Ai is starting to become useful in the construction industry as companies have built the data lakes and analytics systems needed for AI to provide useful advice on how to plan, schedule and execute projects.

In some cases, AI consultants have become a standard component of project delivery methods, while in others, convincing building professionals to listen to AI consultants remains a challenge, according to a recent description in The Engineering News-Record.

Alice Technologies, which provides an AI-powered building simulation platform, was founded in 2015 based on research at Stanford University. The company has raised $38.3 million so far, according to Crunchbase. Alice’s goal is to enable its clients to optimize project schedules, thereby shortening project timelines and saving labor and equipment.

Rene Morkos, founder and CEO of Alice Technologies

“What I hear all the time from people [in the industry] is, ‘I really like scheduling, but the numbers are the boring part, ‘” said Founder and CEO Rene Morkos.” Why would a normal person want to take the time to figure out all the constraints of a project? It’s mind-numbingly boring.” In his view, the construction industry is approaching a tipping point for the adoption of ARTIFICIAL intelligence.

Alice was used to simulate the project’s building information model, a digital representation of physical and functional Spaces that span architecture, engineering and construction and are used to plan, design, construct and manage buildings. Alice’s users can adjust the input, and the software shows the impact on the construction schedule, helping to generate alternatives.

“The fundamental value proposition for general contractors is changing,” Morkos said.” This new ecosystem is going to be all about integrated data systems.”

The project manager of a new high-rise building in San Francisco likes the suggestion of artificial intelligence

Michael MacBean, project director of Pacific Structures, used Alice in staging the structural concrete for a $150 million, 20-story residential development in San Francisco because it offered sensible alternatives.

“We used it to validate our methods and check our productivity before construction on that project,” he says, noting that his experience as a project supervisor is most important. “It’s a great algorithm. It can calculate all kinds of methods, and the human expertise you have in construction, if you will, makes it even better.”

Alice helped him make decisions like where to put the cranes, whether to have workers work eight or ten hours a day, and whether to hire 50 or 20 workers. Macbeans could have done the calculations themselves, but it’s more efficient to use the software. “Alice did some fairly simple math, but it was very fast, “he said.

DPR Construction, an engineering firm based in Redwood City, California, is developing its own AI-assisted build management program, relying on years of its own project data. Some of the machine learning projects that we’re working on right now, we don’t call them AI. “We call them ‘AI-aids’ or’ human-aids’,” says Hrishi Maha, head of data analytics at DPR. “The idea is to enhance human users’ decision-making and provide insights based on past performance of DPR projects.”

Automation can also be used for bid preparation and project planning. “The goal is to help our business development, operations and schedulers make more informed decisions based on historical data, so everything is more scientific than someone’s bad feelings about something,” Maha said.

Niran Shrestha, CEO and co-founder of Kwant. Ai

To get more usable field data, DPR has also been experimenting with outfitting workers with wearable devices that include iot sensors from Kwant. Ai, a New York City-based software provider specializing in workplace intelligence. The system helps locate and dispatch workers, and the company is working to apply machine learning to its data set. “We’ve never tried to sell this thing by saying it will solve all your problems, but if you enter all your data, it will provide you with insights to act on,” said Niran Shrestha, CEO and co-founder of Kwant.

As part of a construction INDUSTRY AI panel held by the Ontario General Contractors Association last year, Shrestha offered some insights on how AI could help estimate the manpower needed on construction sites.

“We still don’t know how many people it takes if you want to build an airport, railway or commercial building,” he says in an account for ConstructConnect. “What do you do when you figure out the cost and timetable for a new project? You look at your old schedule and try to compare the schedule to see if you can use it as a reference for new projects, for estimates, for manpower and costs. Now imagine that with AI you are not comparing one or two timetables…… You’re looking at thousands of data points that you’ve collected over the years.”

Milad Khalili, project manager of Cambria Design Build, Ltd., who was also on the panel, said he saw the advantage of having quick access to historical data. “With the help of machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation, you’re going to have speeds that are just a few clicks away,” he says. “It’s also going to help us eliminate repetitive work on the construction site for project managers, project coordinators and different people and industries. You’re saving a lot of time and money on labor and materials.”

Drones are increasingly used in site survey and construction planning

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are increasingly being used on construction sites to monitor progress and safety and survey sites before the first piece of dirt is scooped up. According to a recent report by ForConstructionPros.com, drones can provide detailed, high-resolution images that enable engineers to identify potential problems and allow efficient deployment of equipment during construction. The use of drones for inspections also avoids putting workers at risk.

Ryan Holmes, program manager for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) at Multivista in Newtown, Mass. “Simply put, drones allow us to provide needed views that are inaccessible or otherwise too risky or expensive to capture by any other means,” said The company, which offers drone/drone services with remote pilots. “We are using drones to help everywhere, from assessing land clearing and earthworks, insurance, inspections, all the way to project completion and maintenance afterwards,” he said.

The data collected by drones can often be accessed on any platform, whether it’s a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, making project data flexible. Many companies optimize raw drone data to produce sharper drone images. For example, real-time Kinematic (RTK) uAVs use a GPS correction technology to provide real-time position data correction when capturing live photos.

“The rise of the RTK UAV provides an important step towards providing accurate, repeatable results in a direct workflow, reducing one of the largest potential sources of error in the placement and handling of ground control points (GCP) in earthworks, Matthew Desmond, president of Agtek Corp., livermore, Calif., a provider of measurement, analysis and control software for the heavy construction industry.

Read articles and sources in Engineering News Record, ConstructConnect and ForConstructionPros.com.

Original link: www.aitrends.com/ai-in-indus…