Focus Areas:

• Breaking old habits and adopting a digital first strategy to project design and delivery
• Skilling up staff to take advantage of modern design and delivery technology
• Updates to legislation and codes that account for new construction delivery processes and technology
• How AI, big data and machine learning can be leveraged to design and project manage standalone assets, infrastructure and/or megaprojects that are significantly more sustainable
• Leveraging BIM/Digital Twins/Cloud and digital workflows to drastically improve project stakeholder collaboration and visualisation to deliver better projects and minimse time wastage and costly mistakes
• Taking advantage of big data to make data driven decisions across the design and engineering process of assets
• Transitioning from using manual labour and heavy machinery to autonomous construction or leveraging offsite manufacturing, modular construction, 3D printing and robotics to deliver assets, reduce costs and minimise waste
• Tracking construction progress and preventing rework with drones, 3D scanning and photogrammetry
• Leveraging modern construction techniques and advanced construction materials that are sustainable and/or ethically sourced (3D-printed graphene, light-generating concrete, bioplastic, self-healing materials etc) to design and deliver previously unseen structural forms

Talking points:

• What technology can enable owners/operators to have greater visibility of structures and infrastructure, so they can be operated as efficiently as possible? What should all new ‘Smart Building’ be equipped with?
• Retrofitting existing assets and infrastructure with technology such as building management and energy management systems to enhance their efficiency and reduce their impact on the environment
• Marrying facilities management, BIM/Digital Twins and sensors to generate rich data and enhance building maintenance and operational efficiency
• What are the limitations of current building management and energy management systems? How can the current lack of integration and data silo challenges be overcome?
• Deploying AI and machine learning to automate certain building management functions and scale up predictive/preventative maintenance
• Integrating renewable energy and greywater recycling systems into structures and infrastructure to achieve Net Zero goals

Focus Areas:

• Key safety challenges that construction stakeholders must address on regional projects
• The importance of marrying safety culture, positive reinforcement and technology
• Leveraging wearable devices to track staff health and safety in real-time
• Deploying drones to enhance jobsite management and mitigate risks, particular those associated with inspections in challenging areas of a project and/or hazard detection
• Leveraging IoT to detect risky behaviour or dangerous situations on sites with the aim of preventing accidents and injuries
• The usage of specialised robots to take on dangerous tasks
• Boosting worker training and safety by using immersive virtual reality (VR) technology
• Taking advantage of augmented reality (AR) devices to enhance preplanning and highlight potential danger areas on projects