit it.
Karoliina Torttila: Exactly. In the construction industry, we always talk about our lack of productivity and how backward we are sometimes, but if we really want to move forward as an industry, we need to move to data-driven decision making. And you can only make data-driven decisions if you have the data.
Jim Coleman: To make actionable decisions in real time, because if you make a decision based on data that's a week old, that's a random decision.
Karoliina Torttila: Because in this case you don't have trust in the data. And it's interesting because in many ways we've become these organizers of these data streams where a robot with a scanner is here capturing data or an inspector with an app on their phone is here capturing data or someone is out on the roads with a mobile mapping device. And what we're essentially trying to do to understand the construction site or the broader construction environment is to link these different data streams together, process these different data streams and then take our actions based on that.
Jim Coleman: But it also allows us to react better to things that just pop up, which always happens on construction projects. Things always pop up, the unexpected is always an issue. So it's natural for Trimble to make data-driven decisions when these things just pop up.
Karoliina Torttila: Construction managers often describe their work as constantly putting out fires. Although you can try to plan ahead, there will always be surprises: Materials are delivered late, you knock down a wall and discover something you really weren't expecting. Of course, we always try to plan ahead as much as possible, but being able to anticipate, capture that data, process it and then revise our plans based on that is incredibly important. It doesn't turn the site manager's job into a constant fire-fighting exercise, but gives them a slightly more proactive view of the site.
Jim Coleman: And that's one of the areas that I appreciate about your team, is the focus on AI and the ability to develop tools that help Trimble and Trimble customers work a little bit more predictively.
What will be the biggest challenges in the future when it comes to making data truly usable?
Karoliina Torttila: Something interesting is the transfer of data from the office to the field and back to the office and the interaction of this data. So it's kind of a constant ping-pong between the data coming from the field to the office and from the office to the field, and so on. And I think that's a really exciting part of the data flow.
Jim Coleman: Especially when we talk about the retrofit projects that you're working on, we still have that design, build and operate process. But now it's more about sustainability.
Karoliina Torttila: If we look at the building stock in Europe, we estimate that 75 to 80 percent of buildings will already be in use in 2050. This means that a large part of our construction sector is looking at existing buildings, looking at retrofit processes and looking at ways to make them more effective. This is where a lot of the data collection from the physical world is going into not only planning, but also areas such as offsite manufacturing and prefabrication of building components to carry out these retrofit measures.
Jim Coleman: It goes back to what you always say: we've done a fantastic job of creating the data and helping clients create the data, and that in itself is good, but the barrier to change is manipulating that data in a usable way.
How will access to digital technologies change as a result of AI?
Karoliina Torttila: One challenge we've had with a lot of building technologies is that there's still a pretty steep learning curve to use them. Whether it's modeling software, these laser scanners or your ERP systems. There's always been a learning curve. The interesting thing about some of the newer AI developments with big language models and these chat interfaces and so on is that maybe we're getting to an age where the learning curve isn't so high anymore, so these tools and technologies are more accessible without lengthy training.
Jim Coleman: That's right. There really is a pull from efficiency and not just a push to use the technology.
How important is the topic of "interoperability"?
Karoliina Torttila: I think it's promising that you can start to bundle your technology, not just Trimble's, but also our partners and competitors, and you can start to combine that technology better, and of course we're committed to interoperability and so on. You can look at your workflows and then try to identify and solve those smallest problems. If you don't want to redesign everything at once.
Jim Coleman: As long as the tools work together, which we're working on at Trimble, it's getting easier, less friction and an overall win for the customer.
What role will artificial intelligence play in analyzing data in the future?
Karoliina Torttila: It's not just about connecting the physical and the digital, it's also about connecting these different tools, the data and the workflows within the tool ecosystem. Artificial intelligence will be an answer to the problems of scaling that we have encountered, the problems of having these large amounts of data and having to process it very quickly. But every time we try to do something at scale, we have to be very careful because errors also accumulate.
Jim Coleman: The interesting thing about AI is that it's a double-edged sword: it's a tool that helps us. It enables us to do so many more things with our data. But it's also an enabler for bad actors. So we have the idea that we can achieve incredible speed with the AI tools and the data we provide them with. But it's the criminals out there in the world that want to get involved. They have access to the same tools.
Karoliina Torttila: I think that brings us to the point of how we design our systems, our ecosystems. Resilience is really at the heart of what we want to do.
Jim Coleman: I love the word resilience in this context.
Karoliina Torttila: We should think about how we design our systems and our technology and design for resilience from the outset.
Jim Coleman: Here too, we keep our customers' data for the customer. We don't want it leaking out everywhere. We need to understand the true value of that data.
Karoliina Torttila: Cyber security is not just an important issue for us, but for every technology provider in the world, so we can only tackle this issue together.
Jim Coleman: It's a must, not a "nice to have".
Karoliina Torttila: That is very true.
Into the digital future with software solutions from Trimble
Driving digital transformation in the construction industry requires appropriate software solutions such as Viewpoint For Projects and Viewpoint Field View. Together, these two tools help to leverage the previously untapped potential of digitalization in the construction industry. At the same time, we guarantee the protection of sensitive (construction) data in our tools and in the exchange of data between the various stakeholders:
Viewpoint For Projects - the construction management software
ISO 19650 conformity for international standards in information management
Optimization of construction processes through precise planning and analysis
Improving communication and coordination between project participants
Support for data-based decision-making
Access to construction documentation from anywhere - both online and offline
Viewpoint Field View - the construction site documentation app
Efficient defect and task management in real time
Customizable forms for mobile devices
Digitization of information to increase efficiency
Real-time communication between office and construction site
Creation of configurable project models with detailed tracking options
Would you like to find out more about our digital software solutions for the construction industry? For more information and to arrange a personal demo appointment, please click here: https://www.viewpoint.com/
