Using ML/AI to fast-track SME construction digitisation adoption to improve UK building productivity

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**Backdrop:**UK building firms have been directly impacted by Covid-19, with their workloads and management teams disrupted along with increasing costs due to materials/labour inflation and Covid-Secure measures.The project aims to optimise UK SME building firms, making significant productivity and cost savings using Machine Learning and AI applied to a real-world problem.**Problem:**Every year hundreds of thousands of houses, extensions and small industrial projects are commissioned by clients, with Architects/Designers preparing drawings on varying CAD systems or by hand.Building firms are then typically provided with building plans as PDFs for quotation and construction, typically with 3-5 builders tendering for the same project. The result is millions of tenders being produced with only one successful candidate per project, wasting millions in £cost and hours of tender preparation time.Consequently, in the face of this financial risk, estimates are produced in haste, resulting in poor outputs to subsequently digitally manage successful tenders.What is needed is a software tool to assist builders easily ascertain direct from the building plan all labour and materials, all associated costs and prepare a detailed project plan, reflecting the content of the work and the builders own resources, including all associated process management and documentation, ready to efficiently construct the building.**Solution:**Machine Learning and AI (ML/AI), combined with HBXL's existing software can solve this problem with funding.The applied ML/AI project vision is to speed up the process of creating digital representations of all entities (floor, walls, roof and fenestration), and infer the entities type and geometry from the plan.The ML/AI will then pass all entity data to HBXL's existing software, linking to specification, estimating, project planning and health & safety management systems.The resulting output can then be shared amongst and utilised by the entire project team in HBXL's existing construction management software and soon to be released cloud-based Construction Cloud.**Why fund this innovative project?**This innovative project addresses Government's twin goals outlined in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Construction Sector and AI Sector Deals, focusing on Digital and Artificial Intelligence approaches to design, construction and management.This timely approach will automatically digitise the entire construction process for smaller projects, saving days of preparation time on each project and produce at least 5-10% in productivity growth during actual construction (ONS, 2018).The project has the potential to transform the way digitally excluded less tech-savvy, time pressured SME builders engage with a digital approach, delivering easy-to-use tools which will save them large amounts of time whilst simultaneously improving speed of delivery, quality and sustainability.