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According to Alex Belkofer, artificial intelligence, digital twin technology and building information modeling – these are three technologies that will converge and drive the industry.
Belkofer is senior director of VDC for McCarthy Building Cos., based in St. Louis. It recommends that builders take your time with technology adoption as experts continue to develop best practices.
Here, Belkofer talks to Construction Dive about the key programs contractors are using today, what’s made his life easier, and his predictions for the future.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVER: What emerging technologies are contractors using today?
ALEX BELKOFER: I think what’s critical right now in the building technology space is to build on all the success that building information modeling has done for us, and go beyond that.
What I mean by that is the changes that we’ve seen in the last 20 years went from doing 2D drawings and now we have models, and what can you do with them?
Alex Belkofer
Permit granted by McCarthy Building Cos.
It is the evolution of using the core base of the technology and now finding additional uses for it.
That said, BIM has opened many doors for construction technology. BIM as a tool allows us to do things downstream, like do in-situ layout, which used to be with total stations.
Now we do it with robots, right? And 3D printers? BIM unlocks the doors to prefabrication.
What technologies have made your life easier in the last year?
BIM collaboration software programs Revisto and Autodesk Tandem are two good ones. They are putting information into a better vehicle to get more people to view, understand, collaborate and share that information. It gives the end user a better picture of how these digital technologies can benefit them.
Data is the new oil in the construction industry, and that’s what people want access to.
What are some emerging technologies you want to learn more about?
Obviously, everyone is talking about AI and digital twins. I think the question is, how do we apply AI in the right way to construction uses?
We know that things like AI require a robust data set that is good quality data. That’s what everybody’s trying to figure out right now: How do I collect, curate, format my information in the right way so that whatever AI engine it’s connected to can actually use it, harvest it , put it into something that can actually be generated?
I also believe that more and more asset owners understand what digital twins can mean for them in the life cycle of that built asset.
Whether it’s a product they’re investing in, or even just the concept of a digital twin, it all comes down to what data you want, who will use that data, and how that data will be received and maintained. users
Some people are in favor of AI, and some people are very skeptical about it. where are you
I’m right in the middle. I’m very optimistic, but I know it’s going to take time to get there, so we have to take it piecemeal.
Today we are already using technology that includes built-in AI elements. Some vendors we work with are already doing well. So we’re trying to find the right use cases at the right level, and we start chipping away at it.
I’m really excited about AI, as long as we can get our arms around things like curating a strong dataset. But we don’t want to boil the oceanright?
I also don’t think AI will take my job tomorrow. We still need humans to do what we do, so I’m not afraid of that. We’re definitely embracing that, and that’s part of McCarthy’s strategy right now, is to embrace the AI strategy, bring it into our BIM strategy or VDC strategy.
I think there will be a strong convergence of BIM, digital twins and AI. I think these three things are coming together very quickly. How this will turn out will be very interesting.
