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The construction industry forms a large chunk of every economy in the world, representing nearly 15 percent of the global GDP. The industry is full of promise, but it’s also evident that it faces significant challenges, most prominently a perennial lack of productivity.

 Increasing digitalization and the most effective use of it is being seen as the driver for future productivity in construction. Leading suppliers can proactively become a big part of this transformation by identifying and leveraging the opportunities that will only continue to expand as the digital design & construction sector grows and moves forward. The following is a deep dive into how Hilti, as a company, has been keenly observing this paradigm shift and has consequently embarked on a journey to define its contribution in digital design and construction to deliver substantial productivity gains.

Spearheading the Value Engineering Ecosystem

Value engineering is broadly defined as a systematic approach to providing the necessary functions of a project at the lowest possible cost. Over many decades Hilti has made a name for itself as a leading productivity partner to the construction industry based on a highly differentiated hardware offering combined with industry leading technical advice. Very early on Hilti augmented these offerings with digital solutions like computing software for structural connections and more. At Hilti, we are convinced that the future of any productivity gain lies at the intersection of hardware, software, services and the respective digital representation and subsequent workflow integration of these three elements.

Let me elaborate on this using a relevant use case. Our digital design and construction offering for MEP and firestopping, enabled by early project involvement as an integrated project partner with access to the digital model and the common data environment (CDE), helps optimize the design of all fastening and mounting applications for MEP. This range starts with the optimal anchor solution (e.g. cast-in anchor channel or post installed) and includes value-optimized design for multidisciplinary support systems as well as the most efficient firestop design. Hilti has been innovating in all directions to lift productivity gains that can be addressed in a combination of efficient hardware, optimized design, contribution to the model for later use and engineering support “on the ground”.

Generating Value across the Workflow

Focusing further on support systems, the deeper penetration of digital data models in construction over the past few years has created three big opportunities:

• Designing and modeling all supports on the digital model with optimal routing suggestions using the least amount of space and material.

• Consolidating supports across trades wherever possible.

• Enabling the prefabrication of MEP supports.

We have observed that consistent implementation will reduce the entire project schedule by up to 10 percent while reducing material and space requirements by up to 50 percent. This also results in lesser cost and a lower CO2 footprint.

Additionally, we see significant productivity potential in prefabrication and advanced logistics services ranging from optimized cutting-to-length of channels to pre-assembly of entire MEP modules and just-in-sequence delivery based on end-to-end digitalized workflows. Our experience with customers across geographies continuously gives us new data points on this evolving landscape and such opportunities will only increase as time passes.

Hilti’s vision of digital construction can be further extended to digital field solutions like robotics. A relevant example is the Jaibot. First introduced in 2020, Jaibot is a semi-autonomous mobile ceiling-drilling robot that executes tasks based ideally, but not necessarily on building information modeling (BIM) data. The Jaibot helps MEP installation contractors tackle productivity and labor shortage challenges.

The Elements of Extracting Value

Despite its scale, extracting maximum value from a construction project is one of the most challenging things to accomplish. There are six different elements that can help us collectively serve the industry:

• A detailed, accurate and digitally shared data model.

• A flexible and broad hardware system that enables design optimization and jobsite productivity. For example, a modular support system that covers a wide range of vertical loads, and that connects seamlessly, enables much deeper design optimization and value engineering in addition to the productivity and safety benefits onsite when compared to a commodity type support system orwelded structures. In the case of firestop, preformed devices have been specifically developed to allow for a digital representation in the model and can therefore be readily planned.

• Support system engineering, design and modeling competence, enhanced through a hardware-specific, powerful computing software. Ideally, this should be carried out by a back-office design and modeling team that has in-depth knowledge of the respective hardware to allow for the most efficient design and minimal installation time.

• Smooth, cost-effective prefabrication and on-time logistics supported by workflow integration and minimal lead time.

• Seamless connection from design to field, driven by end-to-end planning, value engineering applied towards the full workflow and proper handover of model-based information between workflow steps.

• Close collaboration between the data model owner (owners, designers, contractors) and suppliers, starting early in the design phase and lasting throughout the project. Here, remote design services are necessary but insufficient, because on-ground engineering support and proximity to design changes are crucial for the success of service delivery as an integrated partner.

We are convinced that only a supplier that can deliver a full solution (from differentiated hardware, SW tools to modeling and on-site engineering support) is truly “qualified” to support construction projects in addressing the productivity opportunity that presents itself with digital construction.

The Digital Road Ahead

Our ongoing experience with thousands of projects that we support globally every year has given us a set of questions that we would like to use to engage in a conversation with construction stakeholders to further drive adoption of digital design and construction services:

• What exact information is needed, by which party and when, as this information evolves along the project lifecycle?

• How do we avoid loss of information in the model between construction stages, having a true “as built” representation in the model, and ensure proper delivery of use cases later in the building lifecycle?

• How do we unlock full workflow integration on projects we work on, from design to supply chain to jobsite solutions, by leveraging our unique position as a vertically integrated supplier that is also able to fully collaborate along the digital workflow, e.g., on BIM methodology as an Appointed Party (as per ISO19650)?

• How can we industrialize and integrate the prefabrication process with minimal lead time? We believe that finding the right answers to these questions will see the industry moving forward in terms of enhanced productivity and profitability through optimized digitalization. While the standards are rapidly evolving on this, reality is often different.

We at Hilti firmly believe that digitalization is the main lever that can address most of the challenges of the construction industry such as: stagnating productivity, labor shortages and sustainability. The elements of value extraction defined above are not something that one generally associates with normal or traditional hardware suppliers. With more interest on full value extraction we will see much more intense digital/workflow integration and on-site collaboration between owners, contractors, designers, and suppliers, with increasing importance.