What is Big Data in Construction?

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The construction industry has been generating a great amount of data that comes from completed construction projects, designs, machinery, supply chain, accounting departments, and the workers at job sites. If this data is stored and studied for patterns and aberrations, it is possible to avoid “unforeseeable” complexities frequently encountered in projects.

Big data in construction is simply the huge volumes of design and financial data, graphs, enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs), etc., the sizes of which are too large for the commonly used software tools to store, organize, and process.

It is generally characterized through 4Vs, namely, volume (terabytes, petabytes, data exabytes, etc.), variety of formats (text, audio, video, graphics, etc.), velocity (transfer speed), and veracity.

With access to Big Data, it is possible for an organization to gain insights and improve productivity, customer experience, and reduce business costs. A proper analysis of big data can help develop various systems of classification and forecast the patterns and trends, followed by the interpretation of results.

Some of the available Big Data processing tools are the open-source Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark platforms that assist with processing huge amounts of semi-structured data from heterogeneous sources.

In this article, we have explained how Big Data can be utilized in a construction project throughout its lifecycle.

Big Data in Design Phase

A project lifecycle begins with conceptualizing the project and developing the design. During this stage:

1. Big Data can provide designers and planners with vital information about the project location, public spaces, infrastructure, and resources.
2. It can offer insights from previous projects about future residents, their behavior, and preferences, thus facilitating stakeholders’ understanding of end-users’ needs by designing the project for optimal performance.
3. Big Data can be integrated with BIM software and online social networks to select the appropriate sustainable energy solutions capable of optimizing the project performance. This can improve project design and is particularly useful for green buildings.
4. Big Data can be used in the bidding process of projects. 
5. Stakeholders can use Big Data to estimate their profits.

Big Data in Pre-construction Planning Phase

This stage includes planning the construction of the project. In this stage: 

1. Big Data gathered from similar past projects can be studied and used to ensure the robustness of the project by reducing uncertainty and allowing more accurate projections, forecasts, and planning.
2. Big Data can help predict the behavior of stakeholders and ascertain the reliability of their commitments, their level of collaboration, and readiness to share knowledge.
3. Historic and new data collected during this stage can be used to simulate different construction activities and tasks, and thus, improve project performance.

Big Data in Construction and Commissioning Phase

1. Most Big Data applications in this stage are used for capturing real-time or near-real-time information to create as-built 3D models and track project progress.
2. Real-time data can also be gathered using built-in smartphone sensors to collect equipment-related data. The status of an equipment (idle, busy, or off) and the type of activity performed, i.e., scoping or dumping, can be assessed to aid construction personnel to better utilize the equipment, make better decisions, and ultimately, have better control over the project.
3. Laser scanners and video cameras on blind spots across the construction site allow the collection of new data that can be beneficial to equipment operators by providing them with automatic object recognition, 3D workspace data, and rapid 3D surface modeling in near real-time.

Big Data in Operation and Maintenance Phase

1. With properly installed technologies like sensors and RFIDs, facility managers can obtain the precise location and information about different building components to simplify inspection, monitoring, and maintenance.
2. Using BIM models and the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data can be generated for buildings to provide geometric and semantic information as well as the state of building elements. This can be used to represent buildings within a virtual GIS environment for city management and monitoring applications.

Benefits of Big Data in Construction

Big Data has a wide range of applications and can offer a multitude of benefits to the construction industry. Some of the potential benefits are:

1. Enable data-based simulations and solutions for different on-site construction activities to optimize construction site layout and resource allocation.
2. Enable the delivery of the right information such as project location, surrounding environment, and infrastructure overview.
3. Enable the monitoring and assessment of various facility performance areas, specifically energy, and thus empowering facility managers to perform their work more efficiently.
4. Enhance the decision-making process by perusing previously collected data and identifying trends and patterns.
5. Improve project control, including the location and status of equipment, material, and laborers.
6. Improve the information flow between stakeholders and across different project stages.
7. Increase collaboration and communication to ensure that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the scope of work and expected outcomes. 
8. Improve the precision of forecasting and promote better predictability, specifically during pre-construction planning, where construction tasks can be simulated before execution to identify and remove barriers and constraints.

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