Artificial intelligence in the construction industry: A review of present status, opportunities and future challenges

Juan Manuel Davila Delgado,Olugbenga O Akinade,Lukumon O Oyedele,Muhammad Bilal,Ashraf Ahmed,Anuoluwapo Ajayi,Lukman Akanbi,Sofiat O Abioye

doi:10.1016/j.jobe.2021.103299

Abstract

The growth of the construction industry is severely limited by the myriad complex challenges it faces such as cost and time overruns, health and safety, productivity and labour shortages. Also, construction industry is one the least digitized industries in the world, which has made it difficult for it to tackle the problems it currently faces. An advanced digital technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), is currently revolutionising industries such as manufacturing, retail, and telecommunications. The subfields of AI such as machine learning, knowledge-based systems, computer vision, robotics and optimisation have successfully been applied in other industries to achieve increased profitability, efficiency, safety and security. While acknowledging the benefits of AI applications, numerous challenges which are relevant to AI still exist in the construction industry. This study aims to unravel AI applications, examine AI techniques being used and identify opportunites and challenges for AI applications in the construction industry. A critical review of available literature on AI applications in the construction industry such as activity monitoring, risk management, resource and waste optimisation was conducted. Furthermore, the opportunities and challenges of AI applications in construction were identified and presented in this study. This study provides insights into key AI applications as it applies to construction-specific challenges, as well as the pathway to realise the acrueable benefits of AI in the construction industry.

Highlights

The construction industry is faced with many challenges that have hindered its growth and led to extremely low productivity levels when compared with other industries such as manufacturing [1]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to make a tremendous impact on the way things are done in several industries as an innovative approach to improve productivity and solve challenges
The construction industry faces a productivity problem and other countless challenges, which has the potential to be solved by AI

Summary

Introduction

The construction industry is faced with many challenges that have hindered its growth and led to extremely low productivity levels when compared with other industries such as manufacturing [1]. The absence of adequate digital expertise and technology adoption within the construction industry has been linked to cost inefficiencies, project delays, poor quality per formance, uninformed decision-making and poor performance in terms of productivity, health and safety [5]. It has become apparent that the construction industry must embrace digitisation and rapidly improve technological capacity especially with challenges of existing labour shortages, COVID-19 pandemic and the need to provide sustainable infrastructures [6,140,141,142]. A foremost digital technology, Artificial intelligence (AI), has helped to achieve significant contributions to the improvement of business operations, service processes and industry productivity in recent years [1]. It is evident that this revolution has led to significant process improvements, cost-efficiency, reduced production times, improved safety and helped to achieve firms’ sustainability goals [7,10, 11]. The construction industry is yet to reap any significant benefit from AI despite its existing challenges

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Conclusion