As the digital revolution brings sweeping change across nearly every industry and workplace, Canada’s construction sector is still taking its time, a new survey has found.

According to the survey, conducted by KPMG Canada in partnership with the Canadian Construction Association, three-quarters of construction companies in Canada rate their digital maturity as “fairly low.”

The survey, Construction in a Digital World, was conducted in Canada in November, 2020, to establish benchmarks that can measure the sector’s progress in adopting technology.

Executives at nearly three in five of the companies surveyed report that their organizations “need to moderately or considerably” adapt their digital strategies. Most are unsure about which technologies or applications can help them be more competitive.

In fact, a wide variety of technologies to boost productivity and safety and improve decision-making are already available and new innovations are constantly being developed in the construction sector.

These include drones, robotics, 3D printing, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, building information modelling (BIM), the use of sensors, digital twinning (mapping a project and making changes on a screen), wireless monitoring and augmented reality. Project management software is also available to monitor supply chains and manage workflows – jobs traditionally managed by supervisors using pencils, notebooks and graph paper.

Despite all the new digital tools available, the sector is only now starting to embrace tech, says Lorne Burns, KPMG Canada’s national industry leader, building, construction and real estate.

Read the entire article from The Globe And Mail here.