By Brian Burke, CEO and Founder,  Plans4Less

Brian Burke

The year ahead for residential and commercial construction professionals will be choppy as they navigate higher interest rates, a softer housing market, increasing inflation, jumpy material costs and a firmer recession taking hold.

The ConTech professionals we speak with have a universal desire to streamline workflows, reduce the number of touch-points and limit headcounts on each and every process. They basically want to do ”more done with less”. Re-engineer as many work flows to make them fast, easy, accurate and reliable. Done right the first time. On time and on budget. Control what they can control as the outside environment is fraught with the headwinds we have been discussing.

2023 Plans4Less Outlook:

1.  Federal Reserve Headwinds:
The Fed says, at their 1/4/22 Meeting, that they see rates remaining high for “sometime” – while taking the target range for the benchmark fed funds rate to 4.25%-4.5%, its highest level in 15 years. What does this mean for home buyers? Well, the Fed’s fight against inflation has caused mortgage demand to plunge 13.25% to end 2022 – and that trend should be in place for “some time”. Demand for refinancing, which is a super-sensitive indicator, is down 87% from the same period in 2021 – and that trend, yes, should be in place for “some time”. As the Irish say, “may the wind always be at your back.” In this case, the Fed has made the wind go squarely in the face of the construction market for 2023.

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By Yves Padrines, CEO, Nemetschek Group

Yves Padrines

Nemetschek Group expects significant increase in demand for digitalization in 2023

Software provider predicts that digitalization will be the key enabler for a sustainable growth across the AEC/O industry

The Nemetschek Group, one of the leading software providers for the construction and media industries, has urged the construction sector to further its drive to digitalization in order to navigate the many challenges currently facing the sector.

Although 2022 was again a strong year for the Munich-based company, which has been a forerunner of digital transformation for the AEC/O industry, challenges in this industry still remain. According to Yves Padrines, CEO of the Nemetschek Group, the industry as a whole must quickly accelerate its embracing of digital tools to drive vital improvements in efficiency and sustainability within the sector.

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By Martin Holmgren, General Manager, Trimble-Building Construction

Martin Holmgren

Focus on Complex Projects Requires High Accuracy for Construction Execution and QA/QC 

The cost of capital increased throughout 2022, leading to longer decision times for both new projects and capital investment into new technologies. Parts of the construction industry are more heavily impacted by this, primarily residential and retail construction where we expect a slowdown in 2023 and 2024. 

On the flip side, we see an opportunity for continued strong interest and investment into other areas of construction that are incentivized by the $1.2 Trillion infrastructure bill and the $280 Billion CHIPS and Science Act. These initiatives are driving building construction investment into areas like infrastructure, hospitals, and semiconductor processing facilities but we are also seeing strong economic indicators for areas related to electrical cars, batteries, and even if there is a bit of a slowdown, we see a continued strong investment in data center construction. 

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By Huw Roberts, CEO, Graphisoft

Huw Roberts

Hybrid workplaces, the lingering pandemic, and the war in Europe are major narratives shaping the global economy, and the AEC industry is fielding the fallout on several fronts.  Workplaces and workflows are changing, materials and resources are in short supply, and a general slowdown has increased competition for larger projects.  What has remained consistent is that the repercussions have accelerated the trajectory toward digital collaboration with teams, partners, and clients.  While remote work greatly influenced the move towards collaborative work in dispersed locations during the pandemic, supply chain complications and high energy costs have encouraged teams to continue embracing technological solutions to fill the gaps.

Looking ahead, Graphisoft CEO Huw Roberts orients resurging industry themes, highlighting trends in digital collaboration, environmental sustainability, globalizing talent, and evolving technologies as they adapt to a resource-scarce landscape.  As teams adapt to external factors, seamless virtual collaboration and smart workflows have helped shore up limited resources while bringing innovative solutions and new opportunities to the table.

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By Arcturus

From the first days of mixed reality, it seemed inevitable that the architecture industry was going to be an early adopter of the technology. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much would a fully immersive virtual environment you can interact with and explore be worth?

The rise of game engines gave firms and designers the opportunity to build 3D models — mostly for clients, but in some cases to rally support for a new proposal. Telling someone about a new commercial structure is one thing, but allowing them to tour a future rooftop garden or check out what a future restaurant space might look like is another. In many ways, architectural visualization was a precursor to virtual production, which is having a major impact on entertainment. And as we’ve seen countless times in the past, as goes entertainment, so goes innovation across multiple industries.

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By Richard Taylor

The demand for technology to support distributed and collaborative work environments plus increased BIM productivity will continue

Richard Taylor

Who could have predicted the events of the last 3 years? The global pandemic, stay-at-home orders, and continued desire by some people to work from home have dramatically changed many architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator (AECO) firms from traditional office environments to more distributed remote work situations. I believe that the changes launched during this difficult time will continue to evolve as companies plan for continued success in 2023 and beyond.

The AECO community is very collaborative and social; although I don’t expect the flexible work environment to go away, I do think there will be a continued trend towards collaborating within an office for most of the work week. To support employees while working from outside the office, I expect that AECO companies will implement software tools that allow the social interaction and collaboration of their extended teams from virtually anywhere.

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By Allison Scott, Director of Customer Experience & Industry, Autodesk Construction Solutions

Allison Scott

Access to a skilled workforce will continue to challenge the construction industry in 2023. Seasoned professionals are retiring and leaving institutional knowledge gaps within firms. In parallel, the industry is not replacing one-to-one for those leaving, creating a delta for the next generation of construction leaders going forward.

Knowing that the industry cannot attract and retain a workforce fast enough, we have to increase efficiency and effectiveness with advanced digital construction management methods and tools. Digital upskilling and training for specific technology, as well as a broader focus on knowledge sharing, is critical to capture institutional knowledge and IP that is leaving the business due to retirement. We’ll also continue to see more construction firms reduce silos for digital methodologies and pull that skillset and methods across the organization. The knowledge will no longer live within the BIM/VDC or innovation departments – it will be more broadly part of the means and methods of preconstruction and operations. This shift creates compelling opportunities for digital natives to flex their experience to help firms adopt more sophisticated workflows, enabling them to attract and retain emerging leaders due to an increase in career paths that are tech-enabled.

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By Brad Bishop, Founder, Docupoint

Brad Bishop

As the Founder of Docupoint, a leading provider of document management solutions, I am excited to share my industry predictions for 2023.

First, I predict that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will continue to accelerate in the document management industry. AI-powered systems will help organizations process and organize large volumes of data more efficiently, allowing them to extract valuable insights and make better-informed business decisions.

Second, I expect to see an increase in the use of cloud-based solutions for document management. The benefits of the cloud, such as improved security, accessibility, and scalability, will continue to make it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes.

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By Pascal Strupler, Business Director of Autonomous Reality Capture at Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon.

“In 2023, companies will be moving more into digital workflows, especially as industry leaders digitize the process of monitoring construction projects. These digital workflows will rely on automated reality capture to compare the current state of a construction site with BIM plans. Then, to quickly close the loop, corresponding insights will be brought back into the field using augmented reality to point out inaccuracies or missing installations. However, automating this process requires frequent capturing of a construction site using reality capture technology. The most cost efficient way to do this is through the use of autonomous reality capture to minimize user involvement without compromising the integrity of the scans.”