Tracking Infrastructure

There has been a lot of talk about 3D modeling and BIM in recent years. Both have experienced acceptance and application in commercial construction.... but very little in the civil construction market. However, it seems that the FHWA's push for e-Construction practices over the past 5-6 years is bearing fruit. Now, all of a sudden, DOTs are starting to require e-ticketing and Digital As-Builts from their suppliers.

Seattle just completed its SR 99 tunnel, a project that replaced the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel that runs under the city and offers substantially more protection to motorists against the effects of an earthquake. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) bills the tunnel as "one of the smartest tunnels ever built".  It's no surprise, therefore, that WSDOT required that product data for the segments manufactured for each ring of the tunnel be captured and transmitted to the DOT in digital form. 

When I was taking driving lessons at school (way back when!), my teacher gave me some great advice: Don't just observe what the car in front of you is doing; watch the car in front of him. The same wisdom applies in business. Watch what your customer's customer wants in order to be able to anticipate and respond nimbly. We do this at Idencia and like to offer our observations as part of the service we provide. The Federal Highway Administration's Center for Accelerating Innovation⁽¹⁾ provides a great tool for tracking state DOT innovations across the country. Here are some of the most intriguing.

GS1 is one of the most important underpinnings of commerce that you've likely never heard of. Over 5 billion scans are performed each day using GS1 standards for product tracking. GS1 is an international standards board with over 1 million members in 100 countries. We benefit from its impact with almost every product we purchase. And yet, it seems to work 'under the radar' for most of us. It's influence is now quickly moving into infrastructure product manufacture so we thought we would shed some light.

The construction industry has lagged the general economy in productivity growth for 70 years. With $4.6 trillion of infrastructure rebuilding required over the next 8 years, project owners will be pressed to achieve maximum cost efficiency in order to stretch limited funding dollars as far as possible. This is the second in a series of posts that explores the stakes of rebuilding this country's infrastructure for each party in the construction value chain. Today we discuss construction contractors.

Earlier this month, the American Society of Civil Engineers reported that the US will require $4.6 Trillion of investment in its infrastructure over the next 10 years. This would seem to be an opportunity of a generation for the construction industry but it remains to be seen if it is actually capable of meeting such a large need. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company reports that US productivity in manufacturing, retail and agriculture has grown by as much as 1,500% since 1945. Construction productivity? Hardly any improvement at all in more than 70 years! What's up with that?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a construction video of the new Seattle tunnel project is incalculable. The project, known locally as the SR 99 tunnel, is replacing the above-ground Alaskan Way trestle with a tunnel that will run underneath the city. The video below shows how the contractors are boring the tunnel and installing the concrete rings that line it. An engineering marvel!

We developed Idencia in the firm belief that tracking information about the manufacture and maintenance of concrete products would be of great value to infrastructure project owners.

(Picture credit NPCA)

Being responsible for public safety, they need to know everything they can about the integrity of the structures they build. For years now manufacturers of aircraft have had to maintain information about virtually every part they make for the same reason. It stands to reason that state departments of transportation want to provide the same quality assurance for the public when they travel over bridges and through tunnels.  

(This blog post was updated in June 2018)

Two unconnected announcements were made this past week that will transform infrastructure as we know it. We will look back in the not-too-distant future and recognize that the first week of June 2014 marked the beginning of the "smart infrastructure" era.