Done right, AI brings a lot of benefits to construction. It can boost safety, streamline the bidding process, help close staffing gaps, and maximize profitability on each project. Here is how to get started.
ELIMINATE GRAY WORK
Much like any construction project, the right IT foundation needs to be in place before any building can start. If you are unsure about its stability, ask employees if the current technology tools and systems make it easier to do their jobs and deliver impact.
You may be surprised by how much valuable time is squandered on busy-work that eats up time and resources. In fact, a recent productivity survey from Quickbase found that 45 percent of workers are spending 11 hours or more per week chasing information across different people and systems. This wastes valuable time and resources that should be better spent delivering impactful work. This issue is known as Gray Work and it’s a productivity killer. Identifying Gray Work gives you a starting point on where connecting data and automation can make a difference in making your people and projects more productive.
3 PHASES OF A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
Think of your AI journey like a construction project. It starts small—a focus on one well-defined problem, with a desired impact and clearly identified metrics for success. For example, how many hours or days does it take to perform a specific task? Working against that baseline, you can determine the best places to apply AI and measure the results.
Breaking this down even further, here is how to apply AI to the three primary project phases: pre-construction, construction, and post construction.
PRE-CONSTRUCTION
The pre-construction phase is focused on bidding and project planning and is usually done by pulling information from previous proposals and projects. This is time-consuming and can sometimes overlook vital information from previous projects, like delivery delays or time spent verifying worker certifications. That information has a direct impact on project completion, and failing to account for it makes it difficult to forecast the profitability of a project—a key factor in accurate bidding and planning.
Using AI to centralize, integrate, and gain visibility into project data helps identify productivity and profitability gaps. It can also be used to pull language from previous, successful bids and contract reviews, and analyze takeoffs and bid summaries. Since the content is based on your data, it can be repurposed without fear that the information is inaccurate. With that confidence, you can create winning templates for bids that highlight your team’s expertise while providing realistic project costs.
Proper planning at this stage can deliver substantial cost savings on each project because you can identify potential bottlenecks before they cause delays.
CONSTRUCTION
During the construction phase, the jobsite is a busy place, with superintendents, forepersons, architects, contractors, specialists, inspectors, clients, and others engaged in tasks, all of whom need consistent and up-to-date information on the progress of the project. This is where the concept of dynamic work management takes shape.
It brings together the physical work and processes of labor, people/materials/equipment management, and compliance with the digital workflows that are now part of every role and every stage of a project. Bridging the gap between the physical and digital lays the groundwork necessary for AI to further streamline processes.
Here are two examples of how construction companies are applying AI during this phase.
Verifying OSHA cards: Using AI and machine vision, construction companies can automatically verify the authenticity of OSHA cards submitted by workers to demonstrate certification completion. Those verifications go into an easily searchable database, saving even more time in the future when workers come onsite. You can know instantly if anyone on the jobsite has not been verified, and set up automatic notifications on certification expirations, helping with bidding and jobsite scheduling. Automating this process can shave valuable time from each worker check-in, meaning less time filling out forms or doing verbal check-ins and more time performing their jobs onsite.
Matching the right materials with specs: AI can match materials being used on the jobsite against the specs for the project to ensure alignment, and check if anything is missing. Previously, this manual process would result in unnecessary delays as workers search through disconnected documentation (paper or otherwise), or later discover the wrong materials are being used.
POST CONSTRUCTION
Using AI after a job closeout, especially a late one, can identify areas for improvement. Yet it goes beyond the end of a project, extending into every process and workflow, including:
Boosting jobsite safety: Convert operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals into a chatbot where workers on a jobsite can ask questions, interact with the bot, and see a video on how to properly operate a machine. Also, jobsite safety data can be collected and analyzed for continuous improvement.
Improving efficiency: Use ChatGPT and genAI to provide a synopsis of a long email or help write documents. Also, the use of a low code/no code platform, requiring no technical expertise, makes it easy to quickly gather feedback on processes from the field so that anyone can easily build a new form or app without IT. That app, and the information it captures and connects, can be a part of workflows and processes throughout the company, keeping people, teams, and projects up to date with real-time data for decision-making.
Closing the skills gap and shortening learning curves: Matching a talent database against completed projects, AI can help identify gaps in your workforce. It makes future bids easier based on similar projects and required talent. Also, by using AI to centralize project information, new project managers have ready access to information and solutions based on decades of experience from their predecessors.
Evaluating workers and vendors: Create a fact-based report or scorecard for assessments and future planning.
Spotting trends: Instead of viewing projects separately, AI-powered connected data can give a portfolio view for the business. You can identify trends, common roadblocks, or delays, and better understand root causes when assessing under-performing projects and job sites.
AI is quickly catching on in construction. Now is the time to get started, with small experiments. As it improves processes and workflows, it will result in more efficient and profitable projects.
about the author
Bob Salaj is customer advocacy director, construction, for Quickbase. For more, visit www.quickbase.com.