UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLN
Module: Advanced Construction Technology and Innovation
Module code: BTE9003M
Instructor: Behzad Sodagar
Submitted by: Sibtain Saleem Awan
Student ID: 26081858
Course: Construction Science & Management
Assessment 01:
Innovations in technology and their impact on
environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Introduction:
The world is changing faster than ever before. Construction is one of the very first businesses
mankind developed, but it is yet considered conservative and having lack of innovative and
revolutionary ideas. To enhance the stats, the researchers has been working on it and
developing the strategies and aiming to revolutionize the construction sector. A study has
been carried out in order to implement the advanced construction techniques providing a
systematic review. With several other factors, some of them were concluded as the most
affecting ones to the advanced construction performance and innovations, i.e. collaboration,
innovation process, culture and drivers. (Xue, X., Zhang, R., Yang, R. and Dai, J, June 2014).
The societal, economic and environmental relevance are also crucial elements of construction
industry. As, apparently each and every business rely on construction industry in order to
accommodate the work force, storage of goods etc. It has been recorded that Americans
spend an average of 90% of their time indoor. Hence, the built environment is of high
importance to the society whether it’s about offices, play grounds and homes or aesthetics,
materials and innovations. When it comes to economic relevance, the construction sector is
comprised of 6% of world’s total gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 100 million
people are working in the construction industry worldwide and expected to grow rapidly.
Environmental factors are primary and of utmost importance when it comes to construction
sector. It is largest industry when it comes to the consumption of raw materials and other
natural resources which are affecting the planet Earth dreadfully. Almost, 40% of solid waste
materials comes out of construction industry rather constructing or demolishing. The point to
be aroused again that was to improve the construction industry, materials used in it, decrease
the carbon emissions, enhance sustainability and reduce the cost. (Pedro Rodrigues de
Almeida, Manuel Zafra Solas, May 2016)
We are going to discuss the modern methods of construction especially the use of robotics
and drones and how are they going to affect the industry in terms of pros and cons. Also, the
impact of modern innovations on environment, ecosystem and their role in sustainable
development. Moreover, we will explore the safety aspects of these modern innovation.
Modern methods of construction
The standardized, modularised or prefabricated components has seen a substantial boost in
the modern construction. They bring many benefits like reducing the costs of materials, very
less interface issues, easy maintenance and reusables. It can help saving the time of a project
with high ratio, which could be very useful to construction industry. It could be applied in any
construction project from houses to tall buildings. Prefabrication is considered quite accepted
by construction industry. But it has a poor image because of not good quality in terms of price.
Different client demand also is a hurdle to prefabrication and most importantly lack of
experienced labour for handling and installing the prefabricated components. Transportation
of these components is not easy and even increase the cost. (Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida,
Manuel Zafra Solas, May 2016)
Machinery plays an important role in the construction sector; it has showed a significant
productivity gain and provided a lot of help in different processes of a construction project. For
example, Excavators deals with large amount of land digging in very short period of time,
similarly bulldozers and trucks carry the excavated site to the dumping site quickly. Tunnel
boring machines (TBM), drilling rigs etc enhance the underground working capabilities.
Cranes lifts and move the heavy weights from different points into others. But when it comes
to automated machinery, construction sector is not doing so well. But with the advancement
in technologies in every field, construction industry is also set to change. The artificial
intelligence, autonomous controlling system and the use of robotics are opening the way to
number of possible innovations in the industry. These modern equipment like aerial vehicles,
cheap sensors, and other digital technologies do have the capability of carrying out different
complex tasks though, definitely it will require the human controlling from behind. Hence,
Semi-automated equipment reduces the project costs, requires less labour, requires less time
for project completion, no or very less errors and omissions, improved safety and better
accuracy. (Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida, Manuel Zafra Solas, May 2016)
It is believed that the 3D printing development could have high impact on the industry. This
enables the production of purpose-built shapes that cannot be prepared by any other way. It
is expected to gain high percentage of productivity in different applications of a construction
project. The time duration could be reduced from weeks to hours and customised elements
could also be prepared at affordable costs. With a lot of benefits some drawbacks for
development of 3D printing also exists. For example, large scale printings could show rough
resolutions. Also, the 3D printers are highly expensive
Framework described by World Economic Forum for transformation of construction industry:
Figure 1 (World Economic Forum; The Boston Consulting Group, May 2016)
Robotics and Drones in construction industry
There are various inefficiencies and voids in the construction sector, especially the low
productivity and time taking activities and processes in the project. The use of robotics in the
industry could potentially overcome these shortages and increase the productivity
significantly. Still, adaption of robotics and these new innovations in construction industry is
too low and very slow. The issues recognised in order to adopt the use of robotics in
construction industry were divided into four main categories, which are listed according to the
high to low importance, are; contractor-side economic factors, client-side economic factors,
technical and work-culture factors, and weak business case factors (Juan Manuel D et al, Nov
2019). The configuration of robotics commenced from large machinery and moved towards
small mobile vehicles. The sensors system concerned to images and processing of different
algorithmic patterns, like 3 dimensional cameras and deep learning algos have been very
popular since 2009. These innovations are very useful for more precision and accuracy of
operations especially in unknown and highly complex situations. Inspection works are really a
good opportunity to enhance the use of robotics in construction sector (Siwei Chang, MingFung F S et al, Jan 2022).
One of the main challenges in order to involve robotics in construction industry is the
requirement of highly precise and explicit information as reliability from robotics is only
expected if they get the right input information for the tasks given to them. Only then we can
expect the good and reliable results. Building information modelling (BIM) is a great hack for
such issues, as it fills the information gaps and keeps everything ready and accurately
designed by using software like Revit etc. Though, the information currently is not designated
for robotics use but it could easily get designed in order to make it compatible with robotics.
Hence, the researchers tried to make a simulation-based method to evaluate the automated
assembly of wooden frames. And the results were quite successful, showing 39 times faster
approach compared to manual creation of such robotic simulations. The test was carried out
on three cases, and it also showed significant decrease in errors. This proposed approach
can really make a useful impact on the modern construction especially in the field of robotics
in construction (Oscar Wong C, Jiansong Zhang, Richard M. Voyles, Byung-Cheol M,, May
2022).
The estimation shows that a crucial no. of drones has being used in construction industry.
Drones are incredibly helpful for construction industry because of their high precision, their
compatibility with BIM software (Which could help increasing the efficiency of many processes
in a construction project), getting the live data in the form of pictures etc, helps the clients to
stay affiliated with the project even in reduced cost, also the site accessibility and monitoring
becomes easier. Exchange of information gets a lot quick, well organised and convenient. It
also helps the labour saving and time of course. Post to the construction phase of the project,
drones could be used for maintenance and inspection. This is especially in tall buildings, which
may only be accessible through scaffolding. The construction sector should learn from other
industries which have been promoting this technology and adapting at high pace. It could be
adapted in order to transport the materials from here to there on a project, just like SEAT
company is using the drones to move its goods between different plants and resulting in huge
reduction in time from 90 to 15 minutes. Hence, drones could be proved effective in on-site
transportation of goods. The UK investors diving into the drone sector rapidly looking at the
potential profit in the industry and how is it going to shape the modern construction sites in
upcoming years. (Navpreet A, Sophie H, March 2021)
Impact of modern innovations on environment
The reduced thermal conductivity provides a better insulation system that consumes less
energy for both heating and cooling. An environmental analysis was carried out for different
materials which could be used in outside of building walls. Life cycle assessment method was
applied on four proposed systems to estimate its impact on environmental aspects. An ecosandwiched material (Energy class A+/passive houses) having cork, epoxy resin and flax
fibres were taken as natural materials in order to test the thermal conductivity. The use of the
eco-sandwich was bringing up the several advantages like having good insulation properties,
light weight structures. The life cycle analysis showed that in the production phase
environmental performance is lower compared to other traditional materials. Nevertheless,
impacts due to material transportation and installation could be lowered due to the light weight
and handling of the eco-sandwich. (A.D. La Rosa, A Recca et al, March 2014)
The United Kingdom govt. took the firm steps to make sure all the new construction should be
zero carbon rated for domestic buildings in 2016 and for the commercial buildings in 2020.
There are various sustainability issues with the western countries but UK has significant
problems with the generation of large amount of waste materials. The UK alone is producing
almost 100 million tonnes of waste annually and out of which 13 million is unused material.
And it only has 20% recycled components. This leftover waste goes to the landfills mostly
which gives further rise to pollution of biosphere. The reasons suggested behind these issues
are leadership, culture and old outdated technology. A project in north east area of England
has applied BIM as a new interactive working rostrum, lined up with the modern construction
methods. By situating this inquiry within an authentic case study it has highlighted ineffective
strategies, policies and leadership, which have prevented full exploitation of the potential of
BIM and MMC towards sustainable production. This inquiry supports the integration of the
Framework for Sustainable Strategic Development (FSSD) into construction procurement, as
a method for implementing bottom up leadership in a value driven project (Zaid Alwan, Paul
Jones, Peter H., Jan 2017). The environmental advantages of green buildings includes
protection of ecosystem, better air and water quality, protection of resources of earth. The
green buildings does not harm the atmosphere and even emit very little or no carbons at all.
Despite, the green buildings possess some disadvantages as well, like high initial costs, high
implementation cost, less information, no big range of alternative raw materials, uncertainties
expected on performance outcomes and its impacts, lack of skilled labour and resources.
While going green is now being noticed by the world community but the effects if individual
efforts could be very small and negligible. The theory is if everybody shows strong and
significant will to go green that could make a remarkable effect, but that is just ideal condition,
we cannot convince everyone, some people believe differently like doing this won’t have a real
impact outside of economics. This is then a personal choice which may not show any dramatic
result for a massive change expected. (Abolfazl Iravani, M. Hasan akbari, M. Zahoori, 2017)
Impact of modern innovations on health & safety
(E. Roland Andersson et al., Feb 2011) approached the modern innovations in occupational
health and safety aspects aroused by radical innovative techniques. In the Switzerland, the
construction industry has had many accidents and casualties, because of very irregular natural
behaviour. They took a 2 step rationale approach to differentiate between the productivity
coherence of a general arena and the other one as proper health and safety arena,
performance checked under the same conditions. The results were quite good for both of the
techniques and were clearly advantageous to the society. The health and safety arena even
doubled the productive efficiency being an idea in the market place after two years, increased
by 0.1 to 0.25 ideas. They contributed discussion on the “Open innovation” concept and how
to reorganize the established “Science Park” innovation model. Though, managing health and
safety factors is construction is a complex task, the accidents have impacted the projects
badly, with massive effects on time, quality and most importantly the cost and also a firm’s
reputation and insurance expenses. The health and safety aspects are not only affecting the
work force and labour but the whole organisations and over all society as well. The
researchers have worked to gather the necessary information to support, amplify and ensure
the safety aspects on a construction project and to demolish the critical obstacles stopping the
construction contractors in the adoption of the modern innovations for managing health and
safety (Chukwuma Nnaji, Ali A. Karakhan, May 2020). The health and safety characteristics
of innovative robotics and drones is highly appreciable. Drones can be deployed to monitor
dangerous zones on any construction site without exposing workers to hazardous conditions
and the real time data capture will allow immediate responses to safety concerns.
Conclusions
The study shows the different modern methods in construction industry, their limitations and
advantages to the sector in different processes. Methods like prefabrication, 3D printing, use
of machinery is very useful to construction industry in order to save time, money and produce
less waste and pollution to the environment. Drones are also considered highly efficient in
different aspects like monitoring dangerous zones and explosive areas. Moreover, study has
concluded that modern construction techniques are affecting very positively to the
environment and ecosystem because of techniques like green buildings etc. Health and safety
feature is also considered very important and is included in every process of the project
because safety affects not only the workforce but the organisations and the entire society as
well.
References
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