8 November - 2020CONSTRUCTIONTECHREVIEW.COM8IN MYOPINIONCONSTRUCTION'S `DIGITAL LEAP YEAR'BY RICHARD HARPHAM, VICE PRESIDENT SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, KATERRAThis year, it's impossible to write an article on construction technology without re-examining the issues and opportunities Covid19 has created. Clearly, the bump in the road the global pandemic caused is becoming more prolonged and impactful than could ever be imagined. Do we wait, hold on and hope to move on as before, or acknowledge that, with the inevitable changes coming to construction, the tragic human impact of Covid19, might just have offered the chance to leap forwardand realize transformative opportunities earlier.In his book, the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell shared a set of rules that offer a way of making sense of epidemic change, explaining why significant shifts in process and technology may occur.Clearly, Mr. Gladwell was not explicitly referring to the Covid19 virus, but the human conditions he describes, may help us to understand what our future working state might be. In this short article, I explore a fewtransformational dynamics that might unlock incredible opportunities for construction firms in the coming years.In recent conversations with leading contractors, I've heard a common story...`We never needed to understand who was on our site, when and where until Covid hit. All we tracked was task commencement and completion on a `Post-it Note' board, usually from subcontractors.'How many people were on the job site, their health, their co-proximity, and efficiency was not being tracked. Clearly, that just
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