Future Trends in Third-Party Inspections: What to Expect in Construction
Now Third Party Inspections are getting set to become more detailed and precise with use of advanced technology and gadgets.
There is a lot of scope for Third Party Auditing and Inspection Agencies to provide a portfolio comprising of advanced auditing tools enabled with cutting edge technology to developers or builders or any construction project. The future in Third Party Inspections is going to be increased use of customized software and gadgets. These are challenging but exciting times where there is cutting edge technology at the disposal of Inspection Agencies, say our Experts.
Gadgets That Will Get the Work Done
- Drones, earlier used for aerial photography and checking building work progress, now are employed to check external walls of high rises that are 60 floors tall. Previously, this was done either physically, wherever feasible or with high power binoculars. Though the images taken by the drone cameras are high definition, we can expect even better images in the future.
- Thermographic cameras that can detect heat and moisture are other gadgets that are used by Third Party Agencies for developers who can afford the cost.
- Mobile devices like Tablets are increasingly used to take videos during site inspections by Agencies to keep a record or to show clients the findings of their inspections. Third Party Agencies are likely to use this more frequently in the future.
Software Programs and Artificial Intelligence
- Developers who can afford it are asking Third Party Agencies to develop special, customized Software programs and Applications for their systems and workflow management for each of their projects. These programs are so advanced that every aspect, at any stage of the project can be monitored by a mere click and any information about the project is made available in seconds. This trend is picking up in the country with SAP systems and other software products already in use.
- Digital Checklists and Automated Inspection reporting to make field reports accurate, precise and readable will become more popular as gone are the days where site inspections reports would be written manually.
- Artificial Intelligence will be used by software engineers at Third Party Agencies to sort through piles of data recorded by site inspectors and bring out the most actionable information. AI Algorithms will be increasingly used to sort and make sense of all the digital information collected at site and categorize this, playing the role of a smart assistant.
Robots That Will Make Inspection Precise
- Third Party Agencies use robots to check the quality of paintwork and inspect walls for undulations. All the data appears on the computer for the site inspectors to analyze.
- Robots could even eventually substitute humans to carry out processes at site at later stages of construction. For example, material tests are carried out manually by the labor force on site and this can have errors but when a programmed robot does this, errors would be eliminated. Flipside of this is it is cost intensive.
Technology Will Rule to Roost
- Laser measurement devices and drone mapping are new methods of construction measurement. Traditional gadgets need human intervention but with the latest image processing, various dimensions can be obtained from captured images.
- Other new technology changing the ways of construction is seen in formwork – Aluminum formwork is widely employed now, along with specialized ones like slip formwork and jump formwork for high rise vertical elements. Tunnel formwork is also used now and safety standards have greatly improved as technology has advanced.
Cost Factor Presently for developers, gadgets and software come at a high cost, so the penetration of these new age methods is in the top 2-3 %. In the future, as adoption of these technologies becomes more prevalent, the costs would eventually come down.
