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a certified drone pilot who operates a sophisticated industry has the lowest technology spend as a
EVALUATING
NEW TECHNOLOGY
By Sam Lamonica, Chief Information Officer
W hen I look at the emerging technologies
impacting the field of construction, there’s
no shortage of avenues we could explore.
Narrowing the choices down to those that are most
relevant is a big challenge. I’m sure CIOs across
industries can relate given the influx of new solutions
and technologies we hear about every day.
For construction, safety is the number one concern
across the industry, and emerging technology has a
number of potential solutions to address this concern.
We are looking at things like intelligent safety gear
– everything from RFID tags; to sensors that can
detect heart rate, pulse, exposure to dangerous
gases, physical injuries, and more. These Internet
of Things (IoT) devices could be a significant step in
making sure our employees go home to their families
each and every day. But there are many challenges
keeping us from deploying a slew of IoT devices at a
construction site.
If I want to keep employees safe through the use of
devices that are on their bodies, that type of data has
to be monitored in real time. Couple that with the fact
that any one device can generate up to a terabyte of
data a day, and the sheer ability to monitor, track, and
react in real time can be absolutely mind-boggling.
That is just one example.
We are also looking at Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT
applications outside of safety, and augmented and
virtual reality. All of which come with their own layers
of considerations and potential complications. Also,
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because there are no set standards in place for our
industry, there is not an efficient, effective way to
quickly evaluate each new technology that comes
along.
Determining Relevance
Over the past couple of years, drones have become
a big deal in construction. Initially, the applications did
not seem that practical. We had the capabilities to fly
over a big hole in the ground and then fly over it again
in a month and show a little
progress. It seemed great
for business development
and marketing, but little else.
However, we dug deeper
to better understand and
determine if drone technology
was worth investing in.
As the technology evolved, we have considered the
use of drones to address productivity and determine
whether a project is on schedule. In addition, we have
discovered a safety benefit from their use. If we need
to inspect wind generators or power lines on a project,
it is a lot safer to send up a drone to take pictures
and or video rather than a person. But, the only way
to know whether or not you can fully leverage the
technology is to immerse yourself in it, and we did
that early on.
Once the use cases for drones became clear to
us, the IT Department decided to get somebody at
Rosendin certified as a drone pilot. Today, we have
drone that possesses high-definition cameras, and
we are working with our building information modeling
teams to determine how we can start leveraging
drone footage for more than just beautiful marketing
flyovers.
Challenges Along the Way
In our evaluation of drone technology, one of the
biggest challenges we encountered was what to
do with all the gigabytes of drone footage we were
collecting. . . How would we store it? Where would we
keep it, and for how long?
We used to think we had a big data problem before
this new technology came along; however, once we
started looking at more IoT devices, we realized our
data challenges were going to grow exponentially. If
we truly wanted to evaluate the benefits of drones for
Rosendin Electric, we were going to have to address
the data challenge early and head on.
In this case, we partnered with a cloud technology
and intelligent platform provider that enabled us to
not only store, but take action on our data. We have
now married this platform with our drone experiments,
and it is helping us to combat early challenges with
the technology. However, figuring out how to use
emerging technology is not our only challenge.
Getting IT On Board
Compared to other industries, the construction
percent of revenue in the nation. As documented
by Gartner and other analysts, the spend is around
one percent and, in most cases, a little less. A major
challenge we have is funding R&D to start working
on new projects and evaluating all these emerging
technologies. We have to spend the few R&D
dollars that we do have wisely and hope that we are
choosing the right things to explore.
Trying to instill passion and excitement into the
team to work on new technologies, without available
funding, can be difficult. The team may be interested
and intrigued, but sometimes IoT devices can feel
more like a hobby. Our company as a whole is very
busy and does not have too much “extra” time to
dedicate to learning something new that may or may
not be beneficial in the long run.
As an example, at one point there were some virtual
reality glasses floating around the Corporate building.
It was all the buzz. Staff seemed excited about them
and were interested in experimenting with the new
technology; however, everyone was challenged with
carving out the time to play with them.
Regardless of the industry you work in, there will
be challenges when it comes to evaluating new
technologies and solutions. My advice for other CIOs
is to identify those challenges early on so they do
not get in the way of determining whether a new
technology is right for your business. Do what makes
sense for your business and your people.
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