The Importance of Digitization in the Construction Industry

Finally, after two years, Philconstruct is back in Cebu, highlighting the importance of innovation, especially the digitization of the construction industry.

No industry was spared during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, not even the construction industry. Though we see construction projects continue during the lockdowns, the problem came from logistics, workforce, and especially, communication.

With limited face-to-face meetings due to strict implementation of health protocols, project communication became a challenge.

As we live in the new normal, the industry is now looking for ways to quickly adapt to the changes in the construction landscape.

Digitalization became a hot topic during this year’s Philconstruct Expo. One of the main topics is how to make the construction industry much more efficient.

Photo by Aljun Cainghog

Kin Weng Tan, Procore’s Account Director in Asia, was one of the panelists during this year’s Philcontruct introducing Procore and what it can do to help the construction industry.

“Procore is a construction management software specifically to help the construction industry to become more efficient and to be able to develop a project on time and budget,” Tan said.

Procore can be used on different devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and personal computers. This will make it easier to communicate and help streamline the processes of the industry.

The Procore platform could also show the progress, insights, and cost incurred of projects, ensuring smooth delivery and completion. This would allow the stakeholder of the project to get more information and make intelligent decisions much easier during the construction of the project.

Digitization of the Construction Industry

Tan said during the panel discussions that the construction industry is the second least digitized industry — this is according to the McKinsey&Company Industry Digitization Index.

Tan emphasized that technology and digital transformation are important in the construction industry and to the growth of the economy.

“The countries that can digitize their construction industry faster generally tend to be able to perform, build better and build faster as well and spurs their economy to even grow faster as well,” Tan said.

Photo by Aljun Cainghog

“We need to be able to have all stakeholders within the project able to access the latest drawings, the most updated documents, information, what RFI’s has been out there, what permits are needed to be approved, etc. Because of so many stakeholders, we need to find a way how we can bring all these different teams together bring them to a common platform and give them all the data and information they need for your project to know exactly what we need to do and when we need to do them,” Tan added.

Tan also said that the digitalization of the industry could save a lot of rework and control over the project’s cost.

Procore originated in the USA and branched out to other countries and closely worked with companies to help the construction industry adapt to new challenges.  (ASC)