Constructing a smarter building industry in Australia

Digital maturity in the Australian construction industry is fragmented according to the Australian Broadband Advisory Council’s Construction Expert Working Group scoping study, which looked into opportunities and barriers for the take up of tech in the construction sector.

The study also found that the take up of digital technologies varies significantly across industry segments, and between tier one and tier two firms and small business. It suggested that the take up of digital technologies was significantly affected by the adversarial and competitive nature of the local construction sector.

It also recommended that more needed to be done to encourage smaller firms to digitise their workflows and processes, including lifting their awareness of the potential benefits of such a move.

The fragmented nature of digital maturity in the Australian construction sector is fairly easy to see, says Dushyant Shrivastava, head of digital for the Australian arm of multinational construction company Laing O’Rourke. “When you compare construction to other sectors such as automotive or aviation, digital adoption has been much slower,” Shrivastava tells CIO Australia.

Laing O’Rourke, as a top tier player in the local construction sector, holds a position of relative leadership in the Australian market in terms of its tech posture. But that doesn’t mean Shrivastava doesn’t see the areas where the rest of the industry falls short when it comes to digital standing.

The construction industry has conventionally been a relatively low margin business landscape, says Shrivastava, and so it often witnesses races to the bottom to win work. This means, decisions are frequently made in terms of cost rather than value, which can be an inhibitor to innovation as the use of digital technologies is believed to increase productivity, streamline processes, and improve margins.