Electrical Engineering Solutions

It’s time for technology and construction to talk (13/10/10)

“If we in South Africa are to consider ourselves an industrialized nation and ensure we are able to support a sustainable, growing economy, which encourages foreign investment, we will need to invest heavily in infrastructure.”

This is according to Bradley Hemphill, Managing Director of Electrical Engineering Solutions (EES), a leader in project managing the provision of technology solutions to the built environment.

“And when investing in infrastructure, it is vital that sustainability is embedded in the construction design from day one,” he continues.  “It is technology companies that can help the construction industry to achieve this.”

When it comes to the implementation of new technology, South Africa certainly has the ability to leapfrog other more advanced and developed industrialized nations.  The infrastructure of many of these nations was developed 30 years ago, at a time when technology had very little real value to add, and they now have to retrofit the latest in modern technology.  Retrofitting comes with certain restraints and constraints as to the way upgrades and modernizing happens in the built environment.

A fair amount of South Africa’s infrastructure on the other hand is either very old or does not exist, which gives the country the advantage of implementing new technology from the outset of the construction process.

“Implementation of trusted technology in the initial infrastructure design stages looks at the whole life-cycle, and helps us reduce not only our upfront capital expenditure, but also our operating expenditure”, Hemphill adds.

There has been very little technology going into construction over the past few centuries as technology companies only arrived in the 80s and were effectively ‘the new kid on the block’.  They had to fit and implement the technology into existing infrastructure in a retrofit manner.  “Today a new thinking in the approach to projects is needed.  The two parties need to listen to each other and form a working partnership in the early days of a project.”

This will benefit future generations and enable them to fast-track South Africa into the global economy going forward.

“It is not good enough for either construction or technology to say I do not understand your world.  This simply won’t be acceptable for much longer, and natural selection will play its part,” contends Hemphill.  “The time has come for technology to talk to construction, and construction to talk to technology.”