Daily Inspiration – The Future of Construction : “…the big question is not ‘how can we change the way we do things today – it should be ‘how should we change the way we do things tomorrow!”

“The big question is not ‘how can we change the way we do things today – it should be ‘how should we change the way we do things tomorrow!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

(Posting might be a bit later this week; I am in California for an event, on my way to Hawaii!”)

Late last year, I began writing my series on what I call “The BIG Future.” It’s a series of trends that are redefining our world going forward; you can find it at https://bigfuture.jimcarroll.com.

The series, which I am adding to on an irregular basis, covers a grab bag of trends involving healthcare, construction, agriculture, and more.

Several of the posts caught the eagle eye of the President of the Global Cold Chain Alliance, an association representing folks in the ‘big freezer’ industry – or what we should refer to as controlled building environments, used in the supply chain for storage and management of food and medicine that must always be chilled. The posts included ones on Connected Energy, Vertical Farming, and last but not least … Methodology Modification.

What’s that? Although it sounds kind of boring, it is a very significant trend – representing how in many industries, we are actually changing long-standing methods of doing things through the use of robotics, AI, and other new technologies and concepts.

In the construction industry, this ‘methodology modification‘ will represent one very fundamental shift occurring in the industry – to a world in which more of the process of assembling structures will occur offsite, utilizing robotic assembly line methodologies. In addition, it involves far more use of advanced robotics and other technologies for final assembly on site. In other words, changing the very nature of the way that much of the construction process happens.

These folks put in place a lot of very sophisticated facilities, and hence anything they can do to streamline the process, reduce cost, AND deal with labor shortages is a good thing, and the idea of fundamental methodology modification fits the bill. And so my story for them yesterday involved these trends – essentially, as robots come to the construction site.

A boring trend? Certainly not from an investment and spending perspective, as spending will go from $2.1 billion today to some $23.1 billion by 2030. Essentially, the construction sector is investing a HUGE amount of money in ‘changing how things are done.’

What does this involve? It’s not just robots coming into construction; it involves changes to how we do things utilizing drone technology, more advanced BIM (Building Information Management) software, and digital twin technologies which allow us to virtualize much of the construction process as a way of better managing it, and much more.

With that in mind, my key point for my audience in Palm Springs yesterday was that not only should we challenge ourselves on how we are doing things today – but we should keep a keen eye on what we should be doing to ensure we are aligned to the change that is coming tomorrow. After all, we might actually see the arrival of massive new automated construction machines, such as this one which I generated through the use of an AI!

The world of construction – and virtually every other industry – is in the midst of a massive change as we fundamentally change the way we do things – and that is where opportunity is to be found!

Methodology modification might seem like a boring trend, but in fact, it’s one of the most exciting ones out there!