One of the leading management consultant companies in the country, McKinsey&Company, released a study on technology in the construction industry this week. It contains a good many gems, some of which will not be unfamiliar to Equipment World readers.
The big takeaway from the report “The new age of engineering and construction technology,” is that a productivity revolution is at hand if only construction and engineering companies will embrace the change and fully exploit the opportunities new technology affords.
Most other industries across the globe have been able to create labor-productivity growth of 3 to 4 percent annually, according to the report. Yet construction has only averaged 1 percent productivity growth over the last 20 years. “If E&C (engineering and construction) companies can close this gap—partly by using new tools and solutions—the industry’s output would increase by $1.6 trillion a year,” says McKinsey.
New companies, investors and venture capitalists are plowing a lot of money into construction and engineering technology. From 2011 to 2016, $1.7 billion was invested in document management technology and $1.4 billion in equipment management systems and enterprise resource planning software for these industries. And these areas are the ones in which the industry needs the most help, according to McKinsey.
If you would like to read the full report, you can access it here.
McKinsey also highlighted some of the most promising hardware and software solutions coming to market, and they include:
