AECCafe Voice Industry Predictions for 2022 – Part 2

Predictions for the coming year are shaped by history and the current moment, and where we see the future unfolding. Both Adam Klatzin, vice president, Business Development for the iTwin Platform at Bentley Systems and Allison Scott, director of Construction Thought Leadership, Autodesk Construction Solutions, write about what realities have shaped catalysts for current and future development.

AI/ML continue to mature and predictions are occurring within and without the new solutions, as we look at predictive analysis on the job on a daily and possibly multi-year, operational basis. Bentley reports the Covid-19 pandemic fueled new sustainable solutions for the future. Autodesk predicted COVID-19 would accelerate digitization in construction, and this has come to pass. Digital skills are at a premum. We can look forward to more creativity and innovation in the coming year.

Digital Energy’s ODIN Safety app predicts and visualizes real-time worker health and safety conditions by synchronizing 3D engineering data, AI-powered health, safety, environment (HSE) data, and IoT data.

Bentley Systems

At the start of 2021, I predicted that digital twin technology, incorporating and synchronizing BIM, IoT, and reality data—would become more commonplace and drive market demand for applications addressing increasingly diverse use cases. That has definitely become a reality over the course of the year. The COVID-19 pandemic, environmental emergencies, and disruptions in critical infrastructure have continued to act as a catalyst to build creative and sustainable solutions to better build (and care for) a better world.

An infrastructure metaverse, enabled by digital twins

More specifically, we expect an increase in the number and sophistication of digital twin apps enabling AI, IoT, operations, and historic data to be combined and visualized to provide better insights into the world’s infrastructure. This is an emerging category of applications that will transform the way we assess the condition of our infrastructure, increase the optimization of operations and maintenance, provide better health and safety for workers and occupants, and mitigate environmental impacts. We are already seeing exciting uses of AI in third-party apps being built on the Bentley iTwin platform, such as the ODIN Safety app from Digital Energy. In the coming year, I expect we will see two-way data integration and autonomous operations, enabled by AI/ML, continue to mature.

A need for infrastructure professionals with a diverse skill-set and technical acumen including software engineering and data science

The complex set of technologies powering these new apps will require professionals with the skill set to develop them and deploy them across engineering firms and owner-operators. For some, the practice of being an infrastructure engineer will become a combination of traditional engineering skills with software engineering and data science skills. This is an exciting time to be an infrastructure professional, and the rapid pace of digitalization of infrastructure is just getting started.

Adam Klatzkin is Vice President, Business Development for the iTwin Platform at Bentley Systems.  His team is responsible for the vision, development, and user success of digital twin cloud services for infrastructure engineering.  He joined Bentley in 1998.  His previous roles have included leading various platform and product development teams including Senior Director of Construction Product Development. In 2010 Adam co-founded The Engineering Essentials Company (TEEC), which developed SpecWave a software product to help architectural, engineering, and construction organizations intelligently manage their engineering specifications and related codes and standards. Bentley acquired SpecWave in November 2012.  Adam holds a Bachelor of Science with honors in electrical and computer engineering with an additional major in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Rendering of a city and infrastructure illustrating the entire project lifecycle of BIM.

Autodesk

We anticipated COVID-19 would accelerate digitization in construction and we have seen that to be true. In our 2021 Workforce Survey with the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), 57 percent of respondents said the rate of technology adoption at their firms increased over the previous 12 months, and they anticipated the rate of technology adoption to further increase in the next year as well. On Autodesk Construction Cloud, we saw new projects on our preconstruction and building collaboration tools increased over 150 percent. We anticipate digitization will continue to grow as more organizations and building teams start to experience the value of connected construction.

Consequently, we are also starting to see new types of work opportunities highlighting the ability to use technology on the job. There are new roles focused on analyzing and leveraging the data organizations are collecting with their technology as well. This trend is particularly exciting because it helps shift perceptions around the types of skillsets available in the modern construction industry and can attract new talent into the workforce. It also creates opportunities for existing construction talent to learn new digital skills.

It’s clear the industry is moving forward and there’s no turning back. Now more than ever, there must be a widespread focus on ensuring the workforce is equipped with the technology skills it needs. Construction firms, technology partners and other industry stakeholders should double down on efforts to enhance workers’ digital skills.

Allison Scott, Director of Construction Thought Leadership, Autodesk Construction Solutions

Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, artificial intelligence, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, collaboration, construction, covid-19, digital twin, engineering, engineers, generative design, infrastructure, laser scanning, reality capture, Revit, visualization

Categories: 3D, AEC, AECCafe, apps, architecture, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building information modeling, civil information modeling, Cloud, collaboration, construction, construction project management, engineering, field, field solutions, file sharing, infrastructure, integrated project delivery, Internet of Things, IoT, mixed reality, project management, reality capture, rendering, simulation, site planning, sustainable design, virtual reality, visualization

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2022 at 9:49 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.