The future of making

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is facing the need to design and build more new infrastructure and to rehabilitate existing assets to keep pace with global trends.

We must meet these demands while minimising impact on the environment and reducing strain on our natural resources by using the advent of various technologies to build a better world

Overview

Video Transcript

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<v ->Hello, my name is Eric DesRoche</v>

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and I’m very excited to be here with you today,

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representing Autodesk and sharing with you

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our vision for the future of architecture,

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engineering, and construction,

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or as we like to call it, the future of making.

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If you’re not familiar with Autodesk,

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we make tools that help our customers design

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and make anything from skyscrapers to building components,

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to bridges and blockbuster video games.

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We have over 8,500 employees worldwide

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and more than 200 million customers.

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Many of our customers are like you.

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Architects, engineers, and contractors.

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I don’t need to tell you that it’s an exciting time

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to be part of the AEC industry.

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Our industry is massive and growing.

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And as you can see, this growth is all around us.

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New development, tower cranes, construction crews,

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and it’s being driven by huge global trends.

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Today, we have a population of 7.5 billion

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and 3.5 billion of us live in cities.

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Nearly 10 billion people will live on the planet by 2050,

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and 2/3 will live in cities.

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All these people need communication and transportation.

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They need food, houses, bridges, and roads.

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With so many people living in cities,

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we’re going to need to make them smarter

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and more responsive to the needs of their residents.

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Since the AEC industry is responsible for the residential,

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social, and economic spaces for the global population,

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this is really good news for all of us.

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We’re going to have a lot of work to do.

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Recently, Autodesk partnered with a firm called Statista

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to calculate just how much work.

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We’re going to have to build 13,000 buildings

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each and every day and enough roads and rail

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to wrap around the earth six times every year.

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That’s over 1.2 million kilometers of roads

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and rail needed for our global infrastructure

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each and every year between now and 2050.

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Now that’s what we can see above ground.

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Below the ground, there’s a need to build 2,600 kilometers

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of utilities each and every day.

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That’s the distance from London to Moscow.

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However, utilities are not the only AEC industry

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that benefits from geo-technical information.

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It’s required for everything we build.

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Not only will we need to build new housing, offices,

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railways, wastewater, treatment plants, power grids,

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we need to maintain, improve,

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and protect our current environment.

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Did you know that today there are over 4 trillion assets

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at risk due to climate change?

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The UN estimates that by 2050,

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more than 5 billion people could suffer

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from water shortages and 90% of the world’s cities

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are situated on coastlines exposed to flooding.

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All this work that needs to be done

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is creating a huge opportunity for AEC.

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Just imagine how many more building

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and infrastructure projects

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your firm is going to get to design,

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build, renovate, and retrofit.

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But as we plan for the inevitability of more,

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how do we balance this with the reality of less?

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Such as labor resources in places like the US,

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Japan, the EU, AEC companies are having trouble

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finding the skilled workers needed to deliver projects.

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For example in the US,

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20% of the construction industry workforce

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is about to retire

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and 35% of the architects are over the age of 55.

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And natural resources, 40% of global energy

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is used by our built environment.

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Building operations alone consume 25% of our water

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and building construction produces 30% of global waste.

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We know our natural resources are diminishing

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and that our built environment plays a role in this.

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And how does our industry meet the growing demand

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with fewer people to do the work

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and a finite natural resources

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in a way that generates less waste

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and less negative impact

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and leads to sustainable communities?

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How do we adopt better practices that are more efficient

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and more productive when our industry

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is historically one of the least productive?

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These are questions that were asked a lot at Autodesk,

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because we believe that along with the inevitability

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of more and the reality of less,

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it’s the opportunity of better.

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We think that by improving our tools and technologies,

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we can embrace the opportunity ahead of us

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and overcome the challenges before us

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to build a better world for all of us.

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We also know that this demand

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for daily construction productivity

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requires immense spending.

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In fact, today we come up short

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by as much as 1 trillion annually.

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There are three levers that we can use

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to try to close this gap.

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First, reduce demand.

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Now you and I both know that that’s not likely

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and not in our control.

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So we need to build new assets

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while optimizing the use of existing.

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But we can also work smarter by implementing a BIM process.

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Naturally, this is not an easy task,

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especially when working across disparate teams

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based in different locations

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and delivering on different scopes of work,

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coordinating project milestones,

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juggling data handover, and contract requirements,

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leading to additional customer challenges.

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And as projects become more complex,

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this data is becoming rapidly iterated

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at a high frequency across teams.

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Bad information and data silos across companies

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lead to the massive waste

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and prevalent in delivering projects.

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And distributed teams are hurt by delays in communication

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and waste time searching for the right project information.

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Every single time a handover occurs

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between teams or across phases,

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a data loss occurs leading to inefficiency and risk.

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In addition, AEC project requirements are changing

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and technology to gain even more project clarity

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is rapidly improving.

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There has been a fundamental shift in project execution.

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Today, you see more detailed design engineering upfront,

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multidisciplinary collaboration,

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owner requirements are changing.

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And as a result, traditional drawing base methods

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are no longer adequate.

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You can see BIM has been implemented around the world,

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and you can see some of the benefits.

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For example, the airport in my home city here in Denver,

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and some of the advantages

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of the BIM process for that program.

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And here a customer in Norway building this hydro dam.

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And as you look at the business value of BIM,

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here are some of the statistics we saw

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in the very early days.

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It was 35 years ago when CAD software products

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came on the market to help people

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with design challenges every day,

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and we’ve been innovating ever since.

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In the early 2000s, we introduced 3D modeling

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and BIM-based design.

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Today, we’re developing tools for connected BIM.

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These tools help our AEC customers use the cloud

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to collaborate better, manage their data

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from the office to the field, and to visualize their data.

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And we’re thinking about tomorrow

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and the disruptive technologies and processes

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that will change the landscape.

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So what does better look like

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and how does technology play a role?

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Technology allows architects, engineers, and contractors

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to design and build better and smarter things.

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It is evolving the process of making

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so that the very act of designing

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and building is beginning to look a lot

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like the manufacturing industry

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and it’s changing what we do, how we do it.

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It’s changing our work.

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Let’s start with the things we design and build.

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By bringing together technology and process,

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we can build smarter cities

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and more resilient cities that are smarter

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and more responsive buildings and infrastructure, too.

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Smarter cities will have less noise,

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less traffic, and less pollution.

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They will be populated with buildings

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and bridges that will have optimized geometries

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and be produced with less material waste.

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These structures will be better performing

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and more sustainable, and they will be configurable.

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We will literally be able to extend the life cycle

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of our buildings and highways by replacing older modules

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and sections with new ones.

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And because we will be designing

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and building more connected spaces,

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they will be able to tell us more information.

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Now, how will we make these smarter things?

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When we talk about the process of making

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and how it will be different,

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we’re talking about using ideas

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and practices from other Autodesk industry manufacturing

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to increase productivity and efficiency in design

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and construction processes.

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We won’t be using traditional methods in the future.

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Instead, we will be relying increasingly

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on prefabrication.

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Building in a factory before we get to the job site

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to assemble our projects.

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Robots will play a bigger role, too,

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helping construction teams solve the skilled labor gap

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and build faster.

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They will take over dangerous task

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and help protect the safety of construction workers.

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The means of production will also change

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with advances in technology like 3D printing

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and IoT will help firms monitor

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and track activity on the job site to boost productivity.

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This is how we will make smarter cities.

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Our last area of focus is work.

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In the future, work for our industry

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is going to be much more simulated.

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We will use data to drive our design decisions

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and explore possibilities.

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And we’re going to do this virtually

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before we do it in the physical world, too.

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Think about laying bricks.

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Just like that robot, humans are going to review designs

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and practice assembling construction projects

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in a virtual environment before stepping onto a job site.

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We’re also going to use the computer to automate tedious

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and repetitive tasks with processes like generative design.

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Software will explore design options for us,

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and we will select the options that best fit our criteria

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and human needs.

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All of these changes, simulation, virtual reality,

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generative design and more,

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will help automate our work in our industry

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and make us more productive

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and overcome the challenge of workforce scarcity.

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So what does it look like

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when one company uses technology

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to change the things they make, how they make them,

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and the way they work so that they can do more,

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do it better and with less negative impact?

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Let me show you what Von Winning is doing.

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Von Winning are a family business in the Netherlands,

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which built a lot of property,

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including affordable net zero housing.

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After the last downturn,

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they were concerned that the 2% profit they were chasing

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wasn’t something that could sustain them.

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So by fully adopting BIM,

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they figured out how they could eliminate waste

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and lower cost, but they didn’t stop there.

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They decided to think more like an automotive manufacturer

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and develop a modular concept for housing

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that could be used in many different configurations.

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They invested in building a catalog of component parts

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and used manufacturing processes

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to build these components better.

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Then they prefabricated each component themselves,

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first offsite at their own factory,

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and then onsite at any job site.

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Soon, all their houses could be assembled in three days.

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Next Von Winning wanted to re-imagine

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the way they were designed.

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So we helped them use generative design technology

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on a project to explore 15,000 different design options.

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They focused on the three most interesting choices

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where they could shape into the perfect urban neighborhood.

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Gender dip design helped them

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look across multiple dimensions all at once.

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They were able to maximize the amount of solar energy

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they could collect to meet their net zero energy goals.

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They optimized backyard size

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and views to meet the human needs of the occupants.

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And they optimized cost

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and profit to meet their business needs.

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Von Winning’s modular system

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allows them to make buildings smarter, better,

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with less waste and less risk

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while generative design enables them

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to make better buildings with more your yard space

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and more daylight to better meet the human needs

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of the occupants.

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A lot of the technology I’ve shared today

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may seem futuristic and out of reach.

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But as the Von Winning story shows,

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these innovations start with a process

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you’re already probably familiar with.

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Moving to the future of making

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begins with building information modeling.

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In order to drive the types of innovations I shared,

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you need to have the rich BIM data to drive them.

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The good news is that we have the tools

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that can get you started on this path today.

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At Autodesk, our portfolio supports BIM processes,

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cloud sharing, data insights, and analytics.

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It allows you to use the rich information

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you’re creating during design and construction,

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so you can put your data at the center of your projects

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and easily transform the data into valuable insights.

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With this foundation,

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you’re able to be well-positioned to take advantage

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of the innovations I’ve talked about.

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BIM has been positioned in the AEC industry

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as an accelerator for digitizing capital projects

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for close to 20 years.

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Digital Twins is just the next chapter in that journey.

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BIM is just a static representation

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of data that enabled improve coordination

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and design productivity.

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Over the past several years, we’ve been evolving BIM

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and the power of the cloud is connected BIM,

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which provides our customers better collaboration

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and project controls.

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Our current investments in construction

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further accelerate that vision.

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Digital Twins is the next stop

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in the digital delivery journey.

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The outcome will be transformative

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by providing real-time insights and automation.

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For this to occur, we need dynamic data and information.

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An example of dynamic data would be IoT

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or real time location data.

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We’ve been the leader in digitizing architecture

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and engineering, and we’re currently in the phase

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of digitizing construction,

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but the real value to the industry

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and the owners who drive the supply chain

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is to deliver a digital asset at the end of the project

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and keep it maintained for their needs

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for the entirety of its operations.

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This digital asset will enable owners

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to use real-time insights to make better decisions.

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I encourage you to embrace the new processes

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and technologies that will define the things we make,

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how we make them, and how we work in the future,

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so you can do more, better,

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with less negative impact on the planet.

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I want to leave you with this.

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Think of how robotics

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and automation have changed automotive production

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and the resulting improvements in the cars we drive today.

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Think about the automotive manufacturers

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like General Motors, BMW, and Tesla

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that are embracing new technology

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and are reaping the success.

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And think about those who are not.

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Now imagine how leveraging more automated ways

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of designing and constructing might impact your business

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and help you address the challenges

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and opportunities you are facing.

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How much more might you be able to do

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with the workforce you have?

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What could you design?

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What could you build?

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How might you transform your business,

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so you are ready to help create

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the sustainable communities of the future?

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Thank you very much.