Glodon Company Limited

TAS & TRB(2024年02月26日)

glodon — 2024-02-26T14:48:56+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/products/tas-&-trb-1

TAS software & TRB is BIM-based quantity takeoff software, which helps all players in the construction industry (owners, consultants, contractors, etc.) to calculate quantities rapidly and accurately, check quantities easily and intuitively, and work efficiently and collaboratively in the full life cycle of construction projects, thus improving the work efficiency and cost management of enterprises.

Quick Modeling
Auto-modeling by identifying DWG/PDF drawings
One-click modeling by importing IFC/RVT models

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Auto Quantity Takeoff
One-click quantity takeoff via built-in local measurement rules and BIM-based auto-deductions. Handle changes by modifying models only, and generate quantities instantly.

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Flexible Quantity Extraction
Various built-in reports and shareable custom templates. Customizable classification conditions and flexible quantity extraction.

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Convenient Quantity Check
Trace quantities back to models. Calculation results containing visible quantity information. 3D deductions and calculation expressions to facilitate quantities checking.

For more information about glodon software, please feel free to contact us!

Established in 1998, Glodon Company Limited was listed on the A-share market in May 2010 (abbreviated as Glodon, Stock Code: 002410) in China, being the first listed company in the field of construction engineering informationization in China.

Eroad Suite(2024年02月26日)

glodon — 2024-02-26T14:48:24+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/products/eroad-suite-27

Eroadsuite is a road BIM design eroad software developed to provide one-stop and platform-based road BIM forward design for municipal road and highway designers.

The preliminary design, construction drawing design and BIM scheme design of road projects are carried out on the same design platform, which not only keeps the continuity of design data but also greatly improves the design efficiency.

Eroadsuite BIM Road Design System contains three major features: road BIM scheme design, road construction drawing design and traffic facility design, to help design organizations easily implement BIM design of road projects.

Rich Data Interfaces
Eroadsuite can be seamlessly connected with Revit, PDMS, SketchUp, LUMION and 3DMAX, to achieve the combined display of models, 3D simulation analysis, scene rendering and other needs, and enhance visual expression.

Integrated BIM Forward Design Platform
The platform-based architecture is adopted to integrate road BIM scheme design, road construction drawing design and traffic facility design, so that data is unified and fully interconnected. Without changing the design process and behaviours, it helps design organizations easily embark on the road of BIM design.

Assembled Road Design Concept
The assembled road design concept ensures component-based road facilities, templatized component schemes and intelligent design schemes, which can improve the reuse rate of design results and support BIM coding and attribute extension of road model components.

Design Process is the Modelling Process
Based on the concept of BIM technology, two results, namely design and construction drawings and BIM models, are obtained in one time of design. Driven by the database algorithm, the adjustment of the design scheme drives the real-time change of the model to completely combine the existing design process with the BIM design.

For more information about glodon software, please feel free to contact us!

BIM Design Management Platform(2024年02月26日)

glodon — 2024-02-26T14:47:50+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/products/bim-design-management-platform-22

Glodon Hongye BIM collaboration platform is a collaborative management platform for design organizations. It integrates resource management, project management, information exchange and collaborative design.

The platform is capable of working with the current mainstream BIM design software and documents generated during the design process can be stored in the Cloud Based Environment, so project participants can communicate and collaborate with each other in real time.

As a result, Glodon Hongye platform promotes and supports a more collaborative culture to design organizations so collaborative design and collaborative management to be achieved.

Easily & Efficiently Managed Deisgn Products
The platform provides a unified data management centre for the project, which provides the whole-process management from project planning, task planning, collaborative design, model light weighting, drawing and model review to delivery and archiving.

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Cross-Discipline & (A)synchronous Collaboration
The platform supports cloud file collaboration (cloud management, version management, backup and recovery based on Revit Server mechanism) and linked file collaboration (including linking of cloud files, linking of cloud and local files, automatic synchronization of files and version management, ensuring that designers can refer to files of other disciplines while designing), to achieve cross-discipline and cross-region collaborative design.

Quickly Carry out Forward Design
The platform has built-in template files and professional libraries conforming to BIM standards, and provides resources such as application standards, classification and coding standards, drawing standards and delivery standards, to help users easily realize BIM forward design.

TRB(2024年02月26日)

glodon — 2024-02-26T14:47:15+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/products/trb-3

TRB is a BIM-based quantity rebar takeoff software. It works with TAS, TME, and TBQ to form an integrated construction cost management solution, taking the lead in the era of BIM.

BIM BASED
Build BIM model efficiently by identifying DWG, PDF, JPG or by tracing 2D drawings.

QUICK MODELING
Deal with variations quickly by only adjusting model information and performing calculation again.

EXPORT OPTIONS
TAS is the only quantity takeoff software that enables the editing of BIM models and supports imports.

QUANTITY ORIENTATED
One click to complete quantity takeoff based on the model. Deal with variations quickly and efficiently

Improving the Built Environment Through the Power of Data and Technology(2023年12月07日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:54:28+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/improving-built-environment-through-power-data-and-technology-281

By Cristina Savian

Nima international ambassador and Digital Twin expert at BE-WISE- UK and Australia

As the focus shifts to building a better-built environment, information management is being served as one of the key drivers to create a rewarding and productive construction lifecycle. There could not be a more excellent example of the shift of the focus within the BIM 5D community towards the I in BIM than the recent rebranding of the UKBIM Alliance into nima.

Nima's new tagline is With trusted data, great things happen. As a passionate advocate for the adoption of digital twins for our built assets, I couldn't agree more with this statement and I couldn't be more proud to have been chosen as an international ambassador for the organisation based on my strong interest and work in this growing field. And I am happy to learn that glodon company limited has just joined nima as the first international patron (link to announcement).

I strongly believe that purpose-driven data, when 'managed correctly, can produce powerful results, which is also why I believe that digital twins are at the core of the data-driven economy.

There is no doubt that 'managing data correctly' is the most challenging aspect of our construction process, but it is also the most rewarding if we achieve it correctly. We, as construction professionals, have a long history of being outstanding when it comes to building our world. However, we have also been proven not to be so great when it comes to keeping good records of the assets with disastrous consequences, as in the case of the Grenfell tower in London. If it were actually that good, there is no doubt that several professions, like surveyors, whose jobs are to continually collect data about the same assets, would be in short demand. Is job preservation what is preventing us from being able to manage our data effectively across the lifecycle of a project?

I seriously doubt that this is the case. There has not been a substantial change in the way we procured built assets over the decades, and the procurement contracts have followed suit as well. You have a need for a new building or infrastructure that needs to be built, so you gather architects, engineers, and builders to build it, then either manage it yourself or hire someone to help you manage it. We focus on the physical asset, not on the creation of those digital records that can benefit us in the long term. We are still far from seeing widespread adoption and inclusion of digital information management requirements into procurement contracts, despite huge efforts from industry professionals and 5D BIM advocates and international standards like ISO 19650 being around for some time. As a matter of fact, it's clear that asking for those digital handovers to be included in the contracts can have a long-term benefit; Digital data is being produced anyway; why not exploit it for other purposes in countless ways?

What are the reasons behind the low adoption rate that we experience today? As we have seen in the RICS whitepaper, which I authored and featured in the previous edition of this Insight magazine. I am curious to know why we are still debating whether or not an effective digital information management process is valuable.

It is a fact that we all appreciate the value of Google. Nowadays, Google Maps and your phone are all you need to get around effortlessly a new city without having to plan anything, and there are several search engines and apps that can assist you with finding all kinds of historical information within minutes.

There is no doubt that we all understand the importance of having something similar for our built assets. I think we all do, don't we?

What would it be like if we could know how many workers are currently working in a construction site and their real-time position with a simple search, or if we knew how many tower cranes there were and their current working conditions within a matter of minutes? If we improved the efficiency of our built assets, and at a higher level, of the entire city, we would be able to provide a better environment across the entire country for all users, starting from ourselves.

In the last 25 years, how has the industry progressed in terms of data and technology? We certainly have made improvements in some parts of the building process; we no longer have drawing boards, and it does not take us years to design a building; we now design digitally, and the process is faster and has been optimised thanks to technological advancement. We create plenty of digital records, so new apprentices will be searching through digital files instead of an unwelcoming environment. For some people, it might be a better working environment. Is this all the improvement we managed to achieve? Would you say we are satisfied with the results?
Joke aside, apart from producing tons of digital data, what percentage of that data are we actually leveraging and utilising in the long run? Wouldn't it be great if we could organise and search our building records in a more meaningful way so that we could make data-driven decisions more easily and benefit the entire duration of the building?

The Grenfell Tower disaster in London is a clear example of how valuable the golden thread of information can be in the long run when it comes to protecting the community from harm. The new Building Safety Bill mandates a new digitally enable process to improve the health and safety of buildings and hopefully soon, other countries will follow.

But firstly, how do we enable a data-driven culture embedded into the entire procurement model so that we can all contribute to creating and managing the flow of information effectively to ultimately contribute to enabling the digital twin, the core engine, to find your way around the asset? How do we create a digital twin capable of generating meaningful insights at any given time, alerting you when you fail to take preventative action to improve the lifetime and economics of your asset?

Let's learn from those who have already successfully done it; the focus of Google's guide to establishing a data-driven culture is on three core factors: people, processes, and technology.

There is no lack of technological solutions, Glodon has abundant evidence of how data can be collected, managed, and exploited across the construction lifecycle. In fact, in the case of Glodon's R&D building in Xi'an, the digital twin lean construction is achieved. The Glodon Digital Building Platform helped collect data and monitor on-site people, equipment, and material as well as the construction process and environment in real-time by leveraging the power of 5D BIM software, Cloud Computing, Big Data, IoT, Mobile Internet, and AI.

So what is preventing everyone else from adopting a better system?

First is the process, starting with the very established, cumbersome, out-of-date procurement model for data acquisition, combined with the people tasked with working across this very long lifecycle, which needs to come together seamlessly.

We need to seek a construction economy in which activity and decision-making are driven by data that is collected, stored, and analysed but most importantly, we need to enable a data-driven culture by default.

My opening speech from the recent Digital Twin conference in Saudi Arabia, in which I had the honor to chair, summarises what we need to tackle the people and processes pieces of the puzzle.

What is required is dreamers who think innovatively and make bold moves. As we are witnessing countries such as Australia and Saudi Arabia, who have initiated the journey of embracing the digital twin opportunity and successfully started incorporating those digital requirements and specifically mandating and sourcing digital twins along with the creation of the physical built assets.

The world deserves dreamers. - that think innovatively

We must think innovatively about how we design, construct and operate our built assets. We are far from leaving future generations a resilient, sustainable, efficient, profitable, and sustainable built environment.

The world deserves dreamers who can make bold moves.

It is our responsibility as global leaders in this digitally built world to be the bold move the world needs. Let's all be dreamers who drive positive change across the industry so that the unimaginable of yesterday becomes a reality today.

Technology is already available, so what are we waiting for to improve the built environment through the power of data and technology?

Quantity Surveyors Facing Competitive and Tough Market, Demanding More Experienced Talent Than Ever(2023年12月06日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:53:30+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/quantity-surveyors-facing-competitive-and-tough-market-demanding-more-experienced-talent-ever-278

The RICS Q3 2022 Global Construction Monitor results point to a flatter profile this time around, with the deteriorating economic backdrop throughout much of the world leading to an erosion of momentum. Common key challenges facing the global construction industry continued, including:

- significant increase in costs, as has been the trend for much of the past two years;

- disrupting supply chains and uncertainty for global deliveries;

- shortage of digital construction professionals and skilled workers to carry out existing and future projects;

- climate change and extreme weather events cause significant construction delays;

- and increasing levels of financial insecurity in the industry, including ripple effects for suppliers and contractors.

All of these downside risks are driving up construction prices and will not be resolved on a local level in the short term. Even though the aging working population remains a problem across the construction industry in general, very few of the current senior personnel within the industry were employed when these conditions were last seen.
Globally, quantity surveyors are all reporting that they are receiving tender submissions in which costs are significantly higher than would have been expected last year. Although not unprecedented, the effects of these increases rethink the supply chain and development for construction work. Effective cost consultancy needs to be utilised from design stages and then throughout the construction and operational stages of a built asset lifecycle. As a result, the quantity surveyor’s service will be recognised by different levels of services between basic quantity and cost measurement to the value creation experienced professionals and chartered surveyors can bring to a project.
In another survey conducted by RICS in May 2022, more than half of respondents (53%) said the shortage of quantity surveyors was one of the skills shortages affecting the construction industry this year. As Julian Smith, Senior Consultant at Stradia, puts it and quotes: “The need for quantity surveyors is significant. By 2024 a prediction of 24 billion will be spent on construction projects across key developing markets, therefore it is essential to have the skills to meet this global demand.” Practical and skilled application of key techniques is essential to ensure that projects run smoothly and provide value for money.

Although confronted with more challenges and requirements, a recent global survey on quantity surveyors and cost managers by glodon software found the industry is still lagging in transformation. 30.4% of survey respondents are currently not using any estimating and quantification software. And the most adopted digital is still the spreadsheets tool among all respondents. They believe the primary barrier that hinders the use of data and technology in quantity surveying is the shortage of skilled persons, including the retention of trained staff.

One crucial skill, for instance, is the capacity to embrace the changes to BIM 5D. The ability of 5D BIM models to automatically generate quantities and cost estimates does not lessen the need for an expert to interpret the vast amounts of data produced, or to distill it into a form that clients, contractors, and sub-contractors can use to make informed decisions. Quantity surveyors are particularly qualified to enter and analyse this output of data because the quality of the data from a BIM model depends on the data that goes into it. For the foreseeable future, producing quantities from models will require the professional insight and judgment of experts.

One of the biggest challenges is creating a culture that encourages and rewards the sharing of information. Adopting a digital platform is critical for the open exchange of information and changing relationships between clients, surveyors, contractors, and suppliers. The transparency of digitalisation should be a driving force for changing business strategies and attitudes. Yet, it will need a quantum leap in construction business culture to disclose sensitive information to the supply chain.

In summary, all of these described above have made quantity surveyors face a competitive and tough market, demanding more experienced talent than ever. In particular, medium-sized quantity surveyor firms are under pressure due to certain problems, such as competing with large practices’ multiple disciplines and greater specialist knowledge base; and achieving a return on the necessary investment in technology.

By Sebastian Tang

IBD Director Research and Intelligence, Glodon

The Evolution of the Digital Cost Manager in the Construction Industry(2023年12月05日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:52:35+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/evolution-digital-cost-manager-construction-industry-277

The global construction sector is witnessing an unrelenting acceleration in technology adoption and has the unique opportunity to energise, lackluster historic norms in pursuit of a more efficient, productive, transparent, and accountable, data-driven delivery process. At the heart of this ambition is the need for new business models, that are able to complement and cultivate a globally acceptable and amenable ecosystem of sustainability.

Smart building digital twins are expected to develop as a ‘mission-critical’ business tool in all phases of the built asset lifecycle and become a constituent part of a growing sector set to reach almost 185 billion dollars by 2030 according to estimates by Research & Markets. The multifaceted impact of such scaleable yet inclusive digitally enabled workflow-based asset solutions, will undoubtedly expand towards and permanently impact the quantity surveying profession. Fast forward to 2030, where Quantity Surveyors will continue to play a uniquely critical role, but with growth opportunity and responsibility, as the custodian and steward of big data. It is time for the ‘Digital’ Cost Manager to position themselves and reconsiders their value proposition that originated well over 150 years ago and positioned in the ‘basic’ quantification and measurement of the construction process.

HKA Consultants’ Fifth Annual CRUX Insight Report is a distillation of their findings on more than 1,600 multi-year projects in 100 countries, up until the end of July 2022. It found that the combined capital expenditure for these projects was more than US$2.3 trillion. The cumulative value of the sums in dispute exceeded $80 billion. Together, the extensions of time sought would stretch beyond 840 years. These are huge impacts on time and money on the global economy, industry, and project stakeholders.

It is clear to see that there is a growing demand for non-contentious, collaborative leadership, with cost and value set to perform and inform a much wider landscape of project feasibility, particularly in the context of people and processes. Akin to the Gemini Principles are the key tenets of purpose, trust, and function, which in essence define the use case for any digital twin solution.

In the context of achieving better project outcomes with the intention of battling the headwinds, there exists a clear and defining role for disruptive technology. The origins of an information management framework, working seamlessly with an ecosystem of common data environments (CDE) can and will go some way to mitigate the most critical and fragile elements of any construction project, the sector's wider Supply Chain and Material Logistics.

At a global level, the report distills causation into three key areas: change in the scope of works, design conflicts, and contract interpretation issues. The wider challenge of global teams operating in a high-risk, low-margin environment can only lend itself to greater deployment and adoption of technology; thus, facilitating an environment that will mandate and unlock the demand for digital skills.

Today’s economic turbulence is pointing towards a hostile and ultra-inflationary environment, fuelled by the legacy of the post-COVID ‘great reset’. With such challenging headwinds, our ‘traditional’ co-existence is becoming untenable. The presence of ‘intelligent’ clients means that project outcomes are so much more demanding and design teams, who themselves, at least at one end of the spectrum, are delivering more complex projects, are more vulnerable to the wider stakeholder pool. The role of data in the Supply Chain challenge can only be enhanced by the presence, agility, and visibility of digital twins in seeking to ascertain and de-risk project risk registers and deliver more meaningful decision-making, ideally in real-time.

The indelible mark of our professional status is now required to be seamlessly engrossed within a data-driven process that will, by default, unlock and dispense with many of the historic and cultural barriers, that in truth have not served our clients or the wider built environment well. As custodians of an ever-increasingly fragile and tempestuous climate change emergency, it is important that we not only revisit our ESG-led service level agreement with society but that we do so by pulling on data and information that can justify the scale of the disruption that is now required across our commercial offers.

Digitally enabled, structured data can accurately determine relevant case law, and offer timely consideration of any potential for litigation. It is now referred to as a ‘process-level’ digital twin of the traditional and contentious, construction claims process. To further demonstrate the power of data, we need a wide-scale adoption of digital twins during the entire lifecycle of a digital construction project.

As suggested in the joint RICS and Glodon software industry whitepaper ‘Digital Twins from Design to Handover of Constructed Assets’, the idea of digital twins should be extended from the currently popular view of using digital twins for asset and facility management to the development, deployment, and use of digital twins in the early-stage planning, detailed design, entire construction phase, and asset handover. Digital cost managers can play a critical role, with the opportunity, and responsibility, to be the creator and steward of data and be at the foundation of their asset owners’ digital twin journey. My foreword is an attempt to affirm the need for new use cases prior to the occupation phase, which will go some way to enhance value-based outcomes for clients and asset owners.

In seeking to avoid future Grenfell Tower Inquiries, it is important that we recognise our obligations to the public in the delivery and ongoing maintenance of building assets that are not only deemed fit for purpose but are also unequivocally assured of their legislative compliance to key stakeholders.

For those reasons articulated throughout this paper, the digital twin must now be embraced by all of us and deployed as part of our regulated day-to-day, professional services.
So, there is no doubt that the ‘traditional’ role of the quantity surveyor has had to evolve over time and has now reached a point of inflection. But what does the future of the ‘Digital’ Cost Manager look like and what tools will be required? With digital twins, there exist numerous benefits to the ‘traditional’ quantity surveyor, including, but not limited to:

· Increased accuracy of the estimate and quantity take off

· More meaningful project-wide ‘mental health and well-being of project personnel

· Stakeholder transparency of the lifecycle carbon emission and other investment-led ‘ESG’ metrics

· Detailed handover and commissioning of the built asset, aiding a more holistic occupational phase and post-construction digitally enabled asset performance

· Decommissioning of built assets literally, were possible, becomes the complete mirror image of the construction process, with added visibility of risks encountered during the construction phase; supporting the circular economy

However, with any paradigm shift of ‘structural and cultural change, there are pressures or blockers to progress, especially for the ‘traditional’ quantity surveyor or cost manager:

· Shortage of skilled persons/lack of digital skills

· Lack of data standards (note the CDBB / IMF)

· Continued delivery of professional services in silos

· Difficulty in realizing and evidencing clear, tangible benefits

· Inconsistent approach to adoption by Supply Chain partners

· The ability to influence the BIM model or digital twin parameters

· No clear demand from clients/stakeholders (lack of understanding)

· Recent graduates not equipped with the right digital competencies/skills

· Cost, effort, and other projects' wider changes required (to be led by the client)

A recent glodon software global survey on quantity surveyors and cost managers reveals that the industry is lagging in adopting digital tools. They found only 38.6% of respondents currently use estimating and quantification software with BIM 5d or CDE. And the most adopted digital tool is still spreadsheets.

One key observation contained within the aforementioned HKA Report was a startling quantification of just how inefficient and unnecessarily costly the information-gathering exercise can be. An estimated 13% of a construction team’s working hours are spent searching for project information. When it comes to claims and disputes, missing records can compromise loss recovery or defense. By project closeout, typically 30% of the initial data created during the design and construction phases is lost. For the record, a digital twin solution would not only mitigate such loss but if the same digital twin solution was deployed alongside a blockchain solution, such inevitable risks, would be literally eradicated, potentially for good.

Disputes on projects are no doubt likely to increase in quantum and value if digital adoption rates do not increase in the short to medium term. Isn’t it time for the principal custodians of cost and value (i.e., the ‘traditional’ quantity surveyor) to raise our game and become the ‘common data environment’ for any successful project outcome?

By Bola Abisogun OBE FRICS

Digital Director, BIM Academy

Founder & Chairman, DiverseCity Surveyors

Founder and President, Digital Twin Skills Academy CIC

Project Management Digitalisation Key to Tackle Cash Flow Challenges(2023年12月04日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:51:37+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/project-management-digitalisation-key-tackle-cash-flow-challenges-276

The construction industry is confronting unprecedented challenges, the biggest of which is the ever-tightening cash flow. You could get a glimpse of the larger picture of Europe through the labour and material price statistics in the UK. Due to supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic, rising energy prices thanks to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade caused by Brexit, the UK building material price index has been surging since 2019. Until 2022, it reached the highest level in 12 years (121). Additionally, the labour cost indices of the industry rushed to the highest point among 5 years in 2021 Q3 as well.

Usually, there are two ways to increase cash flow, increase income and reduce cost, respectively. However, the global economic downturn limits the increase of total project numbers and revenue by undertaking more projects, which means reducing costs now plays a more significant role in the current economic environment.

Benefits of Project Management Digitalisation on Costs

The key to reducing cost is to improve project management capability. Firstly, it means rework and waste will be significantly reduced. Rework incurs additional time, costs, materials, and labour. Reducing rework is beneficial to lowering costs. Secondly, it increases work efficiency, including maintaining a streamlined and efficient workflow and increasing productivity and accountability. Last but not least, improved project management offers robust risk control in safety, progress, and supply chain. Risks not detected and not handled in time will pose a great danger and leads to significant losses in life and finance.

Then how to improve project management capability? Digital transformation is the answer. Technologies and data do empower projects’ cost reduction and efficiency. However, there are still some common misunderstandings about digitalisation.

Misunderstandings and Essence of Digitalisation

The first common misunderstanding is that people only pay attention to the ‘tip of the iceberg’. Digitalisation is a systematic project. In practice, many companies pay more attention to data display (tip of the iceberg) but overlook the importance of data generation, integration, and analysis (larger part underwater). Data is an 'ore' that needs to be extracted to keep the essence. Enterprises should build effective analysis systems so that there is a solid foundation behind data display.

The second usual misunderstanding is reversed investment priorities. There are two directions when a digital construction company invests in digitalisation, operational digitalisation, and core business digitalisation. The former includes HR, finance, IT, etc., while the latter focuses on the projects. Apparently, the projects are real income sources, providing the primary value to the company. Digitalisation of core business will drive the overall enterprise development. However, many companies do not see it and put too many resources into operational digitalisation, resulting in reversed investment priorities.

Research by McKinsey Consulting shows that the failure rate of digital transformation in construction for general enterprises is extremely high. The main reason for it lies in the failure to recognise the essence of digitalisation — data and connection.

Real-time, accurate, unmodified data is the basis for establishing a reliable connection with clear responsibilities. With the advancements of technologies such as AI, this goal can be achieved automatically with minimum cost. And connection means not just technical connections. The ultimate goal of connection is to realise a reliable business connection with clear responsibilities and rights. In this regard, enterprises in transition must grasp the 'fineness' of data connection. In simple terms, the fineness of data connection is the smallest unit of management involved. For example, the management unit in project management should go into details such as quality, safety, documentation, and progress instead of just focusing on contract settlement data. In addition, all these fineness data should be interconnected, for only the connected data can link each part of the project into a wholeness, facilitating collaboration and driving efficiency.

Advice on Digitization of Project Management

There are two most important aspects to consider before implementing any digital systems.

The first is to have an integrated system rather than multiple software for solving different problems. Companies often encounter obstacles in implementing digital software for the project team, as they find it difficult to change their original habits and to adopt new technologies, which are likely to cause reworks and increase their workload. Moreover, when more software is adopted, the data becomes scattered as the data cannot be interoperable. It would be a challenge for project managers and senior production managers to make decisions based on the data from each software than having all information integrated, displayed, and ready at the same time, reducing the real value the digital system can bring.

For instance, the issues/quality defects found during construction are recorded and tracked with Excel, emails, or other software. Drawings and design problems, such as RFI or change orders, are being communicated with document management software. The information is stored in multiple places, but the defect records or other inspection sheets, such as checklists, and weekly reports, also form part of the project documents and should be compiled easily and ready for handover.

Another example for project and production managers is that understanding various information and data is often necessary to make the most appropriate decisions. If the information is scattered or omitted, it is easy to make a deviation in the decision-making. For example, deciding whether the current progress schedule should be adjusted requires an explicit awareness of the current situation, such as materials supply, labour, and any outstanding RFIs or pending drawing-related issues.

Therefore, a well-integrated system should cover more than just the core area of the project, such as quality, safety, production and document management. For other businesses or works, the system should have an open platform to provide SAAS applications and connect with other product solutions or services, eliminate data silos, and achieve digital transformation. But also, the data between different modules/applications should be standardised and unified to ensure internal data channelling.

The second is to realise the business change during the enterprise's digital transformation. It is necessary to focus on management issues before thinking about digitalisation. For enterprises, it is essential to strengthen the management responsibility consciousness of each business and team leader and boost the management capability to promote transformation.

With digital systems, the senior managers and project managers should also monitor the quality of the data captured from the project. Otherwise, the result comes out way mislead the decision makings. For example, traditionally, the data are collected manually from the site and processed into dashboards and charts in the report for the management team to review. To make authentic decisions, the managers need to ensure there is constant valid data input from the site, otherwise, the system would be useless.

From Aaron WU, Glodon Digital Construction Product Director

If you want to know more details of construction collaboration software, please visit our website.

Interview: Digitalisation Benefits Construction Industry, Especially With Digital Twins(2023年12月03日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:50:43+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/interview-digitalisation-benefits-construction-industry-especially-digital-twins-275

The construction industry is considered one of the least digitalised industries plagued by unstable supply chains, low productivity, project delay, cost overrun and environmental challenges.

In a recent interview with Glodon, Dr. Fangyu Guo, assistant professor at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU)'s Department of Civil Engineering, said digital transformation is necessary for the construction industry. The adoption of digital technologies especially digital twins can significantly benefit the sector.

Digital Transformation in Construction with Benefits and Barriers

"By integrating digital technology with our traditional methods and experience. We can better manage construction projects. And effective adoption of digital technology and management of digital data can potentially help improve project quality and safety, reduce time and cost, and improve productivity and cooperation." she said.

For her, one of the important aspects of those tech trends and initiatives, like Industry 4.0, is that they lead us to think about what digital technologies can be beneficial to our construction industry.

The benefits of digitalisation are well understood by many market participants. However, digital transformation in the construction industry has been slow compared to other sectors.

At present, many companies and researchers are still at the stage of exploring various digital options. And there are many barriers to the complete digital transformation in the sector.
"The major barriers include a lack of mature standards and regulations, a lack of continuous support from the senior management and policies, and a lack of professionals and resources required for digitalisation."

In a paper recently published in the journal Engineering, Construction, and Architectural Management by Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and the University of Lincoln, Dr Guo concluded the lack of laws and regulations is the most significant among the barriers identified.

"The lack of laws and regulations has a negative effect on digital transformation because construction companies need governmental regulations as guidelines to determine their strategies and adapt their organisational structure.

"Well-established standards and regulations are critical for directing an effective digital transformation and motivating stakeholders to invest more in various digital technologies and tools," the corresponding author of the research said.

She told Glodon, the industry should summarise and document some successful experiences, effective workflows, and areas for improvement while enhancing communication with other industry practitioners and researchers from academia, so that we can share and document the lessons learnt to facilitate the high-quality development of digitalisation of the construction industry.

"Data is very important. With accurate data collected in the process, I think we can better monitor the project's progress, cost, safety and quality so we can take necessary preventive measures before serious problems occur. And this data can be stored and used throughout the entire project life cycle and even used for other projects as well, which will support us to make further analyses, predictions, and important decisions."

In this perspective, Dr. Guo believes digital enablers like Glodon software can help with more investment in the methods to effectively collect, use and manage the digital data resulted from using digital technologies.

"This can be possibly achieved through the development and implementation of a comprehensive digital management platform. This platform can be established based on the key users' needs, like the operators, project managers, senior managers and so on, and developed to support the adoption of various digital technologies and integration of digital data throughout the entire life cycle.

"It will be better for the platform to support not only the project-level process, control, and management but also support organisation-level analysis and management," she said.

The Role of Digital Twins

Digital Twin Consortium defines a digital twin as "a virtual representation of real-world entities and processes, synchronised at a specified frequency and fidelity". As a way to deal with historical and real-time data, it holds large potential for upgrading the construction sector.

According to Dr. Guo, digital twins can potentially benefit various prospects throughout the entire life cycle.

"It can improve the visualisation, communication, design quality, and efficiency, evaluate the environmental impact of design and simulate the construction plan methods in the design phase. It can help stimulate and optimise the construction site layout, monitor the construction progress, check labour, materials, and equipment in real-time and improve worker safety, health, and well-being in the construction phase. And in the operation and maintenance phase, it can help monitor and analyse the building operation and predict the maintenance demands."
But with all these benefits, a digital twin journey is not always easy. Dr Guo suggested the priority of developing a digital twin would be defining the expectation and needs and then determining proper technologies and tools based on currently available resources and capabilities.

She praised Glodon's Xi'an R&D building project as an excellent example of implementing digital twin technology.

"Digital twin was effectively applied with positive outcomes. BIM, IoT, and AI technologies were applied together with data-driven lean construction methods, which enable process-level in-depth design, scheduling, resource procurement and supply, and also ensure the dynamic optimisation of progress, timely payment, cost, quality and accident prevention."

"With the assistance of big data, stakeholders were better connected to provide data services like material selection and pricing. Furthermore, the completed intelligent building analyses the indoor environment such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed, monitors health status, and provides people-centered services. "

Prepare Workforce for Digital Future

Digitisation means the construction industry is rethinking how it works. Besides technology, humans also play a critical part. The need to upskill and reskill the workforce has never been more urgent.

The assistant professor believes the digital era requires the workforce to present more knowledge than ever.

"The workforce should be not only professional with their traditional construction methods and workflows but also be able to use new digital technologies and tools, so they can select and use more appropriate methods and tools to effectively solve different problems in different occasions. Meanwhile, they should also hold the long-term perspective and intelligence to facilitate a healthy, sustainable, and high-quality development in the construction industry."

Speaking from her own experience, Dr. Guo agreed companies and universities could better cooperate in this regard.

XJTLU signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Glodon company limited earlier this year. The two sides agreed to enhance collaboration between industry and academia, increase digital awareness in the sector, and contribute together to a better-built environment.

"The training program will be necessary for upskilling of the workforce. On the one hand, I think the university can integrate both traditional and new digital construction management techniques and methods in their teaching and learning. On the other hand, companies need to provide more specific skill training that fits their demands. In addition, it is worthwhile to enhance the communication and collaboration between industry professionals and researchers in the university through different forms, such as guest lectures, seminars, research projects, and student internships."

If you want to know more about construction management software, please visit our website.

Technology, Net-zero and Role of Quantity Surveyors in Changing Built Environment(2023年12月02日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:49:39+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/technology-net-zero-and-role-quantity-surveyors-changing-built-environment-274

The UK digital construction cost was already one of the highest in Europe, and now with increased global demand in the construction sector, material costs have reached a 40-year-high. At the RICS UK QS and Construction Conference, we discuss daily challenges, including how we can adapt to ensure that UK construction is actively supporting the path to Net Zero, how the value toolkit enables value-based decision-making, and the need for surveyors to embrace the use of the data and information management processes.

As Bola Abisogun OBE, Chairman of Urbanis and Founder & Chairman of DiverseCity Surveyors said the QS remains the largest cohort of professional membership across the surveying profession, yet it would appear that we are also facing the most compelling career challenges to remaining both an active and integral part of the client's design and delivery team.

Here are some key lessons from the conference shared by Tom Young, director at MagiCAD.
Economy

The UK economy like other regions is suffering from inflation which is causing cost of living issues, this will impact markets and demand reductions. After strong inflation (around 11%), it may also go into recession, and surveyors should be prepared for a challenging few years ahead. There are also key challenges for main contractors who are dealing with some of the smallest profit margins of any industry (1-2%) which is unsustainable at the best of times. More businesses will likely become insolvent in the coming years.

It's very clear that the significant short-term economic challenges we are starting to face, while important, do not detract from the key challenges the industry faces in the medium and long term, namely achieving decarbonisation and Net Zero targets on time. As the greatest challenge and paradigm shift even for construction, the route to Net Zero provides both an opportunity and risk to Surveyors. QS must evolve or risk obscurity. A sizable shift, more cultural than anything, that could take the best part of a generation to realise.

The key components of this evolution are the application and stewardship of data & data flows between technologies facilitated by a Digital Twin and 5D native approach. Smart building digital twins are not only a catalyst for stagnant productivity, but they also act as a platform to facilitate the role of the modern QS. A modern QS role must now be centred on Digital Twin technology, data sciences, and carbon quantification within the scope of the offering.

Net Zero
Net Zero is a highly important subject and the UK government has goals and milestones that must be met. The two key components are the immediate carbon load of construction and the ongoing operational carbon of the building.

Immediate carbon from construction can be reduced through better use and advanced materials, construction methods like offsite construction and well as specifying more efficient designs and products that may not be immediately cheaper.

As the ever-important decarbonisation agenda becomes ever more critically important, the need for carbon assessment and management of building projects needs to evolve into a management system, which is akin to cost reporting and control, so that the trade-offs between cost and carbon are systematically identified, predicted and managed; a role particularly aligned to the skills of the QS.

Role & Technology

The role of the QS, Cost Managers and PQS needs to change to be more in touch with digital trends, such as digital twins. Survey suggest that Surveyors are falling far behind when it comes to knowledge of advanced technology whereby other professionals, such as project managers, embrace the concept of 4D construction, many surveyors do not know where to start with 5D construction.

The role also needs to adapt to quantify and calculate carbon emissions, and the Building Cost Information Service (BCIS) cost database is creating a carbon database in 2022 so that surveyors can create cost plans and carbon plans. It's said unless the role changes then it may be at risk of becoming less significant and many QSs will lose work.

Data management and APIs will be an integral part of modern surveyors' work and members should be looking at advancing these skills along with learning about emerging tech such as Blockchain, Smart Contracts, and AI.

As a leading digital construction software platform service provider, Glodon's vision is to use technology to create a better living and working environment. For this purpose, Glodon has been working closely with partners on industry research. The latest study with RICS featuring a survey and a focus group discussion is developed to understand better the role and importance of data and technology in quantity surveying and cost management practice. The study is welcomed by industry experts, as it will provide much-needed insights for industry development. Research findings will be released by RICS and Glodon software in a joint industry white paper later.

5 Takeaways on Revolutionising Smart Buildings with Digital Twins(2023年12月01日)

glodon — 2023-11-17T16:48:29+0900

https://www.glodon.com/en/articles/5-takeaways-revolutionising-smart-buildings-digital-twins-273

As buildings and the next generation of IoT technologies continuously evolve, increasing amounts of information and data are retrieved from sensors and digital construction management systems. To better understand the internal operation of the building, it is necessary to establish a system platform to monitor the internal and external components in real-time. Hence the concept of smart building digital twins, which is a virtual morphologic reflection of a physical building that can analyse IoT data collected from various sensors in real-time. Artificial intelligence and machine learning software would be used to process and analyse this information to make efficient decisions about energy, occupancy, maintenance, and security for stakeholders.

In the Proptech - Revolutionising Smart Buildings with Digital Twins panel session during the RICS Smart Buildings Conference 2022, co-organised with REDAS and Glodon. Participants took a deeper look into the connection between smart buildings and digital twins and the benefit for decision-making as well as the urban environment.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the panel.
How does a Smart Building Related to Digital Twin or Smart City Masterplan?

Smart buildings can save resources and improve energy efficiency while reducing the environmental pollution. Information can be collected with all types of sensors across the building. All data is then part into digital twins and modelled in the 3D to optimise energy consumption and maintenance workflow. Air conditions can be monitored based on real-time information, and maintenance personnel can only be sent when needed. The digital twin is constantly evolving, so it's good to start with one building and expand to a more extensive system with more sensors deployed and stakeholders involved.

For property owners who outsource property management and only want an overall summary of operation information, digital twin helps get all the information and enables a comprehensive dashboard on things like the work performance of the property manager and incidents happening on the premise.

How Can We Collect Accurate Data from Various Devices and Make the Most of It?

Connecting to validated sensors and verifying information at its source can help avoid the problem of 'rubbish in and rubbish out. Historical data can also help verify the data for anything abnormal and ensure the data quality with the help of AI. And human intelligence of industry experts can also be encoded into the algorithm.

With forecast information, the digital twin can also facilitate predictive dynamic adjustment. For example, with weather forecast information, the temperature in the facility can be adjusted accordingly in advance. It also gives actionable insights for maintenance work based on the collected information.

How Could Digital Twin Probably Solve the Problem of City's Resilience?

Digital twins can help with the city's resilience. But it is certainly not the only factor that will make cities resilient. Cities are resilient when they can promote sustainable development, improve well-being and create opportunities for inclusive growth. And it is also an environment that can anticipate, predict, and respond to dangers. The dangers can come from economic dangers, institutional dangers, and natural events.

Digital twins can be applied at various stages in an environment's or city's life cycle. Within the cities, there is infrastructure – buildings, roads, and bridges. Digital twins can be used upstream for planners or designers to test the what-if scenario. They can also be used when considering reducing errors and biases, and this is particularly important in the digital construction and commissioning of the infrastructure. And downstream, digital twins can be used for calibration purposes, such as condition monitoring and preventive operation optimisation.

Digital twins can be used if they are accurate. Accuracy depends on having a great sensing ability to collect and process what is happening to assets and, at a city level, a network of assets. So it's a system on a system for which people are able to monitor and govern the factors that are important to cities' resilience.

How to Handle the Challenge of CIM Modelling with Aligned Benchmark and Unify standards?

Data is part of the crucial information needed to make the best out of it to support the built environment life cycle or to operate the city in the future better. But the challenge is that data or possible city models are always collected in a not standardised or harmonised manner. It's always a problem when people work on a multi-discipline, cross-discipline kind of project that data are created in a very different way in terms of how it is restored and restructured. Although people can now better handle unstructured data with AI, the journey can be made easier with standardisation and harmonisation at the beginning of the project.

In a situation where there are already several standards for different buildups, data can be harmonised by grabbing common things out to harmonise how people create the information. And instead of one organisation taking all the responsibilities on its shoulder, the most important thing is the joint effort with all stakeholders to find common ground.

What Are the Values of Digital Twins and What Can They Contribute to Value-added Assets?

The value of digital twins can be condition monitoring, performance monitoring, or the ability to predict and then optimise. The key is the value has to be translated to the bottom line or top line that is very clear to clients and customers.

For businesses, it is crucial to articulate the actual value and purpose of digital twins to the customer and clients so that they are willing to make the upfront investments required to capture the future return on investments that digital twins claim. One of the major barriers to adopting digital twins is the cost considerations of developers and real estate companies. A good approach can be pilot projects with customers to demonstrate the value of digital twins.
Moderator:

Sebastian Tang, IBD Director Research and Intelligence, Glodon

Panelists:

Jonathan Tan, Managing Director, UnaBiz

Mun Lock Kum, Deputy Managing Director, Envision Digital

Raj Thampuran, Managing Director, Technology and Research, Group R&D, Surbana Jurong

Thomson Lai, Asia Digital Leader, AECOM

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