Author: Peggy Smedley
The construction industry has come a long way from the iconic photo of the empire state building being built with nearly a dozen men perched atop a beam with paper blueprints, cigarettes, and newsboy caps. In the past century, safety has become a top priority for many construction companies. A safe construction job prevents accidents, deaths, and injuries, of course, but it also helps to avoid financial losses as well. Now, ABC (Associated Builders and Contractors) is claiming construction companies can be nearly six times safer than the industry average through best practices. The Annual 2024 Safety Performance Report provides…
We all know the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on travel, but it is now official that air traffic has passed pre-pandemic levels as of earlier this year. The IATA (Intl. Air Transport Assn.) recently released data for February 2024 global passenger demand and found the industry is ticking upward. Total demand was up 21.5% compared to February 2023, with total capacity up 18.7% year-over-year. Additionally, the February load factor was 80.6% compared to February 2023. All this to say, air travel is back—and we will likely see the trend continue. Julie Shainock, global managing director, travel, transportation, logistics, Microsoft,…
There are many pros and cons to solar. Here on this blog, I have discussed some of the opportunities where solar can help and the challenges surrounding solar such as cost. The bottomline is growth is occurring and new programs are being launched, so construction professionals need to carefully consider how the future of solar will impact construction projects in the days ahead. The State of Solar The Solar Energy Industries Assn., suggests in the last decade alone, solar has experienced an average annual growth of 22%, due to several factors such as federal policies, declining costs, and increasing demand…
We all know generative AI (artificial intelligence) is transforming industries—and in many cases the long-term impact is still yet to be known. But the short-term impact is keenly apparent. Consider the example of education. Most education systems around the world on built on this deficit model, meaning what you don’t know, but AI could empower the abundance of a human being’s ability to learn. “We see it as an unbelievable enabling machine to overcome the limits of teaching, to overcome the limits of individual humans being the only teachers,” says Michael Crow, president, Arizona State University. “We think this is…
The infrastructure construction market is facing numerous challenges: aging infrastructure, population growth, climate change, new burdens on the electrical grid, an aging workforce, and increased complexity of projects, just to name a few. This is creating a perfect storm—and a perfect opportunity for new technologies such as digital twins. This is the conversation I had recently on The Peggy Smedley Show with Michael Campbell, chief product officer, Bentley Systems, who says the infrastructure construction market is ripe for leveraging technology like digital twins. “There is this interesting dynamic,” he explains. “We have these professionals who have been doing things the…
More than a decade ago, we started this conversation surrounding the IoT (Internet of Things) in manufacturing. Now, with the rise of AI (artificial intelligence) and the industrial metaverse, we have new opportunities with ML (machine learning) and deep learning to sharpen our skills, reduce mundane tasks, and improve business processes once again. We are at that next stage where we can truly improve profitability, while becoming more efficient, all with the help of technology. This was reinforced on my recent trip to the Innovation Design Lab and the Houston Microsoft Technology Center, aka MTC, which helps enterprise customers tackle…
With yesterday’s Earth Day top of mind for many, I have some thoughts about how we are currently in the perfect storm. Infrastructure in the United States is continuing to fail. Couple these challenges with increased drought, not enough food and water, and severe storms. This also comes while we are struggling to find skilled labor to address many of these challenges. The time is now to rebuild a more sustainable and resilient future. But what exactly does that really mean? Simply, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but opportunities abound. The Biden-Harris Admin., aims to help…
We are officially in the middle of Distracted Driving Awareness Month—a month that began back in 2010 when Congress passed a resolution to create a special month devoted to increasing awareness of the dangers of distracted driving. Have we made any progress? Let’s look at some of the data since we all would like to talk about the significance of the numbers. And after we dive into the numbers, we will explore how technology and other methods can step up to help save some lives. The numbers paint a dire picture of the state of distracted driving in 2022. That…
For a long time, I have been saying the solution to the worker shortage will necessitate action from a variety of stakeholders—industry, academia, government, and more. In many areas, we are beginning to see action aimed at spurring students to consider careers in the trades. So today let’s look at one example from Kentucky. Senate Bill 164 The approval of Senate Bill 164 during the 2024 session of the Kentucky General Assembly offers new opportunities for construction trade students, particularly those studying the licensed trades of electric, plumbing, and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). Under Senate Bill 164, students…
Yesterday was IoT Day, and it has me thinking about the evolution of the IoT (Internet of Things)—something I chronicled in-depth on The Peggy Smedley Show yesterday. The day was first organized more than a decade ago in 2010 by the IoT Council. Much has changed since that time, with the rise of AI (artificial intelligence), ML (machine learning), and deep learning, just to name a few. And much will continue to change in the days ahead. Even before that when we first introduced the M2M (machine-to-machine) technology to push us forward to find our way forward to the IoT.…