Cambridge Centre for EPSRC iCASE Studentship - Human-data interfaces on construction projects
Department of Engineering, Cambridge
EPSRC iCASE Studentship - Human-data interfaces on construction projects
Within the construction industry, there are established legacy processes which predate the digital age.
These processes facilitate the delivery of projects and collate documentation for future reference. However, often, data is collected without structure or digitisation which hinders value creation from knowledge management and does not allow for big data analytics. Physical forms, unstructured excel and visual data (such as drawings and photos) form a large proportion of the information collected and used on construction projects.
At the same time, some of those digital tools intended to replace these manual methods are not designed with the users and realities of physical sites in mind making their adoption very hard. From feedback received through industry engagement, a significant barrier to the adoption of data-driven technology is that the interfaces are complicated, lengthy, and non-intuitive. Digital literacy among construction worksite employees is low, therefore, digital data capture processes are seen as a barrier and hinderance to normal operations instead of a value creator for the project.