Digital transformation has become a new national goal for Russia’s development. It will affect all sectors of the economy. We talk about plans for digitalization of construction and projects that are already working in this direction
Digital maturity
An indicator of how actively advanced IT technologies are used in a particular industry is their digital maturity. According to the development strategy adopted by the Russian Ministry of Construction, the construction and housing and communal services sector should reach this maturity by 2030. For this purpose, it is already undergoing large-scale transformations, namely:
Bringing all mandatory activities in the field to a single standard in electronic form: construction itself, as well as reconstruction, engineering work, architectural design, cadastral registration, receipt and transfer of land ownership rights, etc.
Introduction of information modeling technology (BiM – Building Information Modeling).
This is an approach in which a general information model is created for a construction project, which includes all architectural, technological, economic and other decisions related to it.
Launch of the super service “Digital Construction of Individual Residential Buildings” – a kind of “Government Services” in the construction industry – a single platform for providing relevant services to citizens and legal entities.
Creating conditions for interaction between examination bodies and construction market participants in a unified digital environment. One example is the examination of project documentation within the “one window”.
Development of a new project management system for government customers.
First results
Various measures for digitalization of the construction industry are now being implemented in 15 pilot regions, including the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Tyumen region, the republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, Krasnodar Territory and others. Another 25 regions will join them in the near future. The first sign in this process, of course, was Moscow. For example, in the capital there is already a construction management information system with electronic document management, which creates a single space for interaction between all participants in the industry market.
According to forecasts, the digitalization project should have a positive impact on the completion time and cost of construction services, namely: optimize procurement costs by up to 15% and reduce deadlines by 20%. The first results are already visible: the time for delivery of objects is reduced by about 10%, and the approval and signing of documents for individual objects occurs five to six times faster, the Russian government notes .
It is important to note that the basis for the entire digitalization initiative is precisely domestic projects and developments. They occupied this niche after many Western companies left the Russian market. Most large developers now have their own IT departments that are working on the digitalization of their processes.
Some of them, having created successful products and tested them within the company, began to offer them on the open market. Now IT solutions, entirely created in Russia, are making a major contribution to the development and creation of a high-tech future in the construction industry.
“Russian analogues have been on the market for quite a long time and have proven themselves to be full-fledged, original and competitive products. We are talking about a whole ecosystem of Russian-made products,” says Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.
Support for leadership projects
For the successful digital transformation of the economy, not only the IT tools themselves are important, but also a competent management strategy and clearly structured business processes. Without this, even the most popular product may not achieve significant growth and development.
Therefore, to help promising startups, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) has existed in Russia since 2011. This is an autonomous non-profit organization, one of the main goals of which is to support socially significant projects in the field of technology, education, social sphere, creative industry, and ecology.
ASI supports startups free of charge. Assistance includes promotion of projects (including to international markets), search for partners, consultations on working with federal and regional authorities, expertise in various fields, acceleration, information support and at specialized events.
Svetlana Egelskaya, director of the ASI leadership project management center:
“To support projects, our Agency has created a portfolio of tools and services that have shown their effectiveness and have already helped many companies take off – to become market leaders, remove regulatory barriers, replicate, and attract financing.”
Over the entire period of its work, ASI received more than 10 thousand project applications. Currently, the organization’s specialists review about 2 thousand project applications per year. The digital transformation of construction and related projects also, of course, fall into the sphere of interests of ASI. And here are some of the most interesting of them.
“ORLAN System”
An ecosystem that allows you to unite all participants in the construction industry in a single digital space, making interaction between them more transparent and efficient. The core of the platform is a specialized marketplace, around which additional government, financial and marketing tools and services are developed. Participants can sell their own goods and services, control procurement processes, create and sign smart contracts and other documents electronically.
Andrey Lupy, director and owner of ORLAN System:
“We have digitized the process of purchasing and supplying building materials to sites, created a unique database of real manufacturers of building materials, and are promoting a solution for purchasing materials without intermediaries. “ORLAN System” has become ASI’s leading project, which has allowed us to build a high-quality dialogue with government agencies and large companies to promote our platform.”
SODIS Building CM
A platform for automating construction processes – from design to commissioning. Allows you to monitor the progress of construction and manage processes in a single information space. Improves the quality of management, speeds up delivery deadlines and saves budget.
PropTech.OnLine
Cloud-based modular ecosystem for construction management. Allows you to automate the relationships of all participants in the development process: customer, investor, general contractor and general designer, contractors, suppliers, buyers and others.
Yulia Lesnaya, Marketing Director of PropTech Group:
“ASI not only connects us with interested customers, but also invites us to speeches and events where we can present our solutions to a wide audience. Thanks to this, we are able to attract new clients and expand our activities. Now we continue to cooperate with the Agency and have already submitted an application to support a new project on smart concrete monitoring . ”
RTIM
A software package based on artificial intelligence for creating master plans for territory development. Allows you to quickly and accurately model urban planning and socio-economic scenarios for the development of territories, based on the analysis of big data.
BIMIT
A program for creating digital twins of buildings based on BIM information modeling technology. The BIM model of an object includes all the data and decisions on it, which helps to significantly increase the accuracy of design work, check the model for compliance with requirements and standards, eliminate errors before construction begins, and track costs at each stage. As a result, the project implementation time and the costs of its operation are reduced.
Vera Berezina, director of BIMIT:
“The implementation of capital construction projects is a complex process, several dozen people are involved in it step by step, so problems always arise with timing, transfer and updating of information, and cost overruns over planned estimates. With digitalization, many processes speed up, become transparent, and the efficiency of communication between participants increases. Our BIMIT software project passed the competitive selection for the ASI program and received the first and most necessary support for product development in the early stages.”
IYNO
A set of tools for construction management based on information modeling of buildings and structures. Allows you to collect and process data in real time, conduct analytics and find optimal scenarios for implementing business processes. Using the IYNO platform, you can mark various violations and defects, monitor the work of contractors and the timing of its completion.