IDD holds massive potential amid trends driving the need for full digital transformation. But firms must overcome key challenges first.
As projects and supply chains grow in complexity, construction firms desperately need digital solutions to reduce rework, improve site monitoring and speed up timelines. One recent report found an average budget and schedule overrun of 30%-45% on construction megaprojects.
Integrated digital delivery (IDD) is gaining momentum as the solution to these seemingly intractable problems. This delivery method integrates all physical and digital components of a project into a collaborative data environment (CDE) — but it doesn’t stop there.
IDD enables all stakeholders to work across project phases and software platforms. This interoperability helps to overcome common challenges, such as inconsistent information transfer between the office and the field, nonconforming digital models and project complexity that gives way to scope creep.
Singapore provided an early case study for the benefits of implementing IDD at scale using FulcrumHQ, a highly secure, cloud-based IDD platform for large-scale construction and infrastructure. As a result of that implementation, Singapore’s biggest developers have seen massive time, efficiency and quality gains, including:
- 65% reduction in rework
- 55% less time monitoring site works and managing projects
- 50% less time on design coordination and approvals
- 30% less time reviewing and approving documents
Architecture, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) firms worldwide can see notable bottom-line results from adopting IDD on large-scale projects. Here are four trends that support the shift to IDD for large-scale work and four challenges firms will need to overcome to reap the full benefits of this project delivery method.
4 Trends Driving IDD for Large-Scale Construction
- Demand for efficiency and cost optimization: Construction firms are increasingly pressured to squeeze more value out of every project. IDD's standardization, automation and knowledge-sharing capabilities lead to cost savings, reduced rework and increased resource efficiency.
- Growing project complexity: Projects are becoming larger, more intricate and geographically dispersed. Managing such complexity requires a centralized platform such as IDD, which connects all stakeholders and ensures everyone works with the same accurate information. Industry-leading IDD platforms enable teams to go beyond a CDE to produce dynamic intelligence, which empowers teams to unlock expertise and create smart, sustainable and trusted builds every time.
- Emphasis on collaboration and transparency: Today's stakeholders demand visibility and involvement throughout the project lifecycle. IDD platforms foster collaboration by breaking down information silos and facilitating real-time communication.
- Technological advancements: The advancement of cloud computing, big-data analytics and artificial intelligence has made IDD platforms more powerful and accessible than ever before. These technologies enable real-time data analysis, deeper insights and intelligent automation within the platform.
Implementing IDD in a way that fully addresses these trends requires overcoming key challenges.
4 Challenges to Effective IDD Implementation
- Mistaking digitalization for transformation: Simply throwing technology at a problem isn't enough. Digitalization improves specific processes. But digital transformation takes the next step. Hardware and software cross the borders between companies and systems, producing a combination of diverse digital solutions. That interoperability creates the digital context needed to reveal solutions and insights while building value along the project lifecycle.
- Using siloed solutions and information islands: Implementing individual solutions for specific projects or teams results in disjointed systems and data silos. These information islands impede information flow and collaboration while also hindering the potential for standardization and repeatability. Nearly one-quarter of construction pros say none of their work apps integrate, according to a recent JBKnowledge report.
- Neglecting standardization and repeatable processes: Standardizing and automating processes across projects allows for knowledge-sharing, improved quality and faster delivery. Failure to do so leads to inconsistency, duplicated efforts and missed opportunities for efficiency gains. In fact, process standardization and automation can reduce costs by up to 20% during design and 10% during construction, according to Deloitte, which tracked similar cost optimizations during the operations and maintenance phases.
- Lacking data integrity and trust: Poor transparency breeds a lack of trust in data integrity across teams, which in turn fosters information hoarding and duplicate creation of forms and tasks. The result is inaccurate and redundant data that fuels poor decision-making.
The good news is that these challenges are solvable. AECO firms implementing IDD for large-scale projects need a partner they can trust to help them break down data silos, increase transparency and maximize efficiency to build smart, sustainable structures every time.
To learn more about how the FulcrumHQ Integrated Digital Delivery Platform for Dynamic Intelligence can help your firm keep up with the needs of today’s complex projects, visit LeapThought.com/fulcrumhq.
