The Value of Digital Construction Monitoring

15 Feb 2022

Digital construction monitoring is an innovative and extremely valuable way to maintain full visibility of the progress made, quality of the work being delivered and the welfare of workers on a construction project. By utilising the latest in digital solutions, stakeholders across a contract can benefit from unparalleled insight and control over their projects.

In a world where project delivery is becoming an ever more international undertaking and organizations are concurrently trying to reduce non-essential travel due to COVID restrictions and Net Zero ambitions, the need to monitor sites remotely through a myriad of digital data points is now becoming a necessity.

 

Dumping Ground (1)


Benefits of Digital Construction Monitoring

Traditionally, adjudging the progress of a project was heavily dependent on reams of paperwork, a reliance on management’s presence and the strength of the eye test.

 

Now, thanks to ongoing innovations in digital solutions designed to improve productivity and reduce the need for ‘boots-on-the-ground’ data capture, project teams can recognise a host of benefits:

 

Faster Insurance Claims Resolution: Being able to visually demonstrate contractual compliance and QHSE performance in a matter of clicks.

Reduces Cost: Remote construction monitoring improves productivity and staff availability, allowing for more value-add activities to be planned and delivered.

Improves Health and Safety: Cameras and sensors can spot if subcontractors aren’t adhering to stringent site health and safety rules, if they are tired, or detect if a machine is overheating, among other use cases.

Reduces Carbon: Less traveling to site helps reduce a project’s carbon impact and contributes towards realizing an organization’s sustainability targets.

Equipment Tracking: With equipment and materials under video or sensor surveillance, assets are easier to locate whilst also providing a strong deterrent against theft.

Meet Deadlines: Achieve project milestones and obligations in line with agreed schedule and budget.
Improves Workforce Collaboration: Aiding Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Improves Workforce Collaboration: Aiding Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

 

How iHawk Supports Construction Monitoring Through Visual Intelligence

 

What is iHawk?
iHawk is the cloud-hosted, visual intelligence platform from Cyberhawk, the world leader in visual data management. Deployed to support CAPEX project delivery and live asset management to the tune of billions of dollars globally, iHawk provides unparalleled visibility and insight into what’s really happening on site, aiding decision making, resource allocation, and claim resolution without difficulty.

 

Progress Visibility & Tracking
Through the deployment of UAVs/drones & strategically placed cameras regularly capturing photographic evidence of a site from the same co-ordinates over duration of the build, project progress can be captured, processed and made available in a secure online environment.

Project teams can compare the data captured from different dates side-by-side, gain a birds-eye view of the entire site through high-resolution aerial photography and visibility of site conditions from ground-level.

Furthermore, imagery can be compared and overlayed with data-rich 3D models, produced in third-party software during the design and planning phases.

Capturing and being able to visualize site progress and conditions to this extent throughout the project lifecycle can prove invaluable in terms of claims resolution, with cases of liability being decided upon within hours rather than months.

 

Using software solutions like iHawk, users can choose a point of interest, pick two dates and see real progress at-a-glance.

 


Are you interested in finding out how iHawk can support your project?

Download your free capital projects capabilities overview pack now!

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Managing Inspections, Observations and Sign-off
Capturing and consolidating data, in all its many different forms, can provide insights and strongly aid decision making – however, if it’s not structured and managed through pre-defined workflows and sign-off processes, projects will only recognize a fraction of the benefit.

By utilizing functionality within iHawk or by surfacing data from a third-party data capture application, field staff can trigger work items that can be prioritized based on need and assigned to the relevant worker who will receive an alert notification of the job.

Being able to raise, track and manage health and safety concerns, quality issues or incomplete works quickens decision making, promotes accountability and facilitates the meeting of deadlines.

Safety screenshot of iHawk software
Prioritizing Health and Safety
The health and safety of workers should be the highest priority of any construction site, regardless of size and complexity. However, on the largest projects, where thousands of contractors, tradespeople and engineers can be spread across a site spanning hundreds of acres, even the most safety conscious teams need a helping hand.
Correctly placed cameras can help identify whether, for example, contractors are working without adequate gear and, advances in AI and machine learning can provide tailored solutions to record real or potential safety and security concerns before they become a reality.

Safety Crop

iHawk records the times and dates of safety risks with the regularity and severity of the event included so management teams can track trends and counteract them. For example, in the pie chart to the top left, we can clearly see working from height violations were the most common.

Document Search
Finding the right information quickly can make the simplest of tasks much more difficult within the context of lengthy and multi-faceted construction projects.

Modules like iHawk’s Find All were developed to address that very problem. It reaches across multiple databases and information sources to locate and retrieve engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning documentation and data instantaneously.

The result is a tool that can aid decision-making on-the-go and that helps make sure that deadlines are met.

 

Screenshot of iHawk software

iHawk allows users to search by equipment type or tag and populates a list of all relevant documents that relate to the searched item.

 


Are you interested in finding out how iHawk can support your project?

Download your free capital projects capabilities overview pack now!

                                                                      Download Now



Monitoring Productivity and Quality of Execution

Despite improvements in recent years, the construction and civil engineering industries still struggle with lower than average productivity (in comparison to other sectors). Those improvements that have been made are, in no small part, related to the increased adoption of digitally-driven processes on site.

These improvements can be as simple as digitizing paper-based processes through the adoption of e-forms and tablets or can take the form of more cutting-edge technology.

An example of this might be iHawk’s data agnostic capability highlighted below, through an integration with the IoT-enabled Smart Torque wrench.

It allows managers to monitor productivity by a desktop or mobile app and show how many bolts have been tightened by a particular wrench and just how tight each of them are – giving a good indication of the quality of work being undertaken and providing alerts when standards are not being met, which could highlight employee tiredness, and prevent future incidents of a quality or health & safety nature.

Man holding smart wrench

screenshot of ihawk software

 

Safer, Faster, CHEAPER: The Future of Construction Monitoring is Digital

Many initiatives involve adopting off-site manufacturing methods, with the aim to drive down the amount of actual construction activity being undertaken within the site boundaries.


There is plenty of evidence to support the thought that this will help make construction projects be more productive, safer, easier to manage and simpler to procure and contract, and therefore ultimately, through the realization of all these benefits, risk is mitigated, and project delivery become a more consistently profitable endeavor.


Digital construction monitoring is already playing a key role in the evolution of how we build the infrastructure of the future, and with the constant and fast-paced innovation in digital solutions, capital project delivery has embarked on a path of digital, data-driven transformation which will reap considerable benefits over the years to come.

 


Are you interested in finding out how iHawk can support your project?

Download your free capital projects capabilities overview pack now!

                                                                      Download Now