Why AI could be the construction industry’s answer to a workforce shortage

Fortune

Companies like Canvas and Dusty Robotics are using artificial intelligence and robots to speed up construction when a decreasing workforce can’t meet demand.

Transcript

00:00 Construction as an industry is like the biggest industry on the planet.

00:04 It's also one of the least automated.

00:06 Step one is I've picked a space.

00:10 Step 50 is I have now built the space.

00:13 There's a million moving parts.

00:14 So we started leveraging robotics and AI in order to automate some of the things that

00:20 have previously been done by people.

00:22 You know, what we've come from in the industry in terms of how things get built and how fast

00:27 things get built and how complicated things are.

00:30 Now everything is a lot more interactive.

00:33 Everyone's being tasked with building more with less.

00:36 The challenge for construction is actually to make construction more efficient by adopting

00:40 more technology and automation.

00:49 Typically today what you'd see is big plans being printed on big sheets of paper, handed

00:53 off to someone in the field who gets down on his hands and knees and uses measuring

00:56 tape and string to mark out the locations of where all of those things are going to

01:00 get built inside the building.

01:02 It used to be an architect put a piece of paper together, actual hard piece of paper,

01:06 an engineer got it, drew on top of it.

01:09 That then went back to a contractor who built it.

01:12 And if they had questions, they picked up the phone or they mailed you something that

01:15 came to you three days later.

01:18 So today buildings are designed in software and 95% of the information in those digital

01:23 models never gets used to build.

01:26 It disappears.

01:27 And that's because the process of actually laying out that information in the field is

01:31 so painful.

01:32 It requires someone on their hands and knees marking out each and every detail.

01:37 And so Dusty is automating this information flow by taking those digital models and printing

01:44 them out in the field.

01:45 It's basically a little box with wheels on it that has a printer on the front and it

01:49 takes those digital models and it drives itself around the floor and as it goes it leaves

01:55 a trail of ink behind.

01:56 That ink marks out the locations where all the walls, the pipes, plumbing, the electrical

02:01 fixtures where everything gets installed inside that building.

02:04 Dusty's field printer guarantees a sixteenth of an inch accuracy to the digital drawing.

02:09 It used to be you drew a duct, you assumed there was some level of tolerance that you

02:14 had to account for for other trades.

02:16 You gave yourself an extra couple of inches.

02:19 Then the next trade came in, they gave themselves an extra couple of inches.

02:22 And by the time you were done, your ceiling was a foot and a half lower than it needed

02:25 to be.

02:31 When we need to produce more with the workers we have, we make better tools for the people

02:35 that we have.

02:36 You know, a prime example of this is the excavator.

02:40 We used to dig holes with a shovel and now all the workers who are digging with shovels

02:43 are driving excavators.

02:45 These types of machinery that help improve productivity, improve jobs, exist in the exteriors

02:50 of spaces.

02:51 We really haven't seen them penetrate the interiors.

02:53 And so Canvas basically makes tools for installing materials on these spaces.

02:58 And our first product is in drywall finishing.

03:01 Everybody has mostly seen the kind of person lift where you have a wheeled base where a

03:06 platform extends up and down on a lift that lifts a person.

03:10 Instead of putting a person on that, we've put a robot arm and a whole suite of sensors

03:14 that allow us to sense and understand the space that we're working in.

03:18 Because of the precision of the machine, it allows us to apply material more all at once

03:24 as opposed to many iterative steps, which is what you'll see in drywall finishing.

03:29 And so that actually shortens the schedule of the chain.

03:31 The owner who wants their building finished and wants to start getting people into it

03:34 can do that more quickly.

03:37 Two people are retiring for every one person that enters the industry at a time where we

03:41 need to build twice as much over the next 40 years.

03:44 How are we going to build sustainably?

03:45 How are we going to build affordably?

03:47 How are we going to be able to grow our companies given that it's becoming harder and harder

03:50 to find the labor that we need?

03:53 You know, I think construction has a marketing problem because I think construction, once

03:57 you actually get into it, it actually is a STEM career.

04:00 Robotics is actually just magnifying that effect by creating more jobs that are robot

04:06 operator jobs, robot technician jobs.

04:09 I'm really excited about the opportunity to attract new talent to the industry and give

04:14 them skills that are going to be broadly applicable for their futures going forward.

04:19 And I think that's going to make construction once again an incredibly attractive place

04:23 to have a career.

04:26 There's certainly growth to be done in the world of technology in this industry, in AI.

04:32 A lot of people are afraid that it's going to replace what we do or it's going to replace

04:35 the installers or it's going to replace a labor union.

04:38 And I just, I don't ever see that happening.

04:41 I don't see it getting to that point.

04:42 The experts have just gotten better and refined their skills and input their experience in

04:48 the right places.

04:49 A machine is a tool that the worker is operating.

04:53 And so we use AI more to understand our environment and to interface with the worker so that we

04:59 can get good instruction from the worker.

05:02 Robotics has the potential to bring people into the construction industry that would

05:05 have never considered a job in construction.

05:08 Because suddenly when you're using a robot, you don't need to be super strong.

05:11 And that makes construction a lot more appealing to a wider variety of people.

05:16 And that's really important because one of the challenges in construction is actually

05:19 hiring the workhorse of the future.

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