Construction companies have been behind the technological curve for decades, putting them at a greater disadvantage when it comes to the conversation of artificial intelligence (AI). However, AI is achievable for these companies if the right approach is taken.
In general, projects are filled with risks. Based on those risks, managers make educated guesses as to how those risks will affect timeline and budget. But when early detection is key to effective risk management, sometimes by the time those educated guesses are made, it is too little, too late. Not only that, but an educated guess is simply a guess.
What if you could use AI to replace those guesses with statistically accurate predictions?
HOW AI CAN REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR BUSINESS
The goal of AI in construction is to provide a predictive model of project intelligence that assesses whether a project will finish on time and within budget, and to what degree will it miss or beat the plan. Within the construction industry, real-time business insight is critical to making the right decisions. By being able to predict your project performance, you will be able to optimize your business’ potential.
AI can completely transform risk management and forecasting by making sense of millions of datapoints in seconds, calculating the probabilities, and recognizing patterns that humans cannot. Essentially, the AI would analyze data from the current project and hundreds of past projects to forecast the current project’s performance. This information would help managers detect schedule and budget altering issues earlier and enable them to take mitigating actions faster.
With all that said, to use AI requires structured project intelligence data. Unfortunately, most construction companies lack that data.
AI IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE DATA YOU PUT INTO IT
Oftentimes, project managers and executives do not even know what’s happening with their projects in the present because they lack real-time data. Most projects finish over budget and behind schedule because they are operating on outdated information.
Construction companies typically have massive amounts of data with no structure. More specifically, they operate in a landscape of disparate systems and disconnected processes. This predicament makes it extremely difficult to consolidate and organize data that AI can utilize effectively.
Keep in mind, the quality of the output from AI is only as good as the data you put into it. If you cannot structure your data in the right way, there’s no moving forward.
To make meaningful use of AI, construction companies need to produce real-time project financial and operational KPIs that are recorded over time. To achieve this capability, they must integrate the core project processes and data into one comprehensive business system.
PROJECT BUSINESS AUTOMATION: THE FOUNDATION FOR AI
A new approach called Project Business Automation (PBA) offers a solution to this problem. PBA is a business process management software designed specifically for construction companies to manage all core project business processes in one, end-to-end system. By systemizing and integrating all processes and data into one source of truth, PBA can produce the necessary real-time financial and operational metrics that AI can use to make valuable predictions.
PBA provides three key elements for optimal AI adoption:
Standardization: To produce standardized data and metrics, you first need to standardize your processes. PBA accomplishes this by systematically structuring processes around best practices. This enables your construction company to enforce governance and produce highly structured performance metrics, setting you up for AI adoption and implementation.
Integration: With PBA, all core project business processes and data are managed in the same system. This includes project inception, budgeting, resource management, issue and risk management, financial analysis, and more. As a centralized system, PBA unifies the financial and operational aspects of projects. When the entire enterprise works together from one source of truth, you have a stronger working foundation for AI.
Automation: As mentioned above, to make AI effective for construction companies, it is not only imperative to produce standardized financial and operational metrics in real time, but also store that data in a time-series format. By systemizing and integrating all processes and data, PBA automates the collection and presentation of this data.
CLOSING THOUGHT
AI can make accurate predictions regarding project level delays and overruns, enabling managers to better mitigate risk, produce accurate business forecasts and make better decisions. Rather than staying behind the curve, it is time construction companies start take a giant leap forward in the technological space. With the PBA approach, they can not only organize the immense amount of data they produce but harness it in a way that that transforms their companies into high-performing enterprises.
for more information:
For more about Project Business Automation from Adeaca, visit www.adeaca.com.
Modern Contractor Solutions, June 2020
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