25.11.2020 | Digi­tiz­a­ti­on has been on everyone’s lips for the past few mon­ths. Thanks to the coro­na­vi­rus, video con­fe­ren­cing is the new “nor­mal”, and working from home, if pos­si­ble, is alrea­dy the stan­dard. But was that the big step in digi­tiz­a­ti­on or is the­re some­thing else big­ger still to come?

Digitization in special foundation construction with fielddata.io

For us, digi­tiz­a­ti­on does­n’t sim­ply mean repla­cing the typewri­ter with the com­pu­ter, or that dril­ling logs are no lon­ger fil­led out with a pen and paper, but ins­tead using perhaps an Excel spreads­heet or a Word form. The­se are just the first steps that you have to take on the path to digitization.

For us, digi­tiz­a­ti­on is not just about eli­mi­na­ting paper. It should not only make it pos­si­ble to do some­thing elec­tro­ni­cal­ly ins­tead of on paper, or to print it out more ele­gant­ly. It is inten­ded to crea­te added value and to link data that has been ent­e­red once with other data, so that new insights ari­se that would not exist without this col­la­ti­on of data or that would other­wi­se be very dif­fi­cult to recognize.

Here is a good example for digitization: A comparison of the planned and implemented operating hours

Digi­tiz­a­ti­on in spe­cia­list foun­da­ti­on engi­nee­ring offers us the gre­at oppor­tu­ni­ty to break new ground in terms of lear­ning and under­stan­ding. Here is a simp­le examp­le: Alrea­dy today, many con­struc­tion machi­nes can alrea­dy send their ope­ra­ting hours elec­tro­ni­cal­ly. But do you real­ly eva­lua­te this data in your com­pa­ny? In many com­pa­nies the­se days, peop­le sim­ply don’t pay atten­ti­on to such data. At best, the machi­ne tech­ni­ci­an loo­ks at it “every now and then” to see when the next sche­du­led ser­vice of the con­struc­tion machi­ne is set to take place. If this infor­ma­ti­on is lin­ked to the spe­ci­fic con­struc­tion site on which it is used and com­pa­red with the plan­ning, then pro­blems on the con­struc­tion site can be quick­ly iden­ti­fied. This shows at a glance whe­ther a con­struc­tion site is “run­ning”.

Now all you need is a simp­le way to visua­li­ze this cur­rent sta­te. And that’s exact­ly what our PERFORMANCE app­li­ca­ti­on does. Use cases goes far bey­ond this very simp­le examp­le, becau­se the more data the­re is that can be lin­ked, the more mea­ning­ful the eva­lua­tions beco­me and the easier it is to see whe­re the­re is poten­ti­al for impro­ve­ment on the con­struc­tion site.

For us at fielddata.io, digi­tiz­a­ti­on means digi­ti­zing data whe­re it is not yet digi­tal, then collec­ting it, lin­king it with other data and then eva­lua­ting it. All of this is always done with a view to the bene­fit for each indi­vi­du­al con­struc­tion site as well as for the com­pa­ny car­ry­ing out the work. Digi­tiz­a­ti­on can only suc­ceed if ever­yo­ne in char­ge can immedia­te­ly reco­gni­ze their advan­ta­ge and if the tools used cor­re­spond to the rea­li­ty of the work done daily.

What are your thoughts on the topic of digi­tiz­a­ti­on? What is alrea­dy being done “digi­tal­ly” in your ever­y­day work and what is still hand­led “con­ven­tio­nal­ly”? We look for­ward to hea­ring your ide­as.

Digitization in Secial Foundation Construction – Jochen Maurer explains, how that could look like (German video):