DIGITAL FOREPERSON
Traditionally the role of the foreman was to oversee the quality of building projects and ensure integration. This role is rare on most modern sites but AI deployment could see a the role return in digital form.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming commonplace in our everyday interaction with the internet and significant investment is being made into for further research and development. The integration of program and cost information into building information models allows AI to optimise sequencing and allow the development of an assembly line approach to delivery and installation within a site environment. Alice Technologies have parametric software which can take an information model and generate an optimal programme. This uses recipes for each task within a site which are predefined by an organisation, an example might be the time taken to lay a slab in terms of time, man power and materials required.
Taking information from this model will allow the automated generation of tasks with instructions being provided to operatives in an order which prevents abortive work. This has similarities to the Jennifer project by Lucas Systems that assists in managing warehouse staff.
Scanning technology will then allow the continuous monitoring of activietes and comparison with the information model to track progress and highlight deviation from the programme and planned activities. The start-up Scaled Robotics are already beginning to implement these ideas with an autonomous robot which scans a site at the end of each day once work has completed.
It’s hugely important that this type of technology is deployed in a sensitive and collaborative way. It should never undermine the skills possessed by site operatives and trades-personnel but instead be introduced in a way that avoids the frustration of tasks being abortive or held up because of poor sequencing.
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