A fourth and last area that would like to touch base on our work with the world economic forum, as well as my research teams work in the last several years, is the rising technological advancements and innovations in construction, as well as the area of advanced materials. There are several examples that are necessary to be considered in order to achieve this industrial transformation in this specific area. Let me give you a few examples here. Let us start with advanced building and finishing materials. Advanced building materials are actually numerous and also wide-ranging from their incremental innovation on their characteristics of their traditional materials all the way to the generation of a totally new material or anything in between. For example, it could be an introduction to a higher recyclability or reusability of the material. Or it could be advancing in the material to direct or indirect improve the health will be. It could be also providing a new characteristics to provide faster construction process, such as increased the curing time of a concrete by adding the special chemicals to the mix. It can also target the cost of the material from initial cost or providing saving the life cycle of the material. Remember, usually building materials attribute of around one-third of construction cost. Companies should consider building up relevant database of evidence on the applicability and benefits of advanced building materials which will help benefit their clients on their projects. Moving forward, another area is modularization. My research team recently did initial work in this area to better understand what we can find in the literature. We've conducted a very comprehensive literature about modular construction. Let me start by sharing a quick information and introduction to this area. Let's go with the definition. Based on the Modular Building Institute, they do define modular construction as the following: The process in which a building is constructed offsite under controlled plant conditions, using the same materials, and designing to the same codes and the standards as conventionally built facilities. Now, in this slide here is a simplified but also general overview description of how today's modular construction industry practices differ from current industry practices. What we found in the literature that designed, as you can see, and construction teams in modular construction are required to coordinate and finalize decisions much earlier in the process. The goal of this era collaboration is to ensure that the knowledge of the builders are incorporated into the design. Of course, examples of this knowledge includes local building codes, regional transportation codes, and much more. Now, with the construction and manufacturing team already determined that building process becomes much shorter. It is even seen that why the filing process is ongoing, the manufacturer will begin production of the units. Now, once permitting has been approved, the site work such as the foundations, shear walls, and more, will begin. If timed properly, planning begin. Units should be arriving on site as the sidewalk is reaching completion. The almost completed units are then craned into place immediately to greatly decrease the overall construction time. In the literature, we found there are four main types of modular construction. First and the simplest version of modular construction is the prefabrication of components. This is commonly done in the each [inaudible] , electrical and sprinkler industries. In this case, different components of the projects are produced in a factory, shipped separately, and combined onsite by tradesmen. Typically, these components would make up less than 35 percent of the total module. As you can see in the slide, a more advanced version of Modular Construction that currently is being explored further is Panelized Construction. That Panelized Construction can be as simple as an exterior wall system, such as curtain wall or as complex as interior utility walls. This is fully enclosed, including door frames and rough outlets of plumping, electrical and low-voltage work. Panels tend to be flat pack shaped, similar to IKEA furniture and assembled on site. Now, the most notable form of modular construction is Volumetric Modularized Construction. As you can see here, the volumetric modules are from 80 to 90 percent completed when they leave the factory. These modules are complete with the structural components such as utilities, so these units are shipped to the site mostly completed simply to be combined. Last but not least and worth mentioning is Hybrid Modular Construction, which is a combination of volumetric and panelized modular construction. In some cases, sections of the module will need to be completed on site, in which case, hybrid modularized construction will be employed. Now, modularization adds to the advantages of standardization of the construction process. It increases the possibilities for customization and the flexibility. It helps realize the potential of prefabrication in a factory like environment. Actually, in general, the standardization of components brings many benefits, including a reduction in construction costs, fewer interface and tolerance problems, greater certainty over outcomes, reduced maintenance costs for end-users, and more scope for recycling. Let's take one example about Skanska. The company developed a new construction concept known as flying factories, which are temporary factories set up a close two construction sites. They did apply Lean Manufacturing Techniques and employ local semi-skilled labors to work there. The advantages include a reduction in construction time of up to 65 percent, labor costs cut to half and a 44 percent improvement in productivity was generated relative to the onsite assembly. Now, moving to another area, the construction industry, compared to other industries, such as automotive, has generally low levels of automation. But with the technological advancements, we are currently witnessing this and we'll give a great opportunity to open a lot of a new possibilities in our industry. For example, technologies such as Remote Operations and Autonomous Control Systems, such as the use of drones, could become significant enablers of innovation in construction. Also, semi autonomous and autonomous construction equipment in general, can add tremendous value to the construction tasks, leaving only monitoring roles for the human workers. Now, companies along the value chain, needs to work together to increase the use of automation. For example, establishing industry standards so that automated equipment can be applied widely to overcome the fragmented nature of the construction process and leverage on technologies by integrating physical as well as digital systems. For example, let's take a company called Komatsu, a Japanese manufacturer of construction equipment, is developing an automated bulldozers incorporating various digital systems from a drone's, 3D scanners, and stereo cameras gather terrain data, which is then transmitted to the bulldozers. These are equipped with intelligent machine control systems that enable them to carry out their work autonomously and thereby speed up their pre-foundation work on construction sites while human operators monitor the process.
