Review of digital technologies to improve productivity of New Zealand construction industry

Abstract

The New Zealand construction industry continues to face pressures to improve productivity and lower construction costs. With the need to build more houses and infrastructure, quicker, to high quality and on time, there is a need to upscale the use of advanced technologies. Going digital is a solution that can transform the construction industry by improving productivity measures. The objectives of this paper are to: 1 Identify the availability of transformative technologies and their potential impact on productivity improvement across the construction life cycle and, 2. To investigate the benefits and barriers to technology-uptake in New Zealand construction. This paper is a review of digital technologies which analyzes their impact on productivity across the construction life cycle. As a basis for analysis, the digital technologies are isolated into three key productivity improvement functions: (1) Ubiquitous Digital Access, (2) Whole Building Whole-of-Life (WBWOL) decision making, and (3) Cost Reduction Engineering. This study is a literature-based theoretical exploration, aimed at signifying digitization as a function of productivity performance in the New Zealand construction industry. From a practical perspective, clients and contractors may be convinced to invest in digital technologies, increasing or accelerating uptake and more fully realizing the benefits digital technologies could add to productivity performance, growth and long-term success. This study may provide useful information for researchers regarding the development of case studies by analyzing organizations that implement technological innovations, their successful actions/processes, barriers overcoming actions, and sources of new ideas.