BMBI Debate: Technology and digitalisation in construction
One of the five main topics discussed at the recent BMBI Round Table Debate was the use of technology and digitalisation within construction. The Builders Merchants News features the full write-up from the debate in its latest issue.
Q: How near are we to seeing the benefits of big cost savings, efficiency and productivity improvements from the use of technology and AI in construction?
Chris Fisher, ECI Software Solutions: I’ve worked through decades of disappointment when it comes to technical revolution and innovation. There’s been endless years of promise and opportunity, but I think the last few years we’ve finally seen a pivot from concepts that work nicely on PowerPoint to concepts that are going to work in practice. But if you’re working in an industry which has 40% roughly of construction companies that are running significant portions of their business on paper-based systems. You can’t AI your way out of that. That’s the big challenge.
The majority of the challenges aren’t technology related. We see great uses of digitalisation. We’re seeing computer vision in quality control. We’re seeing just-in-time supply chains in some of the specialist trades. We’re seeing automated procurement and things like that are making big differences.
Connecting systems together is very difficult for SMEs that make up the majority of the sector. If you think from specification to cash, there are 10-plus hand-offs: each one has an opportunity for error. It introduces noise and that creates delays, and that isn’t getting any easier because the big businesses who can afford that £500,000+ investment in technology are having to integrate with much smaller businesses who can’t. The gap’s getting bigger, not smaller.
And so concepts like bringing data standardisation together are fundamental. It’s very difficult for small businesses or small- and medium-sized enterprises to truly move the needle when it comes to investing in technological change. You can’t digitalise spaghetti. You can’t use transformation with technology instead of transformation within the business process itself, and I think that’s the biggest challenge the industry faces.
Daniel Love, Polypipe Building Products: I’ve worked in this industry for 15 years now, and it has changed a lot in the last three years in terms of digitisation. However, what we’re finding when we try to digitise is that the data to base that on is either not there, or it’s not clean and correct data. The industry has got a problem with gathering the data to start with. I think a lot of this is now being forced by the Building Safety bill, etc. where people are having to start to think about data. But it’s a long journey.
For example, a plumber is appointed on to a housing site and they’re just told to plumb the house. They’re not told, ‘this is the design to plumb the house, and this is the data and the products that you need to do it.’ They’re just there to make sure that the water comes out of the tap and into the drain. The products that they use are up to them, and that’s a worry.
There’s a lot of change that needs to happen for the industry to actually get any benefits from digitization. But it has to happen.
Chris Fisher: Yes, and this isn’t just cost saving, it is saving lives. Think about building safety. Beyond the tech gap, there’s truly a skills gap. You can’t quickly retrain someone with 30 years of experience as tradesperson and make them think through the lens of someone using that data, using BIM models, and other technology. You can create the system, but then it isn’t useful for the people using the tools. And there’s data at the specification stage that isn’t making its way through the chain.
John Newcomb, Builders Merchants Federation: Product data is very close to my heart, having agreed with NMBS to form a joint venture agreement to try and tackle this issue. We’ve already invested £300,000 between ourselves. The quality of data, as we’ve discovered, is appalling in this industry. Basic things like product imagery don’t exist for many suppliers, How can we expect a transformational digital journey when you don’t even have a photograph of your product?
I was talking to Rachel at Velux a week or so ago – they have to fill in something between 15 and 20 different spreadsheets. Exactly the same product data requests, but whether that’s from a B&Q or Wickes or a Fortis or a Travis Perkins it’s the same information, but in 15-20 different formats. Now, imagine the cost and the wasted time involved in that process. When we talk about efficiencies and taking cost out of the business, this is one of the biggest areas. That’s why we came together with NMBS to say, ‘This has got to stop.’
Then you’ve got Grenfell and the government saying to me, ‘what is your industry doing to address the issues of the Golden Thread?’ So, we’ve presented Data Yard to the Construction Leadership Council. Our sector is actually moving ahead of the rest of the construction industry, but this will only work if it’s got the full backing of suppliers. Because we’re getting the merchants on board, the customers. Three other buying groups have said to me that by January 2027 you won’t be able to transact with them unless you’re submitting the data into one central data platform – Data Yard, a centralised industry data pool set up by Building Materials Digital Services.
You need to get on that journey: t’s the right way of taking cost out and driving efficiencies, and it’ll become a standard requirement moving forward. This won’t be a nice-to-have, it will be essential. For any suppliers that aren’t talking to us about being part of Data Yard, it’s a minimal cost to get involved. We check the data to make sure it’s correct, because that’s been a problem in the past with schemes like One Place.
In many companies, nobody takes ownership for this. Trying to find who looks after product data in some businesses is a nightmare. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve started the journey.
Chris Fisher: This sector’s ahead of only agriculture in transformation. ECI is part of the data standardisation working group, and we solved this problem 17 years ago in the office products supply space.
John Newcomb: 75% of the data currently is transacted via Excel spreadsheets from suppliers. They don’t have any PIM systems whatsoever: it’s just so archaic.
Chris Fisher: It’s expensive as hell. It’s the cost of data not being where it needs to be, data being out of date, and unorganised, multiplied several times. We are regularly contacted by brands who want to understand why their product content is out of date on sites running our solutions. The answer is because you’ve never provided it and it’s being gathered itself. It’s the antithesis to the Golden Thread, and it needs to be fixed.
Jamie Barber, Dulux Trade: We trade with merchants and buying groups all of whom demand the data in a different format. We have 30,000 line items: the task we undergo for each customer type is enormous. It’s time-consuming, laborious, it’s frustrating, it’s costly. We’ve signed up for Data Yard.
Tim Wood: On AI, what role does that play in digitisation in the industry?
Chris Fisher: I’ve worked with a few businesses trying to evolve into an AI-led, AI-first, mindset. Walk before you can run. The ask is always: ‘I want to automate this part of my business, I want to create automations and tooling that’s going to create efficiencies’. But until you’ve understood and defined those processes there’s nothing to automate. You have to map out processes, and then take pieces at a time and daisy-chain them together.
Jim Blanthorne, Keylite Roof Windows: We’re not ready for AI. Our supply chain is so disparate from specification to order, to installation; it’s not joined up. We have to get the data right. We’re launching new products, we’re changing product codes to meet new regulations. If you’ve got 15 systems to fill in and then you rely on thousands of outlets to update their own local systems, you’ve got no chance. As a manufacturer, I fully support standardization. My message would be, ‘let’s get the basics right first.’
This article was first published in the Builders Merchants News’ December/January edition.
