This article is part of a blog series, in which we discuss how the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics will grow, as well as the benefits and challenges of using them in the construction industry.
Traditional industries like automotive, consumer goods, and manufacturing have used robots for a long time to expand their businesses. Worldwide, less advanced industries, like construction, are also looking at how they can automate processes using robots in areas like i-beams, insulation, and the production of construction materials.
Construction companies are always looking for ways to improve their sites' operations through the introduction of digital tools and robots. IoT, and data analytics coupled with robots can help you to minimize health and safety threats, go over budget, schedule overruns, theft, and waste issues.
Robots and IoT are used to cut, stack, bundle, package, palletize, and monitor data and asset utilization.
For example, Fanuc Robotics developed a robot that can manipulate fiberglass insulation, polyisocyanurate board insulation, house wrap, and pipe foam insulation.
Robots are fully customizable to meet your client's expectations according to their requirements. Integrating robots and IoT into your workflow will help you to be more efficient and more competitive if you use them in your fabrication process.
Construction projects are well-known for being late and missing deadlines.
BIM and IoT devices connected to robots can help construction companies track their projects' progress.
By equipping site workers and machinery with IoT, such as connected sensors, construction companies can track employee and asset movements to ensure resources are optimized.
IoT enabled management systems help keep track of material deliveries to sites, so projects can meet deadlines, and reduce costs.
Digital twins of a building not yet built can help to ensure efficiency, keep projects on track, and keep costs under control by testing designs, keeping plans on track through simulations, and improving operational processes before physical construction begins.
IoT connected sensors and digital tracking tools can help reduce theft.
According to insurer Allianz Cornhill, thefts from construction sites cost the UK construction industry $800 Million a year.
The main causes of accidents in the construction industry include cuts, falls, flying objects landing on workers, and lifting or carrying items.
Site managers can be alerted when workers enter unsafe site areas, thanks to wearables that monitor hazardous materials and sensors that inspect platforms, potentially reducing accidents. Wearable technology provides real-time data on potential hazards improving worker safety.
IoT sensors, mounted on robots, track noise, vibration, or motion in unsafe areas around sites. The device measures attributes of its environment and converts them into a signal. The attributes distance, light intensity, temperature, or even chemical composition are analyzed and assessed, in real-time, by the site manager to prevent accidents.
Data analytics tools used to analyze historical data can detect patterns for potential damage from environmental or site issues. Having these data available helps reduce costs from accident management, preventing potential recurring on-site casualties.
Engineering and construction companies worldwide are partnering with technology providers to use robots, IoT tools, digital technologies, and data analysis to boost performance.
In Australia, GHD, a leading regional construction company, and engineering and advisory services firm, partnered with Orange to co-innovate an IoT as a Service (IoTaaS) platform called connected objects.
The project allows tracking the movement of materials and assets at a construction site in real-time and monitoring the number of people on-site, giving construction companies the data to optimize logistics, detect thefts, and maintain equipment.
Kevin Griffen, Managing Director of Orange Australasia said:
Digital tools like robots, data, and IoT can be of huge benefit to the construction industry. Whether keeping track of assets, reducing the threat of theft, or making sites safer for workers, technology is revolutionizing construction and enabling sites with things that previously could not be done. It helps companies drive fewer injuries, better-budgeted projects, and reduced overruns. Digital is scalable, so these tools can be used on construction projects no matter how large they are. From new factories to airports to housing estates, digital can enhance construction operations.
With data and digital tools, the construction industry can thrive. According to KPMG 95% of construction companies believe that emerging technologies, including IoT and robots, will fundamentally change the industry.
The construction industry is known for costly overruns, expensive equipment, skilled labor shortages, and increasingly short project schedules, IoT tools can leverage real-time data to help construction firms to succeed.
Construction robots are used in the industry for fabrication. Some robots are used on construction sites. Most robots will perform tasks like assembling construction machinery, welding various components, using adhesive applications, and assembling doors and windows.
The traditional process can be particularly challenging for human beings, certainly physically but also mentally. Brick-laying robots are in their infancy, but they prove beneficial when in use, as they can find variations in blocks and appropriately use bricks or concrete blocks.
For example, a brick factory in France, Lhoist Refractaires, uses robotic systems for palletizing bricks.
Instead of human labor applying the concrete, a robot can layer concrete vertically to form a structure. This process is like the application of the adhesive process, except that concrete is much heavier than typical adhesives.
The Japanese have introduced welding systems to bring down welding time on construction sites.
One company developed a factory system that uses two six-axis robots to weld structural steel for buildings.
The robots can incise holes for plumbing and electrical systems into the beams, cut i-beams to the right length and weld them, and attach a unique part number to each beam to ensure that the right beam is used onsite.
When the i-beams are delivered to the construction site, the complete process helps to minimize the welding requirements to the minimum. The time saved is used to develop other projects.
Automating your processes with robots and IoT will allow you to increase productivity by building components off-site and fabricating modular homes.
Your efficiency using manufacturing flexibility is boosted it enhances quality and eliminates waste.
For example, welding materials and 3D printed houses and structures using controlled and self-drive machinery, make your sites safer and more cost-effective and ameliorate sustainability by minimizing the impact on the environment.
Automation is not yet the main driver in construction businesses. The potential to change the way we work by using robots in industry is enormous. It is time to develop novel solutions including robotics and the IoT to mitigate key industry challenges.
ABB commissioned a global survey consisting of 1900 large and small construction businesses in Europe, the US, and China. The respondents said the industry must change immediately:
Worldwide, governments are desperate to get affordable and environmentally friendly houses to meet the environmental goals of reducing the impact of construction and overcoming labor and skills shortages.
Some of the solutions could be to enhance productivity, efficiency, and manufacturing flexibility by introducing more automation in the fabrication of modular homes, building components off-site, and using robots on building sites to improve safety.
Those solutions would help to improve the image of the industry and mitigate the risks of a skill and labor shortage crisis as they improve safety by reducing repetitive tasks, enhance sustainability by diminishing waste and decreasing the impact it has on the environment, delivering high-quality constructions.
The above issues are particularly important in the eyes of young people who envisage working in the construction industry. Making the necessary changes to improve the image will attract more graduates to develop the innovative technologies they are born with, and less skilled people may be retrained to have more rewarding jobs like controlling robots and new machinery.
Automation and digital solutions will help you to design effective building design and construction processes.
Construction workers account for around 30 percent of workplace injuries and are up to four times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident vs. other sectors, with an estimated 108,000 fatalities every year worldwide. With robots, you can manage large and heavy loads and work in hazardous places.
Placing Robots and IoT at the center of the construction industry value chain will support investment in innovation.
Automated assembly of walls, floors, and ceilings can help create affordable high-rise buildings and install elevators.
The production of prefabricated modular homes for intelligent cities using welding applications, automated fabrication of steel reinforcement baskets on-site, and efficient deployment of workers can be facilitated by the use of the IoT and robotics.
Several leading universities co-develop new automated technologies with the industry.
For example, ETH Zurich, a leading research university in Switzerland supports research in the field of robotics fabrication in architecture and construction. It has helped establish the world’s first laboratory for collaborative robotic digital fabrication in architecture, hosted at the ETH Institute of Technology in Architecture.
A Procore survey identified 3 measurable benefits of performance visibility using the IoT and real-time data:
Money The survey respondents estimated that around five hours per week (c. 240 hours annually) were saved because of performance visibility.
Weighted to the relative sizes of the organizations and measurable benefits of performance visibility and the workforce costs involved, the results suggested average annual savings of $330,000 per business from addressing performance gaps in the UK and Ireland.
By contrast, those firms that had no visibility of performance estimated they were wasting an average of 3.5 hours per week, with average financial costs to each firm of around $345,000 a year due to mediocre performance.
Quality and Safety were improved by having performance visibility. For respondents with performance visibility:
Respondents without visibility of their performance globally felt they were hampered:
Robots help the construction industry to be safer by:
Focusing on health, safety, and sustainability will boost investment in robotics and the IoT. These investments will help to address the challenges of meeting the requirements for:
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