Decoding productivity

The ways in which we live and work, trav­el and socialise, con­nect and com­mu­ni­cate are evolv­ing rapid­ly, dri­ven by expo­nen­tial growth in tech­nol­o­gy. At the same time, an explo­sion in pop­u­la­tion growth and the spec­tre of cli­mate change is cre­at­ing unprece­dent­ed chal­lenges for soci­ety and the lived envi­ron­ment. At the heart of this is the infra­struc­ture sec­tor.

“Infra­struc­ture helps to cre­ate the lived envi­ron­ment,” accord­ing to Philip Hoare, pres­i­dent of Atkins, a glob­al design, engi­neer­ing and project man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy, and part of the SNC-Lavalin Group. “It shapes our lives in pro­found ways, help­ing to define our qual­i­ty of life, our health and well­be­ing, and a sense of trust and belong­ing in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

But there is a chal­lenge, he con­tin­ues: “There is no doubt that our sec­tor does crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant work, every day; bril­liant, ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple work­ing on things that real­ly make a dif­fer­ence in people’s lives. But we are also one of the least dig­i­talised indus­tries in the world and as a result we have lagged behind oth­er sec­tors in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. I see this as a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty; there is clear­ly room for improve­ment and that’s excit­ing.”

And it is hard to argue with this when you look at the facts. Accord­ing to McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, the con­struc­tion sec­tor is one of the least dig­i­talised indus­tries glob­al­ly. But lead­ers like Hoare see that as an oppor­tu­ni­ty. “The good news is that our indus­try is already full of data; it’s just invari­ably dis­con­nect­ed and frag­ment­ed,” he says. “Valu­able insights, which could be used for mak­ing bet­ter deci­sions, are often lost. And with that goes pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and growth.”

In 2016 McK­in­sey esti­mat­ed that major projects took 20 per cent longer to com­plete than planned and were 80 per cent over bud­get. “This is often, unfair­ly, the way infra­struc­ture is por­trayed to the pub­lic,” says Hoare. “They read sto­ries about mega projects being delayed and bud­gets increas­ing. The real­i­ty is these are com­plex projects, with mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers and intri­cate sup­ply chains. We believe this is where a con­nect­ed ecosys­tem for infra­struc­ture deliv­ery will be a game-chang­er.”  

Atkins’ vision is to com­plete­ly inte­grate infra­struc­ture deliv­ery across the whole life of a project, har­ness­ing effi­cien­cies and insights from all stake­hold­ers in the ecosys­tem to dri­ve val­ue for clients and bet­ter out­comes for soci­ety. It is doing this by invest­ing in three key areas, each a dif­fer­ent stage of the asset life cycle. 

The start­ing point is the design stage. Data must be built in from the begin­ning, cre­at­ing a rich vir­tu­al envi­ron­ment to enable col­lab­o­ra­tion. The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly uses dig­i­tal plat­forms which allow design­ers and clients to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly access the same data envi­ron­ment in real time. This increas­es the pace of project deliv­ery, improves pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and facil­i­tates unprece­dent­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion across dis­ci­plines. It also means all stake­hold­ers are work­ing on the same thing.

Atkins claims that most clients accept the need to move away from man­u­al process­es in the design phase. “A num­ber of our clients have embraced dig­i­tal design and we’ve embarked on a jour­ney togeth­er with data at the very heart of what we do,” says Hoare. “For exam­ple, shared dig­i­tal com­mon data envi­ron­ments have allowed us to car­ry out ‘dig­i­tal rehearsals’ of projects pri­or to con­struc­tion, a kind of vir­tu­al road test which saves time and mon­ey.” 

In anoth­er exam­ple, its dig­i­tal con­tent library recent­ly pro­vid­ed 50 per cent of the project com­po­nents for a major high­ways scheme, straight off the vir­tu­al shelf. Addi­tion­al­ly, by automat­ing ele­ments of design, ser­vices can be deliv­ered more effi­cient­ly and solu­tions dis­cov­ered much faster.  Mod­i­fi­ca­tions in bridge designs can be made using ele­ments of past designs, piec­ing them togeth­er to opti­mise use of mate­ri­als. This ‘design once, use often’ approach embraces the best ele­ments of dig­i­tal and ensures faster deliv­ery with­out com­pris­ing qual­i­ty.

The sec­ond stage is in the actu­al con­struc­tion. Hoare cites one client who told him: “We col­lect a lot of data, make a lot of deci­sions. But how can we use this data to make bet­ter deci­sions around pro­gramme deliv­ery?” Get­ting the first stage right is key, but it is then cru­cial to ensure data con­tin­ues to be used through tools, apps and dash­boards to improve project path­ways, increase pre­dictabil­i­ty and ensure mod­i­fi­ca­tions do not cre­ate delays. 

Final­ly, the use of dig­i­tal twins will become the norm for the com­pa­ny. The future of the asset will become the heart of the design process, embed­ding dig­i­tal twins into projects from the plan­ning stage, through con­struc­tion and then through­out its life cycle. Ear­li­er this year, Atkins launched a dig­i­tal twin sur­vey plat­form, enabling clients to access, analyse and devel­op ultra-high res­o­lu­tion 2D and 3D mod­els of their assets.

“Much has been writ­ten about dig­i­tal twins,” says Hoare. “In infra­struc­ture, they are crit­i­cal.  Imag­ine a future where dig­i­tal twins not only help to con­struct an air­port, a hos­pi­tal or a train line, but are used to more effi­cient­ly oper­ate them after­wards?” 

He believes dig­i­tal twins will be an impor­tant dig­i­tal tool in help­ing nations to min­imise the impact of the lived envi­ron­ment from a sus­tain­abil­i­ty per­spec­tive. “To meet the Net Zero tar­gets, we have to change the way we build, pow­er and move the world in the future,” says Hoare. “But we also need to remem­ber that 75 per cent of build­ings already built will still be in use in 2050. That means we have to find ways of ensur­ing they also con­tribute.”  

To help tack­le this, Atkins has teamed up with Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty to devel­op a dig­i­tal twin pro­gramme that will also seek to dri­ve dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion across the UK’s exist­ing built envi­ron­ment. Part of the focus will be on cre­at­ing dig­i­tal twins of exist­ing build­ings, infra­struc­ture and cities to help opti­mise how they oper­ate.

Hoare believes we are on the cusp of a new rev­o­lu­tion. And the ben­e­fits seem to be obvi­ous. With glob­al infra­struc­ture spend­ing expect­ed to be more than £70 tril­lion between now and 2040, a mere 1 per cent increase in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty would reap enor­mous rewards for the indus­try. 

And what of those broad­er soci­etal out­comes? Hoare is very clear on this. “What we do helps to shape the lived envi­ron­ment for the future,” he says. “We have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to ensure it works well for the com­mu­ni­ties it serves, allow­ing peo­ple to live health­i­er, more pros­per­ous and hap­pi­er lives for gen­er­a­tions to come. By har­ness­ing the pow­er of data and tech­nol­o­gy, we believe we can help our clients to design, deliv­er and main­tain infra­struc­ture that helps cre­ate a world that works bet­ter for all.”

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it atkinsglobal.com

Pro­mot­ed by Atkins