Innovation Drive For Future Proof Construction, by Mansour Faried (Chief Engineer, HQ Engineering Department)
The CSCEC ME Technical conference since it has been launched for the first time in 2017, has witnessed an evident progressive success year after year, proven by the growth of number and categories of attendees, as well as the expansion in the event scope and target audience, to the extent that it became part of the company branding and a long-awaited annual event internally and externally. Since the fourth round happened last year, we have swapped into the virtual event basis in respect to local guidelines and restrictions related to Covid 19 outbreak, and it is the same case also in this fifth round of the conference. However, we have taken the advantage of such mandatory change to implement an innovative platform to host our event for a richer user experience based on real interaction, as well as maximizing the accessibility of our event to construction experts in the local market for the maximum benefits, accordingly. It was a real pleasure to welcome our esteemed guests from local government entities, clients, consultants and academic institutes, in addition to our primary target audience who are CSCEC ME staff.
The conference theme of this year is “INNOVATION DRIVE FOR FUTURE PROOF CONSTRUCTION “, this theme has been selected and developed after we hear a lot complains in various events about how construction industry is one of the largest industries worldwide with a massive contribution to carbon footprint and CO2 emission, and yet, it has been seen as the least among other industries in terms of innovation, spends on R&D and digitalization.
The above statement has raised two major Questions; “How” and “Why”? how construction is seen among the least innovative industries compared to others? And why it is like that?
To answer the first question, the “How”, we need to look deeply into the achievement of other industries so we can feel the difference, lets take the aviation industry for example, over the past three decades, the concept of composite materials, like carbon fibers, has been a real game changer in the industry, it has been widely adopted by both major industry players like Boeing and Airbus, due to huge operational and safety benefits it adds, replacing the majority of metal components and joints by larger monolithic segments which is safer, and more durable.
Other industry can also be observed is the Automotives, the introduction of the conduction motor in the electric cars is another game changer, where such elements has also replaced the conventional compassion engine along with gear box, leading to more powerful cars, less requirement of regular maintenance and by far great reduction of CO2 emission.
Now let’s look back on the construction industry and ask ourselves, when was last game changer innovation seen in the industry? Eventually we may find that happened when the reinforced concrete was invented one and half century back.
Then the second question became more critical, “why” disruptive innovations are not really seen happening in construction industry compared to others?
Looking into several research eagerly aimed to answer this question, we can conclude three main reasons for that phenomenon; namely the “nature of Deviation”, “the nature of the product” and “the Risk and opportunity moral hazards”, we will explore each of them in the following few lines:
The Nature of Deviation:
Based on three different researches used simple analytical method to measure the chances of projects to meet their estimated budget and duration based on actual performance data, the distribution of the projects on the normal distribution graph shows an interesting fact, the curve in all the three studies was “ Right skewed curve” , means compared to bench mark budget and base line Programme, the number of project which went above budget and behind the schedule are by far much more that than the number of project who performed under budget and ahead of schedule, not only that, the results plot on a standard scatter plot of the actual cost compared to budget found to be “fat Tailed”, means there was a considerable number of projects who went extremely far from the preset budget and time by multi folds.
To summaries the above, those studies proven that the construction projects are most likely go wrong than being right, and when it goes wrong, it can be extremely wrong.
With the magnitude of investment in construction industry compared the size of the Companies involved, it is evident that the associated commercial risk is significantly high and one project failure could be enough for many stakeholders to collapse, accordingly construction decision makers are unlikely to venture less driven roads.
The Nature of the Product:
Looking in the product of construction industry, we can see some obvious and unique characteristics which the large number of stakeholders are engaged in decision making, as well as the very long design life expected for the final products. Those decision makers are including developers, designers, builders, authorities, and end users, all of them are co-decision makers for a product to be used by next 2 or 3 generation. Such unusual setup is negatively impacting the innovation ability of any of the decision makers, and reduce chances for major changes to happen.
“The Risk and opportunity moral hazards”
Here is another fact about innovation process in construction industry, which indeed not isolated from the previous two reasons, the Innovation champions in construction field are under a sort of reverse moral hazard, when the innovation succeeded, the benefits accrue to the rest of the project team, but eventually if it failed, the risks and the blame will accrue only to them. This mechanism adds up more reluctance to the innovators to step forward, and notably slow down the innovation process in construction projects.
Summary and Conclusion:
From all of the above, we can conclude that the construction has a special nature compared to others, it is associated with a high magnitude of investment which is proven to be subjected to high commercial risk, and for innovation to happen in construction project, a real collaboration form all stakeholders are essentially required, specially when it comes to risk sharing, it is worth also to note that the innovation in construction is most likely happen incrementally ( step by step), rather than disruptive.
In CSCEC ME, we foresee the Innovation in construction project through four main pillars; Automation, Digital transformation, Offsite fabrication and Green construction. And accordingly, we have carefully selected the all the topics of this fifth conference to be around one or more of those pillars. Looking forward to promote the innovation culture within the company and the entire local construction market here in Middle East.