From ferrying wash-basins to entire bathrooms

And from guesswork to sure-footed buildings. Gone are the days when a lot of work was done when the horses were out of the stables to a horses-for-courses designs with BIM, digital twins, AI and advanced 3D/CAD tools making proactive, carbon-conscious, productive, fast and wastage-reducing designs possible and practical. Anil Sivadas, Chairman and CEO, Enventure, sketches a picture of this new world for us in this chat, where we understand how technology is not just empowering architects, designers and engineers but also creating new what-ifs for creativity, the entire ecosystem, the construction industry and even for blue-collar labour. Step on.

Your company has been doing a lot of work in plant engineering, building management and product engineering and MRO. How has technology changed what you do?

We do a lot of work on Autodesk tools. A bulk of our projects gained from advanced capabilities. We see a lot happening in the USA, and it’s time for some of it to come to India. This industry has evolved a lot with technology. In the past, an architect’s office had drawing boards. The,n in the late 90s, 2D designs made the same thing possible on computers. Then with 3D, mock versions became possible – and not just the sketches but the wires and moulding, etc., for a non-engineer, it is hard to tell what a design is by looking at 2D mock-ups. But a 3D model made a lot of it easy. Most importantly, technology has enabled multiple agencies to be able to coordinate with each other. Cloud has added a new strength to this collaboration. And now one can also draw a bill of quantities and plan material procurement in a much more wastage-reducing way and with time-plus-resource savings than what was done earlier.

How much does BIM help- after the design?

The technology-driven designs help a lot in on-site stages – saving on all the rework and concrete usage, which would, earlier, cause cost and schedule burdens. With BIM, 2D and 3D have gone to new levels of sophistication. An entire building can now be designed in BIM. India is still moving ahead in this journey because the entire ecosystem has to accelerate together.

What holds the ecosystem back?

While architects and designers use 3D and AutoCAD, all the people in the chain have to move in that direction. A lot of government projects can also benefit from technology and take advantage of money savings. This has become a de facto standard in the USA, but we are still in the transition phase. It is not just a mindset issue but an actual difficulty of awareness and readiness.

Why do construction projects in India, as often and rightly, criticised by citizens, drag on for so long? Can technology be an answer?

It can be an answer to some extent, yes. Technology is one part, so if we solve that part, then we can shrink the delay by that factor for sure. Specially, in the area of rework. However, there are many reasons for a project’s delay.

If you were to explain it to an average Joe/Jane, what real jumps have happened between 2D and 3D and between 3D and digital twins/BIM/AI-assisted designs?

The way engineers view and understand design is through plans and elevations. With AutoCAD, the same can be done on a computer. With 3D prototypes it becomes more precise, faster and more easy. With digital twins, the building can be equal to the model thanks to the replica. AI tools can come at all these levels. I have now even seen robots gathering scans by walking inside building sites.

Can all this precision also affect the use of manual labour in construction?

We can already see that happening in areas like brick laying, blasting, modular construction, etc. I have seen customers taking entire electrical panels and containers directly on the site and doing final assembly with connectors. A hotel would- earlier- only carry pre-made wash-basins to be fitted on the site. But now complete modular bathrooms can be constructed somewhere else and transferred to be assembled at the site. In India and the USA, labour shortage is substantial, and it takes a lot of hard work and delays as per project timings. So automation in construction can help. It will be pushed not just by the design side but also with new equipment on the construction side.

What’s plant engineering about? Where does technology jump in, and how easily, when we think of brownfield facilities in particular?

Most companies are now doing models of plants. You can now walk around a plant inside your computer. In brownfield set-ups as well, 3D scans can do a lot of modelling. Once all that is in place, sensors and IoT can be installed easily, with an AC or motor that can capture a temperature change or vibration in real-time and send alerts for action. A lot of plant surveillance can happen in 3D models, and there is no need for people to be deployed to watch and report faults or maintenance issues. Even the maintenance inventory parts can be improved a lot- one can just see which Acs, and where they need compressor replacements, and do the needful. For any business, time is money- and that can be saved here, a lot.

Can the same strength also help in sustainability action?

Yes, material waste and resources shrink with these designs. Also, energy planning can be optimised a lot. The sun gives light, but also heat. So buildings can be designed with that curve and positioning in mind. Technology also makes it easier to do carbon footprint analytics, achieve caps and reduce emissions. In the USA, costs as far as 10 years ahead can be calculated. India is still moving on this path – ecosystem and awareness being some challenges for now.

With advanced and precise designs, where does the human go in the loop? Do architects and designers now become generalists of specialists?

The tools add a lot to productivity, and architects and designers gain a lot here. With the baseline taken care of by technology, they become specialists and can move to high levels of expertise.

So would creativity come from the pen or from the mouse? And would that be different?

Architects, most ones, still design with pen. But it works on a digital slate now. The biggest change is the bridging of the distance between architects and customers. They can also move to real co-creation and visualisation for users.

Co-creation? How?

Today, we have glasses for showing and explaining designs to users. A user can walk inside a model and change the colour of the chair or design of a carpet during that AR/VR walk-through.  An architect here can do 70 per cent of the design, and the rest can be done by the user himself/herself. The technology is already he, but it is not being used that much.

What excites you about the next two to three years?

Digital Twin as a technology would open up in a big way. Also, construction-side automation will bring in a lot of efficiency. Companies like Autodesk are playing a role there. We are moving beyond design automation to construction automation- like with construction clouds.