Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 20 March 2018
Robots break new ground in construction industry

By TERENCE CHEA The rise of construction ro-
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As bots comes as the building
a teenager working for his industry faces a severe la-
dad's construction busi- bor shortage.
ness, Noah Ready-Camp- A recent survey by the As-
bell dreamed that robots sociated General Contrac-
could take over the dirty, tors of America found that
tedious parts of his job, 70 percent of construction
such as digging and level- firms are having trouble
ing soil for building projects. finding skilled workers.
Now the former Google en- "To get qualified people to
gineer is turning that dream handle a loader or a haul
into a reality with Built Ro- truck or even run a plant,
botics, a startup that's de- they're hard to find right
veloping technology to now," said Mike Moy, a
allow bulldozers, excava- mining plant manager at
tors and other construction Lehigh Hanson. "Nobody
vehicles to operate them- wants to get their hands
selves. dirty anymore. They want
"The idea behind Built Ro- a nice, clean job in an of-
botics is to use automa- fice." At his company’s min-
tion technology make ing plant in Sunol, Califor-
construction safer, faster nia, Moy is saving time and
and cheaper," said Ready- Bichen Wu, center, and Ed Walker use a laptop to determine what a autonomous bulldozer is see- money by using a drone to
Campbell, standing in a dirt ing at Built Robotics Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, in San Francisco. measure the giant piles of
lot where a small bulldozer Associated Press rock and sand his compa-
moved mounds of earth ny sells for construction.
without a human operator. workers working, in order to eral times more than a ma- Bricklayer Michael Walsh The autonomous quadcop-
The San Francisco startup have economic growth," son working by hand. says the robot lessens the ter can survey the entire 90-
is part of a wave of auto- said Michael Chui, a part- SAM's mechanical arm load on his body, but he acre site in 25 minutes. Pre-
mation that's transforming ner at McKinsey Global viously, the company hired
the construction industry, Institute in San Francisco. a contractor who would
which has lagged behind "As machines do some of take a whole day to mea-
other sectors in technologi- the work that people used sure the piles with a truck-
cal innovation. to do, the people have to mounted laser.
Backed by venture capital, migrate and transition to The drone is made by Silicon
tech startups are develop- other forms of work, which Valley-based Kespry, which
ing robots, drones, software means lots of retraining." converts the survey data
and other technologies to Workers at Berich Masonry into detailed 3-D maps and
help the construction in- in Englewood, Colorado, charges an annual sub-
dustry to boost speed, safe- recently spent several scription fee for its services.
ty and productivity. weeks learning how to op- The startup also provides
Autonomous machines erate a bricklaying robot drones and mapping ser-
are changing the nature known as SAM. That's short vices to insurance compa-
of construction work in an for Semi-Automated Ma- nies surveying homes dam-
industry that's struggling to son, a $400,000 machine aged by natural disasters.
find enough skilled workers which is made by Victor, “Not only is it safer and
while facing a backlog of New York-based Construc- faster, but you get more
building projects. tion Robotics. The machine In this photo taken Jan. 26, 2018, Mike Moy, an assistant plant data, as much as ten to a
"We need all of the robots can lay about 3,000 bricks manager for Lehigh Hanson Cement Group, inspects a Kespry hundred times more data,”
we can get, plus all of the in an eight-hour shift - sev- drone he uses to survey inventories of rock, sand and other said Kespry CEO George
building materials at a mining plant in Sunol, California. Mathew. “This becomes a
Associated Press
complete game changer
for a lot of the industrial
picked up bricks, covered doesn't think it will take his work that’s being accom-
them with mortar and care- job. "It ain't going to re- plished today.”
fully placed them to form place people," Walsh said. At Built Robotics, Ready-
the outside wall of a new The International Union of Campbell, the company’s
elementary school. Work- Bricklayers and Allied Craft- founder and CEO, envisions
ing on a scaffold, workers workers isn't too concerned the future of construction
loaded the machine with that robots will displace its work as a partnership be-
bricks and scraped off ex- members anytime soon, tween humans and smart
cess mortar left behind by according to policy direc- machines. “The robots ba-
the robot. tor Brian Kennedy. sically do the 80 percent
The goal, said company "There are lots of things that of the work, which is more
president Todd Berich, is to SAM isn't capable of do- repetitive, more danger-
use technology to take on ing that you need skilled ous, more monotonous,”
more work and keep his bricklayers to do," Kennedy he said. “And then the op-
In this Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018, photo, SAM, a semi-automated existing customers happy. said. "We support anything erator does the more skilled
mason, works on the facade of a school in the south Denver "Right now I have to tell that supports the masonry work, where you really
suburb of Englewood, Colo.
Associated Press them 'no' because we're at industry. We don't stand in need a lot of finesse and
capacity," he said. the way of technology." experience.”q