How Artificial Intelligence Can Transform Construction
Artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms have struggled to make sense of chaotic construction jobsites, but recent years have seen industry firms build the vast data lakes and analytics systems necessary for these machines to provide useful advice on how to plan, schedule and execute projects. In some cases, these AI advisors have become a standard part of some firms’ project delivery methods. But it’s still a challenge to convince construction professionals to listen to these AI advisors, and there are emerging questions of how risk will be allocated once algorithm-driven decisions start to steer projects.
One of the more direct uses of AI in construction has been the project scheduling analysis performed by ALICE Technologies’ machine-learning algorithm, ALICE. The company has made inroads into the industry in recent years (ENR 5/28/18 p.22), but founder René Morkos says that construction may be approaching a tipping point when it comes to AI adoption.
“What I always hear from people [in the industry] is that ‘I really like scheduling, but the number crunching is the boring part,’” says Morkos. “Why would anyone in their right mind want to spend time crunching all the constraints on a project? It’s mind-numbingly boring.”
Instead, the ALICE algorithm extrapolates thousands of possible ways of executing a project by running simulations of a project’s 4D schedule and BIM, readjusting as variable inputs are tweaked in the project “recipe.” Users make adjustments to the inputs, and ALICE tells them how it will affect the construction schedule. But Morkos says the idea isn’t to cede decision-making to ALICE. Rather, it’s about automating the process of generating possible alternate schedules.
As more companies make the investment into collecting and properly organizing their project data, Morkos says that technologies like ALICE and other AI-based advisors could lend some firms a real competitive edge. “The fundamental value proposition of the general contractor is changing. This new ecosystem will be all about integrated data systems, and it will be 20 to 30 companies that take home this prize,” he says. “We are incredibly lucky to be living in this golden age of construction technology.”
Planning out staging for the structural concrete on M2, a $150-million, 20-story residential tower within the 5M development in San Francisco, Michael MacBean, project director for key accounts at Pacific Structures, saw the ALICE algorithm as more of an informed second opinion on his own scheduling instincts. “We used it on preconstruction for that project to validate our approach to the project and check our productivity,” he says, noting he got the most out of it by tapping into his own past experience as a project superintendent. “The algorithm is awesome. Its ability to calculate every which way to skin the cat, if you will, gets that much better if you also have human expertise on construction to make it do its best,” says MacBean.
