“ICE allows us to design using DIRTT’s manufactured construction components while ICE is creating full-scale renderings of what we’re designing,” Andrew explains. “It calculates the price to the penny, all in real time, and it provides DIRTT with the engineering data to run their CNC machines directly without having to transfer data.” “It took me a couple of years to get my head around this and figure out what this really meant,” he says. “But once I did, I realized thatmany of the issues that the conventional design and construction processes faced could be addressed using this new technology. What stood in the way was the construction industry’s unwillingness to adopt new technology and – even more significantly – their inability to adapt their processes in order to take advantage of what the new technology offered.” Andrew believes that unwillingness and inability to adapt is why, between 1964 and 2000, construction productivity dropped by at least 20 per cent, while productivity in almost every other sector increased on average by 230 per cent, according to the US Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Labour Statistics. He also believes it’s why that productivity continues to drop. “I thought I’d seen this before,” he says, “and I had – back in the 80’s when work was being digitised using computers. We had these wonderful machines and technologies and yet people continued to work in the same ways following the same processes they always had.” “A typewriter became an electric typewriter, which became a word processor and yet most people continued to use the word processor as if it was just a typewriter. Architects and engineers moved from drafting tables to AutoCAD stations but still printed everything on paper blueprints.” “I think the technology moves faster that we can,” Andrew theorizes, “and it takes the rollover of a generation for new technology to be fully adopted.” Regardless, Andrew says that “unlike the furniture business in the 80s and 90s, there has not been a screaming outcry for change in the construction industry – until now.” “So we find ourselves at this cross roads of history and I’m asking myself, ‘How is this all going to play out?’” “The construction industry is facing significant labour shortages, supply chain issues, inflation, and an uncertain future.” “On the other hand, we have construction solutions that are manufactured in a controlled environment, based on a digital twin which was created during design development. It will be delivered on time, installed in less than 50 per cent of the time it would take to do drywall, and you will not pay a penny more than the agreed-to price.” “In my books, that’s an unrefusable offer,” Andrew concludes. “In a nutshell, how we design and build it is as important as what we build.” THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA
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