Construction Expert Predicts the Biggest Industry Changes Over the Next Decade - Do you agree?

In a recent article from Building Design and Construction out of the UK, an industry expert lists what he believes will be the biggest changes we will see in the industry over the next 10 years:

1. An increase in sustainable and green construction

2. Continued adoption of technology

3. An increase in data driven decision making

4. Enhanced safety

5. More investment in workforce development and upskilling

You can read the entire article by clicking on this link: Construction expert predicts the biggest industry changes over the next decade (bdcmagazine.com)

While most of these are fairly safe bets, I am wondering if you agree? Here are my thoughts on each item:

1. I think the industry has played with some of the things listed in the article for many years and I am highly skeptical that we will see things like bamboo and adobe blocks making their way into mainstream construction any time soon. However, I do think the race is on to find more sustainable solutions to cement production. We are not going to reduce our reliance on concrete as the most widely used building material on the planet (to do so would be a mistake), but that industry is highly committed to improving their environmental footprint, and I think they will continue to make significant progress.

2. This is probably a given. We will continue to see the adoption of technology on the job site because we still have such a long way to go. We are still highly reliant on paper blueprints out in the field and our workflows for things like submittals and RFIs are still highly analogue. Switching to shared digital drawings stored in the cloud needs to be a priority!

3. Data driven decision making sounds good, but I don't think we are going to see any significant improvements here in the next 10 years. We are still too far away from actually having enough good data that is accessible and can be utilized to make meaningful decisions. I think there will be some gains here, but they will lag until we improve the way we collaborate and generate data.

4. I had to dig into the article details to respond to this one. Unfortunately, I again disagree with the premise that we will see safety improved in any impactful way through the use of wearables and smart devices that monitor workers in real time. First of all, the tech just isn't there yet. There are concepts, but none are ready to be scaled up. Second, and more importantly, our workforce will continue to push back on centralized monitoring of their personal health and activities due to privacy concerns. Management in our industry is not yet prepared to address this concern and until we see significant gains in the way trade contractor management teats their workforce, the workers will continue to fight back on invasive monitoring.

5. For the sake of our industry, I hope that upskilling and improved training will be the number one industry change in the next decade! I think we are certainly seeing it now with construction companies large and small investing time and money to better train their workforce. I hope that these companies are seeing corresponding improvements in conditions so that they can continue to justify their investment. None of the other gains we want to make in the construction industry will be possible without ensuring that we have a workforce that is skilled, knowledgeable, and willing to help us utilize things like technology and different workflows to help improve the industry.

What are your thoughts? Add them to the comments so we can all discuss!