Giving the digital edge

Adopting the right software solution in construction and infrastructure can help in schedule, cost saving and quality of the project, says Daya Kingston.

As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, India has to increase its infrastructure facilities across the sectors to maintain sustai­nable and inclusive levels of growth. To achieve this target, the use of construction software will modernise and smoothen the processes. Capital construction man­agement software is one of the key components, besides other advanced technologies like BIM, Geo­spatial Mapping and project collaboration technologies.

Investment banking company Goldman Sachs says that India’s infrastructure sector will require $1.7 trillion investment in the next 10 years. The construction soft­ware industry is a goldmine of opportunities. Experts estimate that over 90 per cent of the world’s construction projects still rely on traditional, inefficient tools to manage their project information, such as hard copies, email and shared drives, so there’s still enormous potential for growth.

Aconex, a company devoted to modernising infra­structure processes through IT, has grown in the last 11 years from a two-man team to a global leader, servicing $280 billion of construction, infrastructure and engi­neering projects in 70 countries. India is one of their fastest-growing and most dynamic markets, and uptake of their online collaboration and document management platform more than doubled last year, with infrastructure being a particular growth segment. Ashok Kumar, the company’s Regional Head–India and ASEAN, says: “India’s growth, combined with its willingness to adopt new technologies, makes it a good market.”

However, notwithstanding the potential, not everyone is upbeat about the market conditions. Aurigo Software, a leading software company that provides business auto­mation solutions to diverse verticals and has a focus on construction industry too. Balaji Sreenivasan, Founder-CEO, says: “India is facing a massive deficit in infra­structure build-out that is urgently required to further our economy and emerge as a developed nation. The methods and practices used in the past will not provide construction project stake­holders the scale and quality required to execute the projects of this magnitude. The Western world has successfully overcome challenges by adopting technology and the government and private sector industry in India must seriously start looking to this too.”

In helping thousands of infrastructure projects around the world to manage their information, we’ve found they are often large and need to be delivered to a tight schedule; they involve an extensive network of stakeholders and consultants requiring high levels of communication and accountability. Therefore, an increa­sing number of firms in India adopting construction software can help them improve efficiency and manage this complexity.

The design and construction of Delhi Airport Terminal 3, for example, involved 70 organisations – 45 based outside India. By the end of the project, more than 1,000 team members had exchanged 30 lakh documents and correspondence items. This is collaboration on a massive scale, way beyond most construction projects. And so firms require more advanced tools and techno­logies to do the job.

Need for awareness

The lack of awareness about the various possibilities of using IT to enhance performance has resulted in organisations losing out in a big way. Satish Pendse, President, Highbar Technologies Ltd, an HCC group company, says, “We have been working in the IT for infrastructure space and have had 57 customers. We have interacted with more than 1,000 CEOs and C-level executives in this industry. Based on this, we can say that at the macro-level infrastructure industry under­stands the need for IT and software. One needs to strengthen that understanding and create awareness about the value and risk difference between world-class tools and other tools.”

Experts agree that the Indian customer is the least educated when it comes to technology adoption, and even more so in the construction industry. There are very few companies in India that understand the difference between construction management software and ERP. Most are so far only implementing basic accounting software packages and design packages.

There seems to be some reluctance among the construction companies to spend on software, as the mindset is to use pirated or free software wherever possible, some vendors say. So, while the demand may exist, customers in India often do not know what they want and end up investing small monies on low-end software products developed by home grown companies that tout them to be ‘construction ERP’ products. The results are in line with their investments. Therefore, the Indian market for the most part is a very immature market. However, the companies that do will create a significant competitive advantage for themselves in the coming years. Most of our revenue is driven by the western economies, but we do have select customers in India, Middle East and the South Asia regions.”

A range of solutions

Construction software is in a world in itself, there are different kinds of solutions and here’s a look. Nirmalya Chatterjee, COO, Tekla India, says, “For almost half a century, the industry used flat 2-dimensional (2D) drawings and later developed 3D parametric technology. The scope of Building Information Modelling (BIM) extends beyond 3D, to 4D where the aspect of time is added to form schedules and to 5D where the cost component helps create estimates. Even the 6D aspect with project controls and life-cycle management is being developed.”

“BIM is the latest technology in the construction industry, where the process consists of modelling and communicating the structure of a building in detail to benefit the entire building lifecycle. It’s one of the best developments in the recent years in the architecture, engineering, construction, and facility management (AECFM) industry. It facilitates the exchange and visualisation of building information in digital 3D format among all building disciplines to ensure integrated project delivery (IPD). In the future, BIM will empower design and construction professionals to work colla­boratively throughout the project delivery process, focusing their energy on higher order functions such as creativity and problem solving, while computers do the tedious tasks of counting and checking.”

Aurigo has two solutions for the construction vertical – Aurigo Projectworks™ a powerful online collaboration and document management software solution and Aurigo Masterworks™ that an enterprise class capital project management system that automates the entire construction project lifecycle from budgeting and planning, right up to project completion. Together, they serve over 15,000 users worldwide managing in excess of $20 Billion of capital projects and programmes.

Pendse says, “There are various software solutions which are available and used by the Indian infrastructure industry. We can categorise these as, software aiding project acquisition, software for engineering and construction-specific analysis and software for managing key business processes. Software specific to construction business is called line-of-business software, and besides this there is packaged software available across industries that can be customised for construction industry. With an investment-friendly model like cloud (pay-per-user-per-month) we expect the IT adoption in infrastructure industry to grow more rapidly.”

Benefits

Chatterjee says, “BIM is transforming the way con­struction projects are planned and managed. However, the data from these 3D models can be further maximised through the use of this information in the field. Valuable time and accuracy can be lost if one uses traditional construction methods.”

“To connect the inherent accuracy of a fully coor­dinated BIM with the final building product, Trimble and Tekla make this information available for use by co­ns­truction professionals to automate the layout, erection and construction of their projects.
They electronically transfer BIM software files to layout equipment in the field and also send as-built infor­mation from the field back to the office. Starting with files generated by 3D laser scanners of existing condi­tions, designers can import the data into BIM software to start the virtual design process. This backward flow of information also can be sent to designers or contractors at any point during construction to verify the models, and at the conclusion of a project for as built drawing creation.”

Pendse says, “Infrastructure industry has grown rapidly over last few years. World-class software can play a crucial role in building scalable, standardised processes which can facilitate sustainable business growth. To meet the growth targets in this capital intensive business, organisations are increasingly looking for funding from various sources like private equity investors, IPO etc. There is an increasing need for improved governance through transparency in operations and corporatisation to build the confidence of the investors. A world-class solution like SAP ERP with its strong in-built industry best practices provide a sound governance structure which is a key pre-requisite for the investors.”

“Using line-of-business and packaged software, rela­tively less experienced resources can handle the work of experienced resources and knowledge can be retained using a digital knowledge repository thus making it less person dependent.”

Harnessing benefits

Sreenivasan says, “Schedule, cost and quality are the three most important aspects of construction project management and managing them is only possible when you deploy a centralised system delivered over the cloud (web) and accessed by all stakeholders (architects, con­tractors, project managers, purchasing, senior man­agement) who are all made part of a business work­flow process that provides them on-demand information to take the decisions at the right time. Project teams today are acting in a pre-emptive fashion rather than dealing with the fire-fighting situations. Aurigo solutions also allow project teams to capture quality-related parameters using easy-to-fill digital forms, embedded with automated workflows that drive reports and analytics. We have applications for the iPad, Android and Windows Mobile platforms that allow users to access their project infor­mation from wherever they are, even take digital pictures at project sites and share them with other stakeholders located remotely.”

Kumar says, “A surprising fact is that 66 per cent of construction problems are caused by poor information management or inadequate team communication. That’s where software tools like online collaboration platforms come in. They provide an audit trail of every transaction which reduces the risk of disputes over ‘who did what and when’. They also help ensure that the entire project team is working from the latest, most accurate drawing, which reduces the risk of errors and quality issues. This, combined with overall better collaboration between team members, improves standards of construction.”

The cost advantage

Sreenivasan says, “Our studies across our large, mid-size and small customers found them experiencing a productivity gain of at least 37 per cent – a cost saving of nearly 8 per cent and reduction in delays by nearly 21per cent. So for example, if a company is managing projects worth Rs 1,000 crore annually, they should expect to save Rs 80 crore in construction costs alone through better change management, increased transparency, reduced theft and pilferage at project sites, and better decision making. However, these savings will not result if these companies want to spend a few lakhs to buy construction software. These are technology investments that have to be made and amortised over a period of three years for long term benefits.”

Ashok Kumar observes, “The cost benefits of using construction software can be significant. With an online collaboration platform – which allows all project information to be managed using a central, online system – these savings can come from not only direct costs such as reduced printing and distribution costs, but also from less tangible areas such as productivity gains and reduced risk. One of our clients, a major contractor, recently reported that they saved $550,000 in print costs and reduced drawing review times by 20per cent. On an average, our clients cut RFI response times by 43per cent and drawing review times by 68per cent. Added up over the duration of project, this can deliver significant time and cost benefits.”

The outlook

Chatterjee says, “Most of the organised companies have started adopting latest technology and construction management tools like 3D based technology & work process which has improved reliability, speed and quality at the production level. Automation has increased at the production level via Robot (CNC Driven) for the Steel construction as well as pre-cast construction. Stro­nger security measures will be put in force. More automatic machine tools will be brought into the shop for technology tools like Tekla Structure which support not only 3D model based design process but also carries the same till erection purpose. The useful application within Tekla Structure on 4D (Time) and 5D (Cost) will be used more and more on compact schedule construction projects.”

The BIM-based workflow supports the modern requi­re­ments of sustainability and green building. By opti­mising prefabrication and site management and enabling a paperless process, any worksite can be more sustainable and efficient. Accurate, model-based commu­nication enables better constructability through finding, reacting to, and correcting possible design errors early before on-site construction. Wastage of raw materials will decently reduce by adopting such technology.