The civil engineering firms They are already fully immersed in the new digital age, where traditional approaches to the construction business have been transformed to make way for more efficient methodologies adapted to the new times.
In this post, we will explore the new roles and profiles of engineers that the industry demands in the new era of Engineering 4.0.
The New Profile of Civil Engineering Firms
Business Approach
The civil engineering firms They must adapt to new ways of managing processes, and their staff must be able to implement more efficient work techniques. The Lean Method, which is also known in Spanish as “lossless construction,” aims to minimize the time spent on activities that do not add value to the final product. For example:
- Avoid delays due to a lack of equipment or materials
- Changing the dynamics of the “push”, to build on a grand scale (to excess), as part of the strategy of the “pull”, where we build exactly what the customer asks for and needs.
- Avoid having to correct a defective product.
Agile methodologies, such as Scrum, offer a process-oriented approach, in which a set of best practices is consistently applied to work collaboratively as a team and achieve the best possible outcome for a project.
Particularly well-suited for complex construction projects where results are needed quickly and client requirements may vary or the scope of the project is not clearly defined.
- Milestones prioritized based on the benefit they provide to the project recipient.
- Incorporating innovation, competitiveness, and flexibility into the process.
- Productivity as a fundamental guiding principle.
BIM Technology
Innovate or perish in the effort to continue building using traditional construction techniques. The BIM methodology It has proven to be a tool that reduces process costs and improves product quality. In addition, Its use has gone from being recommended to mandatory in many countries, which suggests full implementation in the not-too-distant future.
Adapting to this methodology will therefore be an essential requirement for any civil engineer, who, at the very least, must be familiar with its use, since the BIM methodology It's not just about design and planning. Applications used during the construction phase to visualize models using augmented reality technologies such as Augment or Gamma AR are becoming increasingly common among field technicians. This allows them to know what the final result of the project will be on site using mobile devices or virtual reality headsets.
Similarly, understanding how BIM concepts from the design phase are applied on-site—or how to communicate with those responsible for planning—requires a grasp of this methodology to ensure its proper implementation on-site. Its considerations, coding, and criteria will shape the new standard for the construction of the future.
Schedule
Today, information technology is increasingly permeating every aspect of business, and the construction industry is no exception. Despite this, It remains an area with a major weakness in traditional university engineering programs, which creates a gap in the knowledge that engineers need and cannot do without.
A civil engineer with programming skills—in Python or Grasshopper—is a highly sought-after profile among companies, given the rise of BIM and IoT technologies and the opportunities that come from being able to integrate these two fields.
- Create algorithmic flowcharts to develop processes based on repetitive tasks and avoid manual calculations, which can lead to human error and cause significant disruptions
- Know how to integrate an Excel spreadsheet containing tables and lists of materials into a Presto estimate using the Cost It application.
- Extract the massive amount of data from a BIM project (Big Data), break it down, and tag the elements according to parameters that make the work easier.
In short, the survival of the civil engineering firms This involves researching and developing new methods and technologies to make your business as efficient as possible, and achieving this is only possible with staff who are adapted to new construction methods and trained in various areas.
