Creating a digital marketplace for construction procurement would have benefits that far outweigh the challenges.
This sort of project helps create the environment for people – public and professionals – to engage with digital in the public realm.This will be an exemplar of how applying technology creates a proliferation of benefits.. How to create a digital environment for planning.
In order to enable a digitised planning process, the core requirement is to:.Standardise and digitise (as far as possible and/or desirable) the rules under which designs are - by different parties - created, submitted, assessed, consulted on, amended, approved and ultimately built.. Agree the interoperable standard datasets that will enable this, and how to generate and use them.. As already said, the aim of this project is not to create a single solution for this process; we do not believe a single solution is in anyone’s best interests.We are interested in realising the environment within which one or multiple solutions can be developed and operate together.. To date we have focused on scoping each stage of the process and developing a demo version of how a digital planning process would operate.
The demo version is a series of dashboards showing how sets of interoperable data will enable the planning process at its various stages; which elements can be automated and which will require human intervention; and where we can connect with existing solutions.. Standardising and digitising the rules and datasets will enable us to move from demo to reality.. As said earlier, this is not a question of starting from scratch (or reinventing the wheel): the data already generated through the use of BIM and 3D modelling will form the basis of this process.Established formats such as BCF already allow for rich data sharing (although they are not always used to achieve this).
The task that lies ahead – and the project that will fundamentally reshape the landscape – is to define shared underlying rules that will allow the existing parts to connect, and facilitate the creation of new applications to plug the gaps and create onward connections.. Impact on key planning roles.
A digitised planning process will not replace humans with computers.By working together, we believe the industry can apply these transformative, design to value processes at scale and thereby deliver enormous benefit for the world..
In fact, we’re already seeing a wide range of benefits from the adoption of Platforms (P-DfMA) and our wider approach using modern methods of construction.Our recent work in the UK with Landsec on a modular office building project has demonstrated the following advantages: the automation of processes leading to a 30-50% reduction in the numbers of people onsite, an increase in safety as a result of reduced work at height, lower capital costs with a 25% reduction in materials due to component optimisation, and a 13% improvement in speed.
Already impressive, we expect these metrics will only continue to improve over time.. Design to Value.The starting point, and where we must begin in order to truly maximise the benefits that P-DfMA and MMC make possible, is to rework our core processes (design, procure, construct, operate) around a central, driving principle: process-led design.