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Raphael Thys
Big construction projects are notorious for delays and running over budget. An Israeli company says it has a high tech solution to get everything back on track.
At a hospital construction project in England, project manager Bruce Preston says he is juggling millions of pieces to help the nearly $200 million project take shape. “We have 2,300 rooms and spaces that we need to keep track of to know exactly what's going on in everyone one of those spaces.”
Tracking progress is usually done by hand. But on this job, a 360-degree camera attached to a hard hat is capturing every inch of the site using artificial intelligence to compare the images to the building’s blueprints. Preston points to a computer screen to show how it works, saying, “it’ll tell you green if it's all done and orange where there's work still to do.”
Tech firm Buildots says their AI system catches mistakes before they become a costly problem. “How many times does the industry lose money because it finds out way down the line that we missed something?” asks Buildots Co-founder Aviv Leibovici.
Construction is estimated to be a $10 trillion industry worldwide, and a report from McKinsey Global Institute, a management consulting company, says about $1.6 trillion are wasted every year by productivity problems.
Leibovici and his partners at Buildots saw an opportunity. “This tool is about giving them the information to make the right decisions. How can you plan next week without knowing exactly where you are?” asks Leibovici.
Building on time and budget is good – especially when you’re footing the bill. “Getting it right, having zero defects is really important to us,” says Steve Killen, who is helping to oversee the project for the UK National Health Service.
And with a smarter pair of eyes on this job site – workers say their vision is already coming into focus.
Buildots says their AI technology is being used on construction sites across the US including New York City, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin.