The construction industry is one of the world economy’s largest industries. The economy spends $10 trillion on its good and services every year according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). Unfortunately, construction has lagged other industries in how quickly it evolves. For example, construction is among the least digitized sectors in the world, according to MGI’s digitization index. In the United States, construction comes second to last, and in Europe it is in last position on the index.

With some large projects running 20 percent over time and up to 80 percent over budget, the construction industry is looking more toward technology to better meet its commitments. This results in a variety of benefits.

Improved Coordination and Collaboration

Most every aspect of a construction project is dependent on some other part of the job. Office workers, such as project managers, must collaborate with field workers, such as foremen, throughout the entire project. While mobile devices can greatly improve communication, companies must also create processes that ease real-time collaboration. Using a cloud-based platform, construction companies can see a complete picture of the entire project from one place and improve efficiency across the entire project. This includes automating approvals and alerts as well as allowing collaboration between employees, contractors, and clients in real time.

Ongoing Transparency

To keep up with increasing pressures, today’s construction teams must be able to update a project’s status remotely from the job site, keeping everyone on the same page. When teams collaborate via a work execution platform, both office and remote employees get the same visibility into project status, as well as the ability to update tasks in real time. Instead of waiting for phone calls, field workers can update information using a mobile app. All departments that are involved on a project — from finance to project management — have the same real-time information, leading to improved productivity and faster results.

Increased Automation

The best software enables users to set up automation rules, so that team members are systematically notified about changes that affect their tasks. For example, if the plumbing contractor will not have their job completed until Friday due to a back-ordered part, the platform can automatically update the schedule based on this change. The most enterprise-ready platforms can send notifications to all team members affected by a change, so they can immediately change their plans. They can also digitize many manual processes such as punch lists, change orders, and safety logs, and keep them in a single central location, so time isn’t wasted chasing down the latest information. The time savings can be significant. In a 2018 TechValidate survey of customers in the construction industry, 47 percent said the platform saves them at least six hours every week.

Predictive Analytics with Artificial Intelligence

New York City-based startup Pillar Technologies is one of a number of companies trying to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to construction and engineering. The objective is to use predictive analytics to do everything from preventive maintenance to work schedule optimization.

Pillar’s wireless devices can flag all sorts of troubles on construction sites before they become multimillion-dollar messes or cause injuries to people. They can identify leaks, which can result in mold, and determine the level of particulates like silica, which can be harmful to construction workers.

Builders can now put dozens of its industrial-grade sensors on their construction sites and leave them there through rain and wind to monitor potentially destructive conditions and send emergency alerts as need be. All this information provides the data for an AI system. The devices include seven different sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, dust, particulates, air pressure, ambient light and carbon monoxide. Over time, as Pillar gathers more data from its own sensors, it will be able to model the data more dynamically to predict problems.

The construction industry has not necessarily been an early-adopter of the latest technology. However, the industry has recognized the gains the right technology can provide and is taking steps to put it in place.

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Motivators for Smart Buildings

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Ryan Lahti is the managing principal of OrgLeader and author of The Finesse Factor: How to Build Exceptional Leaders in STEM Organizations. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Construction Site at Night, Pixabay)

Since 3D printing is being used for applications in a variety of industries, how feasible is it for the construction industry? If you ask researchers at MIT, they are likely to tell you 3D printing has immense potential for the construction industry.

MIT researchers have designed a system that can 3D print the structure of an entire building. The system consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial robotic arm with a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at the end. This highly controllable arm can be used to direct any conventional (or unconventional) construction nozzle, such as those used for pouring concrete or spraying insulation material.

Unlike typical 3D printing systems which use some kind of enclosed, fixed structure to support their nozzles which limits the size of the objects they build, this free-moving system can construct an object of any size. As proof of concept, the researchers used a prototype to build the walls of a 50-foot-diameter, 12-foot-high dome — a project that was completed in less than 14 hours of “printing” time.

For initial tests, the system fabricated the foam-insulation framework used to form a finished concrete structure. This construction method, in which polyurethane foam molds are filled with concrete, is similar to traditional insulated concrete formwork techniques. Following this approach for their initial work, the researchers showed that the system can be easily adapted to existing building sites and equipment. It will help meet existing building codes without requiring whole new evaluations.

Ultimately, the system is intended to be self-sufficient. It is equipped with a scoop that could be used to both prepare the building surface and acquire local materials, such as dirt for a rammed-earth building, for the construction itself. The whole system could be operated electrically, even powered by solar panels. The idea is that such systems could be deployed to remote regions (e.g., the developing world) or to areas for disaster relief after a major storm or earthquake to rapidly provide durable shelter.

The creation of this system, which the researchers call a Digital Construction Platform (DCP), was motivated by the overall vision of designing buildings without parts. Such a vision includes combining “structure and skin” along with beams and windows in a single production process. It also includes adapting multiple design and construction processes on the fly as the structure is being built.

The nozzles of the new 3D printing system can be adapted to vary the density of the material being poured and even to mix different materials as it goes along. In the version used in the initial tests, the device created an insulating foam shell that would be left in place after the concrete is poured. Interior and exterior finish materials could be applied directly to that foam surface.

The system can even create complex shapes and overhangs. The team demonstrated this by including a wide, built-in bench in their prototype dome. Any needed wiring and plumbing can be inserted into the mold before the concrete is poured, providing a finished wall structure all at once. The system can also incorporate data about the site collected during the process, using built-in sensors for temperature, light and other parameters. This data allows the system to make adjustments to the structure as it is built.

MIT is not the only organization that sees 3D printing applications in the construction industry. Cazza, a construction firm based in Dubai, has announced plans to build the world’s first 3D-printed skyscraper. The company has confirmed that it will be erected in the United Arab Emirates. It says it will use a new technique called “crane printing” to create the building.

Cazza’s chief operating officer shared that the crane printing system can be easily adopted with existing cranes so that cranes do not have to be built from scratch. Cazza is adding new features to make it adaptable to high wind speeds along with the use of a layer smoothing system that creates completely flat surfaces. Because of this, you won’t know the structure is 3D printed.

3D printing presents potential advantages and disadvantages for the construction industry. The advantages include:

• Increase in speed and accuracy
• Reduction in labor costs and the amount of waste
• Creation of a safer work environment by decreasing health and safety risks

The disadvantages for the industry are:

• Elimination of jobs
• Reduction in demand for materials from traditional manufacturing companies
• Transportation and storage costs of 3D printers

As MIT and Cazza have pointed out, 3D printing does have a potential place in the construction industry. Once MIT and Cazza use more of this technology, we will see how much potential becomes reality.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Skyscraper, Pixabay)

What type of progress is being made in solar plants? Ask SolarReserve LLC, a privately-owned energy company in California. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Santa Monica-based organization announced plans this month to build the world’s largest solar energy facility in Nevada. It is a $5 billion concentrating solar power (CSP) plant which gathers and focuses the sun’s energy to heat a fluid to drive an engine that produces electricity.

SolarReserve’s project, called “Sandstone,” would include up to 10 concentrated solar arrays, each equipped with a molten salt system capable of storing the sun’s energy to generate power after dark. This would require at least 100,000 mirrors and 10 towers as tall as any building in the state. CEO Kevin Smith explained that project Sandstone would generate between 1,500 and 2,000 megawatts, enough to supply about a million homes. That’s on par with a nuclear power plant or the Hoover Dam and far bigger than any of the world’s existing solar facilities. According to Bloomberg, the biggest solar-thermal plant in the world is the current 392-megawatt Ivanpah facility in California’s Mojave Desert which has three towers and went into operation in 2014.

SolarReserve has already built a 110-megawatt facility, the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant. It sits on 1,600 acres of federal land outside of Tonopah, 225 miles northwest of Las Vegas. This $1 billion array began delivering power to NV Energy late last year.

The Crescent Dunes plant uses more than 10,000 mirrored heliostats, each with the square footage of a small house, to focus sunlight on a 640-foot-tall central tower, heating the molten salt inside to more than 1,000 degrees. The heat stored in the molten salt is then used to boil water, creating steam that drives generators to produce electricity day or night. SolarReserve says its patented storage system allows Crescent Dunes to deliver power on demand like a coal, natural gas or nuclear plant, but with zero emissions, little water use and no hazardous waste.

The Crescent Dunes plant took more than four years to construct, significantly longer than company officials predicted. Smith expects both the cost and construction time to decrease significantly with each new facility SolarReserve builds.

NV Energy agreed to buy the entire output of the Crescent Dunes’ plant at 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour — roughly twice the cost of power from a natural gas-fueled plant — for the next 25 years. Smith said the bulk of the power from the Sandstone project likely will be “exported to the California market,” which already has a variety of solar power options when the sun is out but has a growing need for renewable energy that can be delivered reliably day or night.

Not everyone shares Smith’s optimism. Some energy analysts are worried about the large capital and maintenance costs associated with CSP projects since comparatively cheap and easy-to-build photovoltaic arrays produce power at a lower cost.

In addition to energy analysts’ worries, there are likely to be environmentalists who have concerns about the impact of the Sandstone plant on wildlife and the landscape. The Crescent Dunes facility in Nevada and the Ivanpah facility in California have already drawn the wrath of environmentalists for the number of birds that are killed in collisions with the mirrors and central towers or incinerated in beams of concentrated sunlight that can top 900 degrees.

Smith believes the problem is overblown, especially at Crescent Dunes, where the full-time biologists on site have logged around 60 bird deaths over the past year. He said this number is probably less than the office building where they work in Santa Monica.

Smith expects to be able to announce a 16,000-acre site for the new project within the next six to nine months. He said company officials have looked at about a dozen locations over the past year and narrowed the list to two, both on federal land in Nevada’s Nye County.

With more national interest focusing on alternative energy sources, solar plants are getting more attention. The Sandstone project will be a good litmus test to see how strong the commitment is to continue to build them.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Crescent Dunes Solar December 2014 by Amble)

As we progress through 2016, there are some construction trends worth considering. According to financial and professional services firm JLL, global economic struggles will eventually affect business and construction demand in the U.S. However, the U.S. construction industry saw a strong start to 2016 despite global concerns.

• Overall construction costs are rising as building costs, construction employment, wages and productivity all continue to grow.
• The infrastructure construction backlog indicator (CBI) grew 23.2 percent month over month as big projects continue to ramp up across the country, particularly in the Southeast.
  • CBI indicates the amount of work that will be performed by commercial/industrial contractors in the next few months based on projects currently in the pipeline.
• Office, industrial and retail construction all grew year over year, with retail showing 24.4 percent growth as retailers seek innovative ways to attract new consumers.

JLL believes the following markets are ones to watch:

Nashville

Nashville has seen rapid construction growth as employers take advantage of its low-cost, well-educated workforce. This follows the broader trend in the Southeast, as office, industrial and retail have all seen an increase in activity over the last year.

San Francisco

San Francisco is catching up to New York in terms of cost to build, driven by demand and high labor costs. Although all major coastal cities will continue to see cost growth, it is possible for San Francisco to become the most expensive market in 2016.

Houston

The decline in energy prices has begun to hit Houston, which experienced a 120.1 percent decrease in office construction activity year over year. The market has seen a growth in subletting opportunities and has low-cost labor, which could be attractive to occupiers wanting to avoid high-cost markets.

Dallas

Dallas saw an increase in retail construction as retailers followed population flows to Texas. It was one of the only markets that experienced retail development growth.

As a base for comparison, here are the top 20 U.S. metropolitan areas where the most money was spent on new construction in 2015 according to Dodge Data & Analytics.

1. New York, NY
2. Dallas, TX
3. Houston, TX
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. Chicago, IL
6. Washington, D.C.
7. Miami, FL
8. Boston, MA
9. Atlanta, GA
10. Seattle, WA
11. Lake Charles, LA
12. Phoenix, AZ
13. Orlando, FL
14. San Francisco, CA
15. Denver, CO
16. Austin, TX
17. Nashville, TN
18. Tampa, FL
19. Twin Cities, MN
20. San Antonio, TX

While they are not intended to serve as the be-all and end-all, these trends provide some good food for thought as leaders of engineering and construction firms execute their plans for the remainder of the year and beyond.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Office building construction worker, Flickr)

How viable of a water solution can converting seawater to fresh water be? Ask Bob Yamada. He is the San Diego County Water Authority’s (SDCWA) water-resources director. According to Engineering News-Record, Yamada explained that water recently began flowing through a new $1 billion, 54-million-gallon-a-day desalination plant in Carlsbad, California. The plant has been running smoothly since it opened in December, and it is expected to provide 10 percent of the water supply to local residents as a part of SDCWA’s strategy to diversify the region’s water-supply portfolio.

The plant is the largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere which enhances the status of its builder and operator, Poseidon Water. The San Diego Union Tribune clarified the roles Poseidon and others play in distributing water. Specifically, Poseidon will sell the fresh water it produces to SDCWA, the region’s main provider. The authority will resell that water to retail districts that serve residents, schools and businesses.

For California, the Carlsbad plant represents the mainstreaming of seawater desalination in the golden state. Ocean desalination has long been used in nations such as Saudi Arabia, Australia and Israel, where the company that designed the Carlsbad plant, Israel Desalination Enterprises, is based. Israel’s extensive use of desalination to conquer a seemingly perpetual drought has become an internationally recognized success story. California may be poised to join the trend, because approximately 15 other desalination projects have been proposed for the state’s coastline, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Southern California.

Desalination does have some critical challenges to address. As KQED Science points out, there are three main environmental considerations when building a desalination plant: how seawater is brought in, how the drinkable water is separated out, and what happens to the remaining salt at the end of the process.

The simplest intake is basically a straw in the ocean in pipe form -– a design that risks trapping and killing sea life. One solution is to affix a grate to the end of such a pipe, but tiny larvae and fish eggs can still be sucked into the pipe.

Instead, regulators tend to prefer what’s known as a “subsurface intake.” At a beachside site on Monterey Bay, California American Water Company is currently working on a proof-of-concept for this approach. They’re using directional drilling, similar to the technology oil companies use to extract fossil fuels. The idea is to run a slant well hundreds of feet out, passing beneath the dunes to a spot under the waves. From below 200 feet of sand, and well insulated from any vulnerable sea life, California American hopes to suck up a couple thousand gallons of water per minute.

Once the seawater gets to the plant, it has to be pushed through membranes fine enough that salt cannot pass through them. This requires immense pressure analogous to that of a powerful pressure-washer as well as a lot of energy. An official at a smaller desalination facility shared it takes $25,000 of electricity per month to produce enough water for 1,200 homes. Therefore, the operation of any desalination plant will likely drive up energy costs.

Only about half of the saltwater piped into a desalination plant is converted to drinkable water. All the salt that is separated out ends up concentrated into a brine-like liquid that’s much denser than seawater. As a result, this liquid doesn’t easily mix back in to seawater. If this brine-like liquid is dumped carelessly back into the ocean, it sinks and can kill any marine life having the misfortune of dwelling on the seafloor.

Last May, the California State Water Resources Control Board enacted new regulations that require permit applicants for desalination facilities to consider and use the best available site design and technology to minimize impacts on wildlife. Given California’s water needs and the success so far of the Carlsbad plant, Poseidon is moving forward with its permit application to build a 50-million-gallon-a-day plant in Huntington Beach, California. So, it looks like desalination has potential staying power.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Visit to IDE Hadera, Flickr)

The 6.3-acre Metropolis project designed in the late 1980s that stalled in the 1990s and mid-2000s is now part of the revival of downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, the $1 billion “city within a city” is being created by Greenland USA, a Chinese development firm. Greenland expects the four enormous buildings that make up the hotel, condominium and shopping complex to be completed by 2018.

While this 2018 deadline may sound ambitious, Greenland started excavating the site last July and has been on schedule to date. This efficiency has required three cranes working on the hotel and condo tower when one crane per building is typical. The first phase will include an 18-story, 350-room hotel and 38-story condo tower with 308 units. More than half of the condos have committed buyers. Although developers usually wait for condos to be sold before building more, Greenland is already working on the second phase consisting of two more high-rise condo towers with approximately 1500 units.

The 18-story, 350-room hotel will be the Hotel Indigo operated by InterContinental Hotels Group. This should be open by the end of next year. According to Elie Maalouf, chief executive of the Americas for InterContinental Hotels Group, “Downtown is in the midst of a thriving resurgence. We think Hotel Indigo is very well positioned to serve that economic growth.”

Hotel Indigo is considered to be a competitor of the W Hotels & Resorts chain operated by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. Not to be outdone, W Hotels & Resorts has agreed to open its third Los Angeles property in the same area as Hotel Indigo. The new W will be a 250-room hotel. Both W and Indigo are pitched for younger travelers and have unique designs that reflect their local settings.

Once the Metropolis project is complete, visitors and Angelenos will have more choices for shops, restaurants and places to stay set in buildings that will help transform the downtown skyline.

For more information, see W Hotel and Hotel Indigo.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

(Photo: Downtown LA, Flickr)

Based on VW’s analysis, the mid-sized SUV market in the United States has grown to more than 1.4 million vehicles from about 750,000 in 2009. Fox Business reported that unit production of the VW SUV would be in the six-figure range. The SUV will be sold in North America and other markets, and built on the same vehicle chassis as the Passat sedan. At its 2011 peak, the Chattanooga plant built 130,000 Passats. The company said its goal is to deliver 800,000 vehicles (including the SUV) in the United States by 2018.

Approximately $600 million is expected to be spent in Tennessee on the expansion, and state and local governments agreed to pump more than $230 million in tax dollars into the project to ensure VW expanded in Chattanooga rather than its other major North American plant in Puebla, Mexico, where labor costs are much lower. SUV assembly is slated to start in 2016, and VW plans to hire another 2,000 workers to join the 2,400 currently at the plant producing the Passat sedan.

Chattanooga Mayor, Andy Berke, provided further explanation of the funding for the plant expansion. Combined with other property tax breaks, road projects, TVA incentives and other potential tax credits, VW could qualify for more than $300 million of grants, credits and other government assistance over the next decade.

The latest incentive package is in addition to the original $577 million of incentives offered to VW in 2008 from federal, state and local governments to persuade the German automaker to build in Chattanooga. The VW incentive package is one of the most generous government aid programs ever provided for an automotive plant in the United States. Therefore, expectations are high that this investment pays off for Tennessee and the United States.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

AECOM shared that the combination would make it one of the largest companies based on revenue in the E&C industry and the largest publicly-traded company based in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, AECOM’s CEO indicated he expects to add to the 1300 employees already working for both companies in the greater Los Angeles area. This is good news for Los Angeles, because the area has had notable companies move to other parts of the country in recent months. Toyota Motor Corp. announced in late April that it would close its Torrance headquarters and relocate 3,000 jobs to Texas. This came shortly after Occidental Petroleum announced it was moving its headquarters to Houston.

URS offers engineering, construction and technical services to companies and U.S. federal organizations (e.g., the U.S. Army and the Department of Energy). AECOM provides architecture, design, engineering, and construction services to public and private clients. Noteworthy projects include the new World Trade Center, the design for a new subway in Manhattan and the complex for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The combination gives AECOM a substantial presence in the power distribution and oil and gas sectors, which made up nearly 40% of URS’ revenue last year. AECOM will also benefit from URS’ expertise in federal contracting which made up 34% of URS’ revenue.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti

In March, construction employment reached 5,964,000 which was a 2.6% gain from the prior year. This was better than the 1.7% increase in total nonfarm employment for the same period. Specialty trade and residential building contractors added a combined total of 9,100 workers in March and 103,000 over 12 months. Nonresidential construction (including building, specialty trades and civil engineering contractors) added 9,900 employees last month and 48,800 since March 2013.

While many construction companies who need workers have been able to get them up to this point in time, an increasing number of contractors are having trouble hiring according to Ken Simonson, AGC’s chief economist. The number of unemployed former construction workers fell to the lowest March level since 2007, because more of these experienced individuals are switching to another industry. This in turn is making it harder to find candidates to hire.

Simonson points out that contractors are highly likely to be seeking workers for a variety of construction projects in most parts of the country this spring. Especially strong demand should be seen in manufacturing, multifamily and oil and gas-related facilities.

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Ryan Lahti is the founder and managing principal of OrgLeader, LLC. Stay up to date on Ryan’s STEM-based organization tweets here: @ryanlahti