In the last 150 years, the automobile industry has transitioned from simple wagons with gas engines to self-driving cars with voice recognition technology. In contrast, the construction industry has not evolved as much. Labor productivity growth in the industry is only at 1% a year, a shortfall compared to 2.8% for the overall global economy. Even with low productivity growth, the construction industry is resistant to change and adaption of new technologies. The main reason for such resistance is that practitioners are slow to adapt to available technology and often wait on competitors to take the first leap.
Fortunately, the stagnation is due for a change following the digital era and tech boom. Between 2011 and 2017, $10 billion were invested in the construction technology industry. Construction technology development takes a substantive amount of time and resources to evolve and come to fruition; however, it is crucial, especially for global projects, which face unique challenges in terms of productivity, safety, communications, and collaborations. In a way, those challenges themselves drove the construction and digital transformation to the new era.