Indian building construction industry has been ever-changing over the last decade. Gradual uptake of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the contribution of different emerging technologies in design and construction is critical for all stakeholders across the industry’s value chain. 
Renowned VDC application strategist and ConTech evangelist, Mr. Shashank Jain from Turner Construction Company, in his interview, highlights the current challenges construction companies face in CAD to BIM transition; and contribution of other emerging technologies in today’s dynamic construction world. Shashank has been working on the adoption and utilization of BIM in different phases of construction lifecycle – from planning and design, precon, execution to operations and maintenance. Further, Shashank’s area of expertise includes leveraging latest BIM tools and technologies to resolve the operational and design challenges regarding projects across multiple continents.
Technology adoption: CAD to BIM transition
Advancement in the adoption of technologies has opened up new horizons in the world of Construction & Engineering. In the last blog of this series, we discussed how the Indian real estate construction companies are quickly adapting digital transformation based on measures taken up by more developed markets across the world, with a major focus on sustainable BIM practices and benefits. The recent pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of emerging technologies and solutions to overcome the challenges including low productivity and affected profit margins. Additionally, the Government of India’s continued focus on improving urban development and uptake of digital technologies have further strengthened this transition phase.
But on the flipside this has created a continuous state of flux in which all stakeholders involved in a construction project are required to learn and implement new techniques regularly. Today, Indian companies face several issues of data loss and management during the design development stage due to state of ambiguity, which is a result of this state of transition between technologies.
Challenges in adoption of technologies for CAD to BIM transition
Based on a recent study published in International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, major challenges cited for the slow CAD to BIM transition include highly uneconomical cost of software, low demand from clients, inadequate project experiences and lack of skilled and trained employees, among many others. Unclear legal liabilities and inadequate commitment from higher management levels in the construction companies are also found to be delaying the speed of adoption.
Shashank emphasizes four pillars that should ideally be focused on to ensure a project’s success – time, cost, safety and carbon footprint reduction. Speaking on the adoption of technologies by construction companies, Shashank said, “I see primarily two phases that dictate the adoption of technologies, particularly for CAD to BIM transition – one is the expectation from the conventionally practiced project workflow on site and how BIM can ease the implementation of Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) for an overall construction project. Second is the expectation of the software itself – whether the functionalities are increasing the return on investments or not.”
“One of the major challenges that is prevalent in the industry is customisation. By customisation, I mean fragmenting the tools or applications to provide ad-hoc services depending upon the necessity of any particular project.”
From his personal experience of being involved in a fair amount of both local as well as international prestigious construction projects, Shashank recalled, “One of the major challenges that is prevalent in the industry is customisation. By customisation, I mean fragmenting the tools or applications to provide ad-hoc services depending upon the necessity of any particular project. If you look at the recent initiatives of the major technology platforms you will notice that the primary focus is on improving quality of construction and execution based on customisation and integration functionalities of the software solutions.” Citing the example of Autodesk, Shashank added, “Autodesk is rightly trying to merge and collaborate all their applications into one platform which comes by the name of Autodesk BIM 360. Their intention is to have a customised and interoperable platform so that the users on site should not worry about opening ten different applications in a single iPad and can use just a cloud based interface and have all the information related to the project available in just a few clicks.”
While API integration are also believed to be a problem area for majority of the construction stakeholders, various examples of collaboration and acquisitions between Autodesk and PlanGrid and Assemble Systems, Bentley Systems and Synchro, etc. indicate that the major technology giants are focussed to expand their product capabilities. “The need of the hour for our industry is to generate a Cloud-based or physical central repository for collecting all the digital footprint under one umbrella. Thus, it is important to have an intelligent source where these applications virtually talk to each other. If they speak a common language we will have a clear understanding of the complete data of the construction project”, Shashank added.
Contribution of other emerging technologies in building construction
Apart from BIM, quite a few other emerging technologies have started surfacing in the building construction industry proving to be beneficial in integrated project delivery. Shashank emphasized that construction companies should think about improving their digital and cloud footprints as it basically provides them a global spectrum. Most of the key construction players in US have already shifted their complete database to cloud based platforms.
“In the coming days, Internet of Things (IoT), sensors and RFID technologies are going to play an integral part in the industry.”
Wearable gadgets is another emerging technology which Shashank swears by for the construction market. “Wearable gadgets help to bring about innovative practices in the industry. HoloLens 2 from Microsoft is quite a game-changer in the construction world these days. Apart from that, wearable hats with 360 degree cameras and laser scanners deserve special mention. In the coming days, Internet of Things (IoT), sensors and RFID technologies are going to play an integral part in the industry.”
Furthermore, integration of different geospatial and emerging technologies with BIM is also at the forefront for functionalities such as as-built analysis and remote site inspections in many domestic construction projects. This integration has become crucial, especially for large scale projects, and are believed to yield significant RoIs for construction and general contracting companies. Clients have started to notice the lower operational and maintenance costs in the long run, as a result of timely as-built analysis on-site.
Further, as an avid technology user, Shashank requests the technology players to come up with solutions to ease the process of remote site inspection. Citing challenges in uploading the humongous volumes of data collected on servers, Shashank foresees a need for technology solution which can easily convert the heavy data files into a mesh model which could make the file size lighter than before. He strongly believes a solution like this would ease the process of remote site inspection and increase the use of digital technologies across the construction ecosystem.
Indian Building Construction – BIM Series
Indian Building Construction – BIM is a series of interviews Geospatial Media undertook with leading BIM service providers, end-users and practitioners from leading designers, consultants, contractors & engineers in building construction industry across India. The series will showcase insights shared by these core stakeholders of the industry with regards to BIM transition factors, BIM workflows, & BIM value propositions to overcome the challenges faced by Indian construction industry.
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