The construction industry is facing a fundamental transformation. Large companies appear to be more prepared for digital challenges. 97% of the German craft industries have less than 50 employees and correspondingly less resources. This is where Meisterwerk comes in to lay the foundation for digitizing the small and medium-sized trade companies.
Visions of the future
If you google for digitization in the construction industry, the search machine will cough up exciting articles for you. It’s all about 5D structural models, drones and bots. Future perspectives for the construction industry forecasted by McKinsey, Roland Berger and others appear to be almost futuristic.
Primarily of course, we are talking about the big players – huge construction projects and large corporations. All agree, that the construction industry is somewhat lagging behind. A comparison to other industries makes it evident. The automotive industry, for example, where production is a decentralized and automated process. Where the supply chain management always knows how many from whichever parts are needed and will be mounted. Suppliers are interlinked and integrated in the procurement system.
The construction industry needs to catch up
But the trades in the construction business are miles away from that. As long as they put their plans on paper and use little pieces of paper in their everyday work routines, error rates will be high while prospects of efficiency will be rather poor. Information circulation between office and construction site as well as the different trade team working on site will not be effective.The result are time delays, misunderstandings and discrepancies and productivity is sure to suffer. In the past ten years productivity in Germany has increased by a modest 4 percent only. For comparison: in the same period of time, German economy as a whole increased productivity by 11 percent, the processing industry by an impressive 34 percent and the manufacturing industry by 27 percent.
The following diagram shows that low productivity of course, means less profitability.
The fundamental change
Necessary technologies need not to be reinvented. What’s preventing a completely digitized and linked planning and construction process? It’s not only a matter of digital tools, it’s important to rethink. Go for the transformation: structures, working methods and approach. At all levels: from the owner to the architect to the construction worker.
Small and medium-sized trade companies
Meisterwerk’s main concern are the latter, the small and medium-sized companies of the construction industry. In Germany we got about 620.000 of these companies. Throughout Europe about 3.2 millions. Bertram Wildenauer, Meisterwerk’s CEO explains that their start-up mission is to provide todays craftsmen with the basics : planning, coordination and exchange of information.
Meisterwerk’s cloud-based application aims at closing this gap, reduce costs, motivate the members of the team and ensure an overall increase in efficiency. By implementing the application, Meisterwerk in close cooperation with the workshops, wants to lay the foundation for the digital transformation facing the construction industry.
