About 10 years ago, when we started synavision to digitize the construction industry (which was called something else back then), we were inspired by other industries. One of our co-founders, Prof. Bernhard Rumpe, was already testing the first autonomous cars in Silicon Valley, and the term “cloud” was gradually becoming more associated with software than with bad weather. For us, it was only a matter of time before these enormous technological developments would reach construction, as the need was immense. At one event, I said, “I don’t know when the wave will come, but when it does, it will come with full force.” It took a while, but it’s here now: digitalization in construction is gaining momentum, and we PropTechs are right in the middle of it!
In the financial sector, autonomous driving, and many other fields, enormous financial resources have already flowed into digitalization in recent years. We can benefit from this today and make use of many of the developments. The technical requirements aren’t that high: while high-frequency trading or an autopilot involves reactions in milliseconds, often with life-or-death consequences, construction systems operate at a much slower pace and carry far less risk.
The challenges lie more in the business models and the particularities of the construction industry. The building stock is highly fragmented – there are countless homeowners, and even professional investors and asset managers often only have a portfolio of a few dozen buildings. In contrast to the car industry (not to mention smartphones or large American or Chinese software platforms), there are only small players, no large ones. Tapping into this market is a different task than rolling out an innovative product to private customers worldwide.
The first trends are exciting: for example, systems are becoming more “product-like.” PV systems have been bringing their own cloud and app for years, with only a few interfaces in the building. Now we see the same thing with cooling plants, heat pumps, district heating substations, ventilation systems, or their heat recovery units: they are all expanding their technical scope and running their automation reliably through a small integrated edge computer (i.e., a small PC). Through cloud connectivity, which is becoming a commodity via LoRa and the Internet, manufacturers can offer services, develop products, support grid operations, maintain customer contact, and, for us at synavision, provide data for technical monitoring. Even individual room control is being offered as a product via the room thermostat in the apartment or integrated building components in office buildings.
From a quality management perspective, this has enormous advantages: we repeatedly see in construction projects that one-off planning of individual solutions is usually done without products, and then improvisation on-site means the systems just about work (air flows, heat is produced). The many potential added values are left behind. Technically, this individual solution is certainly possible, but it’s utterly uneconomical (whether it’s programmed on-site or in the cloud).
With modularization through larger technical components, the degree of prefabrication, including industrial planning and quality assurance, is massively improved and made more cost-effective. In the building, less individual automation is needed. Setpoints, approvals, and error messages can – since they are not time-critical – be managed entirely via the cloud.
With the Green Deal, we have a huge task ahead of us in construction. The biggest challenge is to increase the productivity of the industry to the point where we can even come close to managing it. Through modularization and standardization, the industry can make a significant contribution: through lower costs and better quality. And we in quality management can work more effectively: with more and more buildings, we no longer connect with our edge device on-site but directly to the manufacturers’ clouds: this is how we build the multi-cloud.
This development promises many further benefits, which we are currently unlocking with partners from entirely different industries. More on this soon. One thing is certain: it’s going to be exciting.
