Automation: The case for cautious optimism!

Always have a backup plan!

From horses to massive diesel tractors, the construction industry has come a long way in automation. Grade control went from optical human input to GPS and Laser. Older projects rarely had photos taken because cameras were scarce and developing the pictures could be expensive. Now your telephone takes pictures, autofocuses, adjusts for the lighting and uploads your picture to the cloud.

Technologies like AI and robotics are making a hard press into our industry and I remember all of the doubting that came with things like GPS and email, but once they worked out the kinks, we wouldn't know how to survive without them.

These technologies have streamlined our business, but they have also brought many security and management concerns along with them. (See my post on challenges)

Tech is exciting and new, but it can also be expensive and fatal to your business. Automation like self operating equipment, robotic labor, and inventory recording is really not to far in the future, but we need to always have an emergency plan in the event that it fails. I think about how much our industry depends on GPS these days and cringe when I hear about anomolies around White Sand's New Mexico, when the US Military is testing their GPS jamming technology. I recently read and article about a plane crash near the range and they are speculating that the nighttime crash occured as a result of inaccurate GPS. I've even had experience with loss of GPS signal near airforce bases in Arizona, It was regular and we ended up working night shift on that portion of the project, when they turned off whatever was jamming us.

The last note about automation in construction is not only safety, but the lack of creativity and variation that happens when us humans use our intellect to improve on means and methods, or adjust something for aesthetic reasons. Robots won't know how to think beyond their programming, so get ready for a pretty boring world when they take over.

BK