The construction industry has to adopt digitalisation more quickly if it wants to benefit from new technologies such as drones or augmented reality that enable more accurate and context-rich surveys, and reality modelling, among others.

Digitalisation could benefit both contractors and infrastructure owners, according to Bupinder Singh, chief product officer at US-based Bentley Systems.

“Going digital is the only tool that would help close the gap between what we need and what we can afford,” Singh told the company’s annual media summit, held this year in London.

Digitalisation within the construction industry implies the utilisation of open, live and easily accessible information through the build and operation stages of an asset. It includes the utilisation of standards-based software – ranging from a typical design to asset management, inspection and repair application – via a subscription on a cloud-based service, where ’smart’ or context-rich documents are created, stored and managed securely across applications ideally throughout the life-cycle of a project.

Combining these new technologies into the routine processes of contractors and operators alike could potentially offer huge benefits ranging from controlling costs to ­­­­­timely execution of schemes. It is estimated that new building information management (BIM) systems, for instance, could save the operators, owners and contractors of the planned $2.5 trillion-worth of rail projects globally up to $440bn (17.6 per cent).

These benefits extend to better efficiencies that start with the design and procurement phase of an infrastructure project. For instance, Banedanmark (Denmark Rail), which utilised Bentley’s ProjectWise product for a new line that is under construction in Copenhagen, indicated that using an advanced reality modelling application allowed project bidders to submit commercial offers that are very similar, enabling them to compete on solutions rather than on price.

The rail projects pipeline in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) is estimated at $245bn, or close to 10 per cent of the global total. If all these projects come to fruition, the right digitalisation strategy could potentially save the region about $43bn.