By KERRY SMITH

While the rapid advancement in myriad information technologies presents construction companies with many options for streamlining their systems and project delivery, such digital transformation also forces contractors and others to up their game in adopting them.

These words came from co-panelist and Deloitte Senior Manager of Transactions and Business Analytics Mohinder Singh,who moderated a Feb. 13 Engineering News-Record webinar with Nicholas Johnson, chief evangelist at Kahua, a construction program and project management software provider.

According to Singh and Johnson, the statistic that computing power is doubling every 2.5 years is accurate.

“These are phenomenal, exciting times,” says Singh. “The one thing we can all agree on is that technology is not static.”

He adds that although the technology momentum initially began on construction’s design side with building information modeling and collaboration, the building materials and methodologies side is quickly catching up.

“Modular concepts have existed for some time,” Singh says, “but recently they’ve evolved to a stage wherein they’re being broadly adopted.”

Green building, advanced inspections, artificial intelligence, all of this is helping the construction industry grasp and authenticate which systems are reliable and promise the best, most streamlined approach to harnessing an unimaginable amount of project data – from preconstruction to design, costing, cashflow analysis and even maintenance strategies post-project completion.

“What owners and project team players want to know is, “Can we document and measure a decrease in errors and omissions?'” he says. “There’s no doubt that AI concepts will help this, as issues with design are identified much more in advance.”