Curious to know what the team at Implenia, Switzerland’s leading construction and real estate service provider, does at HumanTech? We have spoken with Patrick Roth, Project Manager of New Business Models & Innovation, and Sebastian Mattes, BIM & Reality Capturing Specialist, two members of Implenia’s extended innovation community.
They tell us about their roles and objectives at HumanTech, their mission at Implenia, the positive impact they hope to generate through the project, and the next milestones they hope to achieve. They also reflect on the importance of innovation and sustainability in construction and how our technologies contribute to creating a safer and greener construction industry.
“As part of the extended innovation community at Implenia, Sebastian and I are two of many active employees who constantly try to question the status quo of how the industry plans and builds”, Patrick Roth.
Dive into our exciting conversation to learn more!
Q: Tell us about yourselves. What is your professional focus nowadays?
Patrick: As part of the extended innovation community at Implenia, Sebastian and I are two of many active employees who constantly try to question the status quo of how the industry plans and builds. Here we are not only looking into new products and technology, but also developing new services and business models. While Sebastian has a strong focus on all the opportunities that come with the digitalisation of our processes and the opportunities that arise there, I focus on new services and business models in the public infrastructure sector as well as how we manage all of our various innovation topics within the division Civil Engineering.
Q: And about Implenia, what is your mission, and what goals do you hope to achieve?
Patrick: Our mission is to develop real estate sustainably with and for people, and to construct buildings and infrastructure to meet their needs for modern living, working and travelling. Implenia recently completed its successful transformation and now focuses on integrated construction and real estate services in Switzerland and Germany and offers tunnelling and related infrastructure projects in other markets. With innovation as one of our four strategic priorities, Implenia implements innovative solutions that bring sustainable added value to our clients, and develops and deploys services, products and methods to ensure that construction has a sustainable and economically viable future. Furthermore, with sustainability as one of our five core values, we are creating a future worth living for everyone. Our achievements and efforts in sustainability can be read in Implenia’s latest Sustainability Report from April 2023.
“With innovation as one of our four strategic priorities, Implenia implements innovative solutions that bring sustainable added value to our clients, and develops and deploys services, products and methods to ensure that construction has a sustainable and economically viable future”, Patrick Roth.
Q: Highly ambitious but urgently needed targets to accelerate the sustainable transformation of the industry — making it better for people and planet.
In particular, what are your roles and objectives at HumanTech?
Patrick: We represent the end user’s point of view. As Switzerland’s leading construction and real estate service provider, we bring a great deal of experience in the development, planning and execution of large and complex projects to HumanTech. In addition, we support defining the use cases and requirements for the solutions that will be developed, and we will be in charge of the extensive tests of two of the five use cases in the real environment on the construction site.
Our goal is to ensure that everything developed under the HumanTech project directly benefits our workers’ health and safety and the construction industry in general, and is not just developed from a research point of view.
“Our goal is to ensure that everything developed under the HumanTech project directly benefits our workers’ health and safety and the construction industry in general”, Patrick Roth.
Q: A vital aspect of our project, which guides our own mission! And what positive impact do you hope to generate through HumanTech?
Sebastian: We hope to be able to build a bridge between our scientific partners and the construction sites, point out some current challenges on site, and provide a more efficient way of using data (e.g. point clouds, 360-degree images). Also, make our partners understand how construction sites work.
Capturing data may be challenging, but working with it and using its potential is usually more complicated. Our approach is to use existing data or data created with common devices more efficiently. For example, when using 360° cameras for documentation, we would like to use AI for counting material.
The human-robot collaboration is a really promising approach. There, we detect two general use cases: first, to protect human workers from heavy loads or unhealthy working positions, and second, robots can jump in as ‘experts’ for a specific task (for example, autonomous bridge inspection).
Overall, we see potential in the HumanTech technologies to bring new opportunities in the three main industry trends: digitalisation, sustainability and industrialisation.
“We see potential in the HumanTech technologies to bring new opportunities in the three main industry trends: digitalisation, sustainability and industrialisation”, Sebastian Mattes.
Q: We are excited to see how these impactful results materialise and hope to be able to share our progress with the broader public soon! What is the next milestone you hope to achieve?
Patrick: We are getting closer to finalising the use case scenarios, which will be a milestone as the technology providers can start developing solutions. We look forward to seeing the first test run of the developed technology at one of our construction sites.
Q: Regarding the need to build a greener construction industry, do you think it can become net zero? If so, what opportunities and challenges do you see?
Patrick: In view of the climate crisis, the construction and real estate industry, as any other industry, must move towards net zero as quickly as possible. In the future, special attention must be paid to embodied carbon caused by materials and processes. The challenge will be reconciling technical innovations in low-carbon materials with building standards and simultaneously providing a long-term business case.
Q: And about the human-centred technologies we are developing, how do they contribute to creating a safer and greener construction industry?
Patrick: There are several aspects. Wearable technologies, for example, can monitor workers’ health and safety in real-time, alerting them to potential hazards and providing vital information to supervisors. This helps reduce the risk of accidents and injuries and ensures that workers work in a safe and healthy environment. The same holds for automated and robotic solutions, which can be used to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks, enabling workers to focus on more complex and significant ones.
On the other hand, using BIM and new digital solutions enables construction companies to design and plan projects more efficiently, reduces the need for rework, and ensures that projects are completed within budget and on time. This benefits workers and reduces waste and environmental impact.
“Our technologies will ensure construction workers work in a safe and healthy environment while enabling them to focus on more complex and significant tasks, reducing waste and environmental impact”, Patrick Roth.
Q: How will technology evolve in the construction sector over the next decade? What impact do you think the associated changes will have?
Patrick: Technology will evolve rapidly in the construction sector over the following years. The increasing data availability resulting from digital planning and engineering will pave new ways for automation, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. This will lead to entirely new solutions that will help our field workers do their jobs healthier and safer, more accurately and in less time.
Q: Ambitious projects are developing innovative technology solutions and making a difference in the construction sector. Are there any that have inspired you?
Patrick: Implenia is constantly working with innovative startups and partners to accelerate the development of innovative technologies in the construction and real estate sectors. The Implenia Innovation Hub has developed an extensive ecosystem of startups/scaleups, research institutes & universities, industry partners, and other market participants with which we continuously ideate and do pilots to validate new solutions that help shape a more efficient, sustainable and industrialised construction world.
“Implenia is constantly working with innovative startups and partners to accelerate the development of innovative technologies in the construction and real estate sectors”, Patrick Roth.
Q: Any final words to end on?
Patrick: We always highlight the importance of understanding the actual needs of the end users and testing new solutions in the real environment. It’s not enough to develop new technology or business models in a laboratory environment. Innovators need to get to the action, talk to the experts and ideally experience the needs hands-on. And then, as our Head Division Specialties, Anita Eckardt, always says: Fail fast… As soon as you have a first solution, an MVP, test it in the real environment, and improve, pivot, or cancel your solution as quickly as possible.
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