Insight report | Readiness for Industry 4.0

It’s Google’s 20^th birthday this year, marking two decades of a tech revolution that’s changed the way we live our lives. But, for civil engineers, technology is yet to have led that same revolution in our work lives. But that, surely, is about to change.

Industry 4.0 is the collective term for a range of technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and sensors that many believe represent a fourth industrial revolution. The gains to construction, Mace calculated, could be an extra £25bn a year for the UK economy.

Mace’s work focused on the impact of technologies such as automation and industrialisation on the construction workforce. For example, it calculated that the number of roofers could fall from 43,830 to just 2,590, bricklayers from 72,760 to 4,300, plasterers from 47,500 to 2,810 and plant operatives from 42,040 to 2,490 as processes become automated and offsite manufacture and assembly takes hold.

But Mace’s research made clear that every stage of the property/asset life cycle will be affected by Industry 4.0, with some naturally affected more than others. It found that 38% of responses indicated that the ‘assemble/build’ life cycle stage would be most impacted, followed by ‘operate’ (22%), ‘design’ (21%), ‘procure’ (7%) and ‘brief’ (3%).

The easy assumption, then, is that roles performed by professionally qualified civil engineers are least at threat.

Certainly that was the view of the majority of ICE members surveyed as part of ICE vice president Ed McCann’s review into future skills needs. McCann’s report, published in July, looked at what engineers believe will be the skills needs of the future. McCann found that concerns about technical skills far outstrip worries over digital skills.

But new research on the future of jobs across all sectors and geographies by the World Economic Forum challenges such complacency. Because, nestling at the bottom of 59 of its 130 page report, in its assessment of the impact of technology on the infrastructure sector, one job type set to decline between now and 2022 stands out: “civil engineers”.

In place of the civil engineer come robotics engineers, data analysts and scientists, software and applications developers, big data specialists and user experience and human-machine interaction designers.

WEF’s research, published this September and which involved surveying companies representing over 15 million workers in total, suggests a decline of 0.98 million jobs and a gain of 1.74 million jobs between now and 2022. Extrapolating these trends across those employed by large firms in the global (non-agricultural) workforce, it generated a range of estimates for job churn in the period up to 2022. One set of estimates indicates that 75 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, while 133 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

While these estimates and the assumptions behind them should be treated with caution, not least because they represent a subset of employment globally, they are useful in highlighting the types of adaptation strategies that must be put in place to facilitate the transition of the workforce to the new world of work. They represent two parallel and interconnected fronts of change in workforce transformations:

1) large-scale decline in some roles as tasks within these roles become automated or redundant, and

2) large-scale growth in new products and services—and associated new tasks and jobs—generated by the adoption of new technologies and other socio-economic developments such as the rise of middle classes in emerging economies and demographic shifts.

So just where is civil engineering in this confusing new world? New Civil Engineer has teamed up with Bentley Systems to carry out our own research into the industry’s readiness to adopt technology.

Is civil engineering clinging to old ways of working for grim death, like the one in five British businesses still regularly using a fax machine (according to a report commissioned by Amazon in 2017)? Or is it ready to face the revolution?

New qualifications to bring the existing workforce up to speed in technology-related skills are desperately sought by civil engineers. The skills gap is most acute in artificial intelligence and machine learning, but engineers are also fearing they are not up to speed in advanced data and analytics.

That is the stand-out finding from New Civil Engineer’s survey into industry’s readiness to adopt technology.

We surveyed 100 civil engineers representing the breadth of the civil engineering industry; CEOs to graduates; technology leads to traditional technical practioners; consultants and contractors.

When asked how to secure future employability, 42% said upskilling with new qualifications was the best route, with retraining on the job also cited by 37%.

Clearly the majority of those surveyed feel they are ready to embrace the opportunities presented by more technology, with just 11% admitting to feeling their job is at threat from widespread adoption of technology.

But which technologies?

The technology that will have the highest impact on civil engineering professionals will be sensor technology powered by the so-called internet of things. These technologies combined are rethinking how infrastructure is maintained and operated with sensors providing real-time feedback on asset health that is need of interpretation. Almost two thirds – 64% - of respondents said these technologies would have a major impact on the profession.

Interpreting this data, and other data provided by the increasing amount of technology, is generally described as big data and analytics, and 59% of respondents saw this as having a major impact.

Other technologies seen as likely to have a major impact were cloud-based applications, cited by 64% of respondents, augmented and virtual reality, cited by 57%, and artificial intelligence and machine learning, cited by 55%.

The latter, and particularly machine learning, is the technology most cited by experts as the one that will have a profound effect on professions, as machines’ increasing cognitive powers drives traditional professional services into obsolescence.

Sharing economy platforms and the secure group sharing database platform Blockchain were both seen by respondents as likely to have a limited impact on civil engineering, and it is certainly early stages for those technologies.

So where do our survey respondents see themselves and their businesses in terms of preparedness? The industry believes itself to be most prepared for cloud-based apps, an unsurprising finding given the prevalence of software that now operates in the cloud. More than half of respondents say their firms are at a somewhat advanced stage of using cloud-based applications, with 11% saying they are having a company-wide transformational impact.

There is then a marked drop-off in preparedness to use the other technologies seen by our respondents as set to have a major impact on the industry,

While 34% say their firm is developing competency in advanced data analytics, just 29% lay claim to their firm being at the stage of using it.

It is the same story when it comes to exploiting sensors and the internet of things; 30% say their firms are developing competency, but just 27% using them at any level.

It is with artificial intelligence and machine learning that preparedness then drops off a cliff, with 41% of respondents saying their firms are not even pursuing the technology, let alone trialling or developing it. Just 14% say their firms have moved to the extent of using it, even in pockets.

The clear view is that some of this technology is going to take time before it is properly adopted.

Again the exception seems to be use of the cloud, with 41% believing the technology to be already adopted and another 37% saying it will be within two years.

That contrasts starkly with the other technologies where, on balance, respondents see them as being 2-5 years away at least and, in the case of artificial intelligence, 5-10 years away if not longer.

A relatively high 21% think it will be 10 years or more before artificial intelligence and machine learning makes a difference to the professional lives of civil engineers, despite the profound impact the likes of Siri and Alexa are already having in our personal lives.

So to the skills gap. Unsurprisingly, respondents saw artificial intelligence and machine learning as the place where gaps in knowledge are the greatest, with more than half – 53% - seeing the skills gap as severe.

More than three quarters – 76% - also saw a moderate or severe skills gap in advanced data and analytics, with more than a quarter – 28% - also seeing this as severe.

There is also concern around sensor technology, with 61% seeing a moderate or severe skills gap there.

Skills is clearly a major issue – and over a quarter – 26% - of respondents saw a lack of talent or expertise at workforce level as one of the biggest challenges to widespread adoption of technology. But there are perceived to be bigger blockers. The biggest – cited by almost half, or 46%, of respondents – was that return on investment is seen as too uncertain. Softer issues such as resistance to change or new technologies and a lack of leadership or orgnanisational support were also seen as major blockers, cited by 31% and 30% of respondents respectively. These are all, ultimately, management issues and this is reflected in best ways seen by our respondents to address them.

Educating, training or upskilling a firm’s people is the clear, stand-out best way of overcoming the blockers, with 50% citing that approach. Gaining executive level support, developing operationally-specific strategies, making a financial commitment, collaborating with third parties and piloting technologies were then all solutions cited by 20-30% of respondents.

Securing the required corporate investment should be simple business case argument, with more than half of respondents, 51% stating that reduced costs or improved productivity was the greatest benefit to adopting technologies. This benefit is then clearly passed to clients, with improved customer service or client satisfaction cited by as a key benefit by 44%.

Longer-term business security was cited by a quarter, 25%.

So what do these findings tell us? We convened two round table discussions with business leaders and with respondents themselves to explore the survey findings in more detail.

The key response to challenge was immediately clear: are the 89% of respondents who do not feel their jobs to be at risk right to be so confident of their future? Or are they worryingly complacent?

They should certainly be more concerned than they are was the general view, succinctly summarised by Crossrail head of technical information Malcolm Taylor:

“I think it’s back to the question of civil engineers ticking boxes that they’re comfortable with, not actually recognising that they’re in the 21st century where most of the infrastructure they deliver – in terms of being able to deliver the outcomes and the expectations of the users – is hugely dependent on digital technologies which actually, much of their training doesn’t give them, “he said.

Atkins senior project James Forward certainly sees major change coming: “The engineering and construction industry is right for disruption. We are very fragmented and backward in a lot of things that we do. Automation of design doesn’t feel a million miles away.”

“There is a sense that there are still lots of repetitive tasks and if you get to grips with the fact that stuff can now be automated, you probably do start to fear that some of what you do is actually very repetitive and could change,” agreed Mott MacDonald Smart Infrastructure divisional manager Oliver Hawes.”

Arcadis partner Lara Potter echoed this view, and pointed at other sectors as evidence of how fast the so-called digital revolution can happen: “The construction industry is probably the last industry to go through a revolution in terms of how we deliver our service. So actually, if you ask people in the financial sector, or in publishing, I think they would say something quite different because their businesses have changed a lot and the way they deliver for their clients has changed a lot.

“So I feel like we’re just about to trip into something which makes our industry look different in the way we operate together and the way we collaborate, and how we deliver for our end client,” she stressed.

Others highlighted how construction sites are already feeling the impact of technology and that this might be giving contractors the edge when it comes to adapting to change: “There is a lot of digital innovation happening on site, and maybe it’s not that it’s being taken over by machines but it’s the whole offsite manufacturing agenda, “ he stressed.

Skanska design manager Helen MacAdam agreed, but also pointed towards tech-savvy start-ups like Elon Musk’s tunnelling company as clear evidence that disrupters are coming to take our jobs. In June Musk’s boring company beat a Mott MacDonald joint venture to win a Chicago airport transit link.

Musk’s tunnelling firm The Boring Company was picked to design, build, finance and operate the Chicago Express Loop, a tunnel running between O’Hare Airport and Block 37 in downtown Chicago which will transport passengers on autonomous electric skates at speeds of up to 200km/hr.

MacAdam warned this was likely to be the tip of the iceberg and that civil engineering companies must adapt.

“It’s not about protecting civil engineering companies, it’s about how you use and develop all the experience we’ve got,” she suggested. “We all know the most successful businesses in the world are the ones which reinvent themselves, move ahead of the times and don’t get left behind. We as an industry should want to do that rather than just saying ‘they’re doing it better, fair cop’.”

“I think when we start losing jobs to them [start-ups and disruptors], that will make us start thinking differently,” she warned.

UtterBerry owner Heba Bevan wholeheartedly agreed: Civil engineering has to change to work in the future. It is not enough to just adapt to new technology and end up accepting digital. You have to actively provide it otherwise one of the giant companies will come along and take over.”

The blocker to this is, largely, down to the project-by-project nature of the industry leading to project-focused leadership.

Explains Arcadis partner Lara Potter: “The types of leadership in this industry have always been the same; we’re project-focused. It’s about certainty, we design to standard, and actually in this world you need something a bit different and I think that’s our first challenge: how do you bring people into our sector who can challenge the status quo?”

Aecom principal engineer Sergio Escobar agreed: “It is sometimes difficult to shake people out of doing things in the same way they’ve always done them.

“You get all these specialised people doing extraordinary things, trying to support projects, but then it comes down to the project manager who has the budget,” he argued. “That’s the problem I see, sometimes it’s difficult to convey to someone that it’s worth doing something differently.”

“At a corporate level there is a lot of support, but at the end of the day the manager decides what to do with the project. Some decide to go with it…and some decide there’s too much of a risk.”

The ICE is continuing to assess future skills needs as part of an ongoing review of competency in the wake of the Grenfell tower fire. The clear conclusion so far is that it can no longer be acceptable that a qualification, once earned, is earned for life.

There is also a major issue to address around initial education standards, and how to adapt to the next generation of engineers who have grown up as coders.

Explained Nichols Group consultant Bernard Fanning: “For me, having grown up with the internet – it was there when I was born – I don’t really see a difference between digital and engineering.

“The gap between digital natives and non-natives {digital immigrants) is only going to get wider: “You’ve got a whole new generation coming through, ten to fifteen years behind me, who have all grown up with Minecraft and the way they look at the world, they very much design it with code.”

UCL built environment foresight chair and past-ICE president Tim Broyd agreed that these differently-skilled emerging professionals need to be viewed as equals to conventionally trained engineers: “We’re long past the time where to become a professional, chartered civil engineer you have to have gone to a university and done a civil engineering degree. We are well down the path now of accepting technician engineers and incorporated engineers at whatever stage of their career, and once they have become chartered engineers in whatever way, they are then taken as chartered members of the ICE; there is no bias towards a particular group of people’s technical backgrounds.”

Which then begs the question of how we find the right blend of computer scientist and engineer.

This was the question posed by Costain Innovation manager Harrison O’Hara: “How do you find that hybrid combination between computer scientists and engineers? Are the universities or the colleges doing enough to actually produce those sorts of graduates? So maybe it’s something that we need to do to educate the bodies to create that sort of hybrid course for computer scientists and engineers.”