Innovation in construction: Trends and obstructions of adoption and implementation

Abstract

Innovation initiatives are crucial for any industry because their future growth depends on it. Innovative technologies that can have a great impact on the construction industry, such as building information modelling, automation and robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, simulation, internet of things were reviewed in this article. In spite of that, innovation implementation in the construction sector has generally lagged behind other industry sectors affecting the productivity as well. The governments are aiming to improve this through increasing the level of investments into manufacturing and innovative research in this area. This article reviews the process of adopting innovative technologies and the reasons why there are obstacles to their implementation. It is expected that integration between machines and humans will enhance human capabilities, allowing them to concentrate on more creative and value added, socially important activities in the future. There is also need of changing thinking in order to transfer the results of these technological studies into production in the construction industry.