RC111 MarApr 2024 - Magazine - Page 14
CONSTRUCTION
BRANDON MILNER: The healthcare space is obviously low hanging fruit
for digital twins. Having said that, I think there it can literally
be used for anything. I think the digital twin that many people
envision, is the one portrayed in the 昀椀lm Minority Report, where
you move things around with your hands. It’s a little bit less sexy
than that in the real world. It’s really a collation of all the IoT data
points, which brings a building to life, so we can manage it more
e昀케ciently. I think it could be readily applied to any industry if we
move our mindset to where it becomes, “Tell me what’s going on in
that construction project or that building.”
DR. MELANIE ROBINSON: If it’s a di昀昀erence between life or death, then data
suddenly becomes an asset, and how you access that and pull it all
together from di昀昀erent systems in play is important. Fraser Health
are a particularly driven client in that sense. [BIM Academy is a
consultant for Fraser Health’s $2.9B new Surrey Hospital and Cancer
Centre.]
That’s their utopia, that’s their dream. They’ve got an opportunity
to build a brand-new hospital and they want to start afresh in terms
of that data and building a hospital that applies to their needs and
what they need it to do, technologically. We talk about running
scenarios, we talk about diagnoses on di昀昀erent systems, but the
most intelligent level for me is that element of control.
JOHN BOKTOR: Having control and having a true digital twin with
live data and control over that data can alleviate issues around
the shortage of people to operate hospitals, because they have
complex campuses. [PCL] is building it with Project Horizon, the
new hospital for SickKids in Toronto and the complexity of the
campus—it’s not just one building you’re talking about, but a
whole bunch of buildings with di昀昀erent types of amenities aside
from the healthcare side of it. I think that aspect is what’s driving
them to do better. They’re already advanced around the digital
space, so it’s just a next step.
AI has been both lauded and criticized. What are some of its
applications in the construction industry?
BRANDON MILNER: Everything and anything is the honest answer.
We have a pilot program that at EllisDon where we are bringing
in tech companies that can help us accelerate and facilitate other
tasks on the sites that normally are a little bit more manual. Where
we’re looking at AI and where we’re utilizing AI is more around
building up use cases for problems that we need. The use of AI, I
think, can be sprinkled everywhere. My recommendation is that
we wouldn’t rely on AI to make decisions, but rather augment the
decisions that need to be made, for such thing as costing, pricing,
and forecasting.
DR. MELANIE ROBINSON: AI should be treated as a colleague—it needs
to be trained, and it can’t just be unleashed without that training.
I think we’ve just got to remember that it is only as intelligent as
humans make it. I see it being brilliant for data validation, but you
can’t just apply it out of the box. You’ve got to train it on what
it’s validating, contextualize what it’s validating, tell it what data
it is, and then it does a fantastic job. It’s not going to be a quick
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To watch a replay of the entire discussion, visit:
https://www.crowdcast.io/c/canadas-energy-transition
photo credit: CDPQ Infra
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