Despite substantial investments, the local construction industry continues to struggle in gaining the full benefits of technologies, including advanced data and analytics, mobility, automation and robotics, KPMG’s ‘Building a Technology Advantage – Global Construction Survey 2016’ reveals.

Of the 200-plus senior construction executives who participated in the survey, just 8% of their companies rank as “cutting edge technology visionaries”, while 64% of contractors and 73% of project owners rank as “industry followers” or “behind the curve” when it comes to technology.

“The survey responses reflect the industry’s innate conservatism towards technologies, with most firms content to follow rather than lead,” KPMG major projects management consulting director Jeff Shaw said, adding that many lacked a clear technology strategy and either adopt it in a piecemeal fashion or not at all.

Two-thirds of survey respondents believe project risks are increasing.

According to Shaw, this was an industry ripe for disruption, yet less than 20% of respondents said they were aggressively disrupting their business models.

“Projects around the world are becoming bigger, bolder and more complex, and with complexity comes risk. Innovations such as remote monitoring, automation and visualisation have enormous potential to speed up project progress, improve accuracy and safety,” KPMG major projects engineering and construction international leader Geno Armstrong added.

According to the survey, engineering and construction firms and project owners are not taking full advantage of the volumes of data – almost two-thirds of those surveyed do not use advanced data analytics for project-related estimation and performance monitoring.

Moreover, only a quarter of respondents say they are able to “push one button” to get all their project information.

In addition, fewer claim to have a single, integrated project management information system across the enterprise.

“Integrated, real-time project reporting is still a myth, rather than a reality, for most. That’s largely because firms tend to use multiple software platforms that are manually monitored and disconnected, which severely compromises their effectiveness,” Shaw highlighted.

Mobility is another technology with huge potential to analyse and track performance via hand-held devices for large construction projects. A significant majority of respondents employ remote monitoring for project sites, yet less than 30% say they make use of mobile devices routinely on all their projects, while a similar proportion do not use mobile platforms at all.

Similarly, only a third said they were employing robotics and automation.