With rising tariffs on raw materials, scarce labor resources, and an uncertain economic situation, the time for the Heavy Building Materials industry to implement new technology and automate business processes is now. The lack of connected information — which has plagued the industry for years — has led to projects coming in over budget and behind schedule.
At the FutureTech conference, Keynote Speaker Jesse DeVitte, a managing partner of the venture capital firm Borealis Ventures, confirmed this directive when he said the following:
“Increasing demand will require that design, construction, and operation of the built environment becomes dramatically more efficient. Technology is the catalyst to drive this quest for efficiency through the entire design-build-operate continuum."
In other words, by using technology, firms can collect data from across the supply chain with the goal of sharing that data with building partners for increased efficiency and productivity.
However, the problem is that the data is often unstructured and siloed in different departments. Project managers do not want to share the data because they feel like they own it and no one else should have access to it.
Project data needs to be liberated from disparate systems and shared with all stakeholders, empowering everyone from suppliers to haulers to contractors to improve decision-making and bring projects in on time and within budget.
With visibility across the project spectrum, stakeholders know what is happening all across the project. Data related to bids, quotes, schedules, purchasing, logistics, and more can be shared with project stakeholders keeping them on the same page and giving them the information they need to make important project decisions.
A digital collaborative platform is needed to orchestrate all connections, workflow, and collaboration among trading partners so that everyone works smarter, faster, and safer. Collaborative digital technologies must be embedded into processes to transform the way business partners work together to turn knowledge into action and create new ways to succeed.
