Posted on

How to Navigate the Shift from Reality Capture to Generative AI

1000_F_276741644_mAuiXEm92D9BVNFlLQ5IUqr3SnWKnsWP

Reality capture was a winning tool during the pandemic when construction sites were shut and we needed to deliver with limited on-site interactions! While highly valuable for documentation and visualization, these tools cannot deliver much when it comes to automating key construction processes or generating connected, timely insights transferable to BIM, schedule, and other reporting software. So, how can we embed Generative AI into our projects, assets and businesses, and create sustainable value in the AI Era? Keep reading below!

CSQ12_BlogImages_16

1. Invest in scalable data analysis

that scales your analytics capabilities and has the flexibility to offer wide functionalities in a time efficient manner. Otherwise, you’ll be significantly limiting your ability to move fast, and to realise value from GenAI!

4657

2. Build platforms, not tools

Ensure that the generated insights are connected across multiple dimensions, and that the underlying data is structured and accessible through APIs. Otherwise, you will end up with 100 tools that each solve 1% of the problem, but will never get you to the answers you need, and cannot feed quality data into Generative AI applications for business-grade decisions!

procurement

3. Streamline tech procurement

and use the right contractual and procurement strategy, as tech vendor selection is vastly different from your GC tender process where competitive selection is the answer! Also ensure that your CIO, Chief Digital Officer, etc. are embedded in the process and empowered to run agile, cost-efficient selections – otherwise you’ll be left behind!

Get in touch

For more information on the above and to find out more about how to generate automated insights on progress, quality, quantities, and risks through using Contilio‘s 3D AI platform please get in touch with Jack Li, or contact us via our website

Posted on

With world’s first AI Quantity Tracker, Contilio transforms CO2 and cost management for built environment

The new 3D AI-empowered functionality enables automated production tracking and accelerates time to revenue and cash flow, as well as CO2 tracking and optimisation.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, MAY 22, 2023 – The 3D AI-powered construction analytics platform, Contilio, has officially launched its first-of-its-kind AI Quantity Tracker, to automate the resource intensive, error-prone and costly process of manually tracking onsite installed quantities during construction.

The new functionality gives actionable insights on the production rate of all installed elements in a few hours, improving the productivity of the current process and its coverage by 20 times. By automating valuations and quantity take-offs, Contilio’s Quantity Tracker streamlines cost tracking and payments. This enables real estate and construction companies to improve their cash flows and time to revenue at a time when material costs and interest rates are at their highest since 2020. Financial institutions can also use the software to gain visibility into actual progress before releasing drawdowns, and to assess and mitigate the delay and rework risks during construction.

Real Estate industry demands accurate quantities and embodied CO2 tracking

With the real estate industry facing mounting pressure to reduce its carbon footprint, shareholders, market, and regulators’ demand for automated carbon tracking and reduction for construction projects and operating assets has accelerated 10-fold.

By enabling CO2 to be monitored and optimised throughout construction and operations, Contilio’s quantity tracker reduces the carbon usage of real estate assets significantly. This means that companies can achieve their sustainability goals and benefit from increased asset values, stable revenues, and access to green financing products, offered at a cheaper rate relative to traditional loans.

CEO of Contilio Zara Riahi comments on the new capability:
“I am excited to announce the launch of our cutting-edge quantity tracker to support the fast-growing demand from our customers and the global built environment for optimised CO2, cost, and payments. Having worked in the industry myself, I have a great appreciation for how time consuming, siloed and costly the current processes can be and how hard it is to get paid in a timely, transparent manner.

“Our quantity tracker functionality has been tested in over 3.5 million square feet of building and infrastructure projects, saving millions. It will be offered as a part of our existing 3D AI platform, empowering our current and future customers to deliver and operate their construction projects and existing assets within accelerated timeframes, more cost efficiently and sustainably.”

About Contilio

Launched in 2019, Contilio is a 3D-AI-powered analytics platform that automates quantity, installation quality and progress tracking, ensuring that critical construction projects are error-free, on time, on budget and carbon optimised. Contilio also enhances the operations and sustainability of assets once construction is complete, irrespective of whether building information models (BIM) are present. 

Contilio’s powerful technology delivers 25 to 30 times ROI to developers, asset owners, general contractors and financial institutions in more than 102 million square metres of building projects and $25bn of infrastructure assets. The versatile platform is used across all types of building and infrastructure projects in the UK, the USA, and most recently in the Middle East.

Get in touch

For more information regarding this press release please get in touch with Jack Li, or contact us via our website.

Posted on

Global Proptech VC Pilabs invests in Contilio to transform the way the world builds with 3D AI

The global Proptech Venture Capital firm, Pi Labs, has led the latest investment into the AI-based analytics software Contilio to enable the global construction industry to intelligently track, predict and transform the delivery of building & infrastructure projects, with 3D AI.

The breakthrough 3D AI construction analytics platform will use the funds to onboard more customers, further advance its product & tech and accelerate its growth. This acceleration is fuelled by a c500 per cent increase in global demand for its construction progress, installation quality and risk software.

The global construction is valued at USD13 trillion. Despite pioneering a lot of technological innovation, including CAD, simulation and early machine learning applications, the building and infrastructure construction is still the 2nd least productive industry. Every year, approximately 40% of the construction value is lost in unnecessary delays, rework and waste. Increased investments in Building Information Management (BIM) and visualisation while valuable, has not done much to bridge the critical gap between construction plans and the as-built reality.

Contilio’s world-first AI platform provides actionable intelligence from 3D construction site data (Lidar/Laser scans) by intelligently classifying all structural, architectural and MEP elements and automatically comparing them with the BIM and the schedule. The easy-to-use software works seamlessly with all commercially available Lidar/Laser scanners and most recently drones. Since launching from stealth in 2019, Contilio has been used by global general contractors (e.g., Balfour Beatty), developers (e.g., Prologis) and owners (eg TUV SUD), helping them deliver building, infrastructure and data centre projects cheaper, faster and more sustainably.

On average, customers report that the Contilio platform delivers the progress and quality insights 15 times faster for 100 per cent of the construction site. This, for the first time, enables key stakeholders to automatically track construction progress, swiftly eliminate delays and installation errors, and to make smart decisions. When deployed at scale, Contilio delivers significant cost savings, better bid performance and  20x return on investment. Due to the significant reduction in construction rework and waste, CO2 emissions are reduced, helping sustainability strategies.

The next version of Contilio’s cloud-based product which will be launched soon enables the users to access the insights 24/7 from anywhere in the world with 10x better performance in terms of visualising 3D insights when compared with the likes of Autodesk. A free version will be also made available to a short-list of power users.

Zara Riahi, Co-Founder & CEO, at Contilio, says: “Construction is a pivotal part of all of our lives whether we are indoors, commuting or communicating. After spending years managing mega construction projects and investing in AI and Fintech, I realised that the 3D AI advancements would help deliver the much-needed change for an industry that I knew deserved much better.

“The Covid-19 pandemic, shortage of skilled workforce, and the growing trend for better build quality have exponentially increased the demand for data-driven insights, predictable outcomes and timely verification of installation errors. This has shifted the industry’s focus from 360 visualisation tools, to automated and scalable software, taking the value game to the next level.

“Pi Labs investment and its unparalleled access to a global network of property and construction leaders will be a great asset to Contilio as we quickly grow our customer base and advance our business in our journey to reshape the global construction industry. We look forward to working together and having a positive impact on the future of real estate and infrastructure.”

Faisal Butt, CEO of Pi Labs, says: “ESG and progression of the real estate industry have always been core to Pi Labs’ mission. Construction is a key part of that equation, where manual, costly and paper-based processes have been a core reason for wasteful errors, costly delays and significant overruns. Our research shows us that Construction is ripe for technology disruption and that Construction tech has a vital role to play as we work towards achieving net zero, optimised supply chain and efficient construction delivery.

“Contilio’s innovative solution fills a large void in terms of enhancing construction efficiency and reducing waste. Their AI software not only helps enable significant cost savings during construction, but also drives sustainability benefits and better build quality for owners and developers, enabling them to continue to reap the benefits during asset operations. That is why we at Pi Labs are delighted to be supporting Contilio’s expansion and continue to believe that Construction Tech will offer many innovations that will improve our built environment.”

Source: Private Equity Wire, Placetech.net, Property Week

For more information, please contact us at contilio.official@contilio.com.

Posted on

Construction’s $1 Trillion Quality Cost

And how you can turn it into better build quality, reduced rework & lower CO2 footprint

There is no denying that despite significant time and effort spent by general contractors (GCs) and their partners, construction projects of all sizes are troubled by escalating cost-overruns and waste caused by quality issues. Installation errors are caught late and based on spot checks, usually when the next subcontractor comes in, or even worse, when projects are handed over and the cost of fixing errors is 10X higher!!!

Poor installation quality and associated rework are estimated to cost the global $12 trillion construction industry around 12% every year, resulting in a $1 trillion crisis of lost productivity and margins. This doesn’t even take into consideration the time and effort required to verify the quality of installed work, which adds up to 3% of total project costs on top of immediate rework cost; nor does it include the significant waste, CO2 emissions and reputational damages involved.

As an industry we’ve tried to fix this problem by pouring more people at the problem and transferring the risks, but progress has been limited. We interviewed several experts and stakeholders in the industry and identified 5 key trends that will increase construction complexity and make things worse. But, we have also identified best practices used by industry leaders to turn these challenges into cost savings, enhanced build quality and sustainability measures, using the latest technologies. For a more in-depth example on how one of our global customers achieved 30% lower rework costs and 23% higher productivity for the construction of their new APAC Headquarters using the Contilio 3D AI analytics software, please read this case study here.

The current process: manual, limited outcomes, and little trust

“Normally, the responsibility for construction quality lies with the subcontractors,  but there is  so  little trust and so much complexity that the main contractor ends up doing much of the  quality inspection themselves, adding significantly to the project costs and overhead.”

          Project Director, Bouygues Construction

Today, the process to verify and manage installation quality is very time consuming, slow and it involves many people who need to be on site. As different trades and subcontractors complete different parts of the construction, the GCs try to verify the quality of installed work through spot checks and then manually update documents and systems spread across different “data siloes”. Construction managers, work package managers, quality engineers, and commercial teams all spend significant portion of their time on ensure quality, adding 1%-3% to the project costs just to inspect work. And despite all these efforts, teams report that at most they can check 5% of the work installed, leaving the remaining 95% up to chance, built-in contingencies and warranty packages.

In addition, quality KPIs such as number of critical defects, the time and cost to fix them, and their impact on the delivery speed are usually not tracked using a standardized, scalable process. Subjective and delayed outputs end up in various data siloes, without being meaningfully used to drive efficiencies.

While contractually the subcontractors might be responsible to track and report on installation quality, in reality, the GCs whose commercial success and reputation are closely tied to long-term asset quality and successful construction delivery end up verifying all the work done by trades! Equally if you are an asset owner or an investor, you want to ensure that the asset you ordered is what is getting built and the quality issues are identified and resolved immediately. If you are a public sector entity, you want to maximize value for taxpayers, achieve your sustainability outcomes and ensure fair payment and transparency. We live in a world where data-backed quality assurance is becoming increasing important, particularly when several trades/subs are onsite simultaneously (when MPE and services are getting installed).

This trend is only going to accelerate at a much faster pace

As a part of Contilio’s growing engagement with the global construction industry, we interviewed the executive and delivery teams from several construction companies on the pressing matter of build quality and identified five key trends making the construction quality and sustainability challenge even more daunting:

1.  COVID-19 has made manual, on-site quality verification hard: Many construction companies are forced to reduce the number of onsite crew due to COVID-19 safety requirements, but at the same time still have to track and document installation quality reliably particular for critical assets such as healthcare facilities, data centres, and technology assets. With increasing  pressure to offset the pandemic’s negative impact, this is only going to get harder. Digital leaders are turning to automated software solutions that can help verify quality of all elements in a few hours, improving productivity and safety simultaneously.

2. The labour gap is widening: Young expert and young talent is less and less interested in moving around the construction sites and “ticking boxes” to manually verify the onsite quality. They want to focus on high-value tasks and conduct their work supported by digital tools, just like what they would do in other industries. We strongly believe that digitization and adoption of the latest available AI technologies can reverse this trend and increase the construction industry attractiveness as an employer. It can also enable your expert workforce to focus their efforts on what matters the most.

3. Good subcontractors have less incentive to focus on quality: Good subs are in high demand and want to finish their jobs quickly and move to the next one to maximize their utilization. This, together with increasing delivery complexity and trend #2, makes installation quality verification and rework even costlier – something we believe our cutting-edge and easy to use solution can help address.

4. Offsite manufacturing needs verification too! Yes, offsite and modular are picking up fast and the great news is that they have the potential to drive significant efficiencies – but similar to manufacturing, the installation quality (i.e. dimensions and fit to the rest of the site) needs to be verified to mm accuracy before the components are shipped to the site; otherwise, everyone ends up paying significantly more for rework, logistics, and other costs.

5. 360 photos and videos are no “silver bullet”: While the industry has seen a few 360-degree photo tools used more broadly for site visualization, construction companies have already realized that photo-based solutions cannot be relied upon to check the installation quality automatically, whatever the marketing message. Only AI solutions that work with 3D data can offer the accuracy and the automation potential to do so.

“We have tested some photo-based solutions to visualize our sites, but we would never rely on photos to evaluate quality of subs work or for disputes, as photos do not tell the full story”

         Head of Quality Inspection, Sir Robert Mcalpine

The opportunity for Digital Leaders in construction

But it is definitely not all doom and gloom. Several construction companies have  started to test and deploy software solutions at scale to address the big quality challenge and drive a long overdue digital transformation. Besides the mitigations for trends mentioned above, Digital Leaders are additionally:

1. Establishing new digital records of transparency and trust: Digital leaders are using software tools and technology solutions to create traceable, structured and trustworthy digital records and quality insights for 100% of installed work as opposed to the traditional 5%. and they do it in just a few hours. This new transparency establishes a “single source of trust”, from which the general contractors, the subcontractors and the owners benefit alike.

2. Using analytics to finally drive cross-portfolio efficiencies: Yes, you got that right. Enabled by the latest advancements in AI and analytics, digital leaders can leverage actionable insights captured on one project and use it in real-time across their entire portfolio to predict and avoid similar installation mistakes, saving additional costs. They can also use these insights to win more tenders, and/or to drive sustainability benefits in addition to benchmarking assets globally.

3. Not settling for just a “quick digital fix”: Digital leaders do not just choose the cheapest digital tool, but rather systematically assess and embrace digital solution(s) that have the potential to drive tangible value at scale and won’t need to be replaced in a couple years again. And the good news is that advancements in 3D Artificial Intelligence (3D AI), BIM and big data combined with the power of innovative data capture solutions have enabled them to do so effectively.

How a global leader reduced rework by 30% using Contilio 3D AI

Based on decades of experience in the construction industry (yes we’ve been in the trenches) and engineering advanced technologies, we developed our cutting-edge and easy to use Contilio 3D AI analytics platform to provide objective, real-time, and fully automated quality verification for all areas of your building and infrastructure projects ranging from millions to a few billions. Drawing on the latest developments in big data analytics, autonomous driving and 3D reality capture, the Contilio 3D AI platform not only can do this in a fraction of a time and cost, and for all trades, but also, we can create machine-readable, structured digital twins (BIM connected with intelligent, structured site data) to enable additional whole-life asset efficiencies.

We are trusted by many GCs and asset owners around the world to verify installation quality and track construction progress, enabling our customers to do a lot more with a lot less, win more business, and ensure they are doing so safely and sustainably. One global customer we’ve been working with deployed Contilio’s 3D AI solution on their new Asia-Pacific Headquarters to verify the quality of 100% of installed work and to reduce the rework costs by 30%. They also experienced significant productivity gains due to significantly reduced need for travel and overhead, augmenting their construction managers and skilled professionals to focus on more value-add activities. See the case study here.

Please get in touch if you’d like to learn how we can join forces to drive significant value for you and construction projects.

Zara Riahi
Chief Executive Officer, Contilio

Email: contilio.official@contilio.com
Phone: +44 7523 746 824
Video: Contilio in 2 mins
Demo: Please click here to book a demo

For marketing and PR please contact Jack Li at jack@contilio.com.

Posted on

Contilio the only UK finalist for the global Microsoft Female Founders Competition

Microsoft names its finalists in its $4M Female Founders Competition.

Contilio Microsoft EQT SVB global startup competition construction aiFinalists in the Female Founders Competition made their pitches on Nov 14 at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco.

Microsoft’s venture fund, M12, wants to bridge a funding gap in venture capital and dispel the misconception that few women are building enterprise tech companies.

M12, along with EQT Ventures and SVB Financial Group, launched the Female Founders Competition in July, which will award two women-led companies $2 million each in funding. Ten finalists, selected from 800+ submissions from 28 countries, pitched their companies to judges Wednesday at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco.

“There’s some sort of myth out there that there just aren’t a lot of women who are starting enterprise tech companies and that they’re generally focused on consumer. I think we’ve proven that’s not true with this competition,” said Lisa Nelson, managing director of M12, which was previously known as Microsoft Ventures.

Broadly, consumer tech companies market to the masses, while enterprise tech companies focus more on selling to other companies.

Women make up about 40 percent of M12’s investment team, but only 7.5 percent of founders in its portfolio are women, according to Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president and global head of M12. That’s not enough, and he hopes M12’s investment team, with its more diverse networks, can discover entrepreneurs that less-diverse teams might not come across.

“If we just play it safe and we just go back to our own networks, we will never solve this problem,” Kashyap said. “There’s no shortage of smart female entrepreneurs. We just have to look harder to find them.”

There’s good reason to fund female entrepreneurs. Research shows that companies led by women tend to generate better returns. Still, just 2.2 percent of venture capital funding in the US last year went to companies founded only by women, according to data from industry tracker Pitchbook.

Nelson wants the competition to bring awareness to this issue and to give hope to the finalists that there are investors who want to bridge the gap in funding.

In addition to $2 million in funding, the two winners will also get access to tech resources, mentoring and legal counsel. The winners will be announced Dec. 11. The other 8 companies will get access to Azure credits and co-selling opportunities with Microsoft.

Here are the 10 finalists:

  • Acerta Analytics (Canada)
  • BitDam (Israel)
  • Contilio (United Kingdom) : founded by CEO Zara Riahi in June 2018, Contilio is an AI-based analytics platform, empowering the construction industry to understand, predict and significantly improve the performance of multi-million dollar projects.
  • CrowdAI (United States)
  • Features Analytics (Belgium)
  • Jargon (United States)
  • Mental Canvas (United States)
  • TrialJectory (United States)
  • Capital (Ireland)
  • Wenspire (Israel)

Source: M12 blog; c|net article, Contilio