In today's era, the way we obtain information is becoming more and more convenient, and the amount of knowledge we acquire is also increasing. At the same time, a problem arises: cognitive anxiety. When we mention a concept, we often have this feeling, as if we know something, but can't say it.

In today's highly competitive environment, our in-depth thinking about knowledge depends more and more on our views on the nature of this thing.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the digital transformation of the construction industry, let's first talk about two concepts that cannot be avoided every time this topic is mentioned: informatization and digitalization. Therefore, today's article is divided into the following levels:

What is informatization?
What is digitization?
What is the difference and connection between informatization and digitization?
Why do we always talk about digital transformation?
The trend of digital transformation in the construction industry and how to do a good job in the digital transformation of the construction industry.

1. Informatization

When it comes to informatization, many of us Internet people often say in this era that we are making digital products, not informatization products; many bosses also say that we are doing digital transformation of enterprises.

Before we judge the information given by others, first of all, we must first form our cognition: what is informatization?

1.1 The development of informatization abroad

The concept of informatization was first proposed by Japanese scholar Tadao Umekai, and was later translated into English and spread to the West. The concepts of "information society" and "informatization" were widely used in Western society only in the late 1970s. The following is a timeline of information development abroad.

1.1.1 Tadao Umesao from Japan

In 1963, Japanese scholar Umekai Tadao "On the Information Industry"

Japanese scholar Tadao Umekai published an epoch-making article on "On the Information Industry". He used the concept of "Information Industry" for the first time in the world, and successively created "Information Industry", "Information Society" and "Information Industry" on the issue of " Information " . The three important concepts of " transformation ".

Its main point of view is: the formation of information industry structure under the environment of information society is the result of industrial evolution just like the evolution of animal organs.

● Agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry constitute the first stage of the evolution of the industrial structure of human society;

● Transportation, transportation, construction, military industry, as well as human migration and the development of various manufacturing industries, constitute the second stage of evolution;

● The third stage of evolution is centered on industries such as education, post and telecommunications, communication, broadcasting and entertainment.

He predicted that the future human society will be an information society with the information industry as the main body .

1.1.2 France Simon Nora

1978 France Simon Nora and Alain Monk "Informatization of Society"

The best-selling book "Informatization of Society" published in January 1978 by Simon Nora and Alan Monk of France played an important role.

In the book, Nora discusses the significant impact of telemetric data processing (Telemetric), which is a result of the close combination of computers and telecommunication, on social development, points out that informatization is an inevitable development trend of human society, and suggests that the French government use national policies to promote informatization , and there should be necessary means to foresee the future of the network and control the network .

1.1.3 United States Daniel Bell

1962--1973 Daniel Bell, USA

During the period from 1962 to 1973, Daniel Bell made a systematic analysis of the basic characteristics and development trends of the information society.

He believes that the information society has the following five characteristics:

● Economically , from a manufacturing economy to a service economy;

● In terms of employment structure , professionals and technical personnel replace business owners and occupy a dominant position in society;

● Theoretical knowledge is at the center and becomes the source of policy-making for social innovation;

● In terms of technology , production technology and life technology are developing in a planned and restrained direction;

● In decision-making , increasingly rely on intelligent technology.

The above is the approximate timeline of the development of the concept of informatization in foreign countries. From the time interval, we can see that at this time the country is still in a period of waste, we are still plagued by hunger, and the college entrance examination has not resumed for a few years. So when did China start the construction of informatization?

1.2 The development of informatization in China

The first National Informatization Work Conference held in 1997 defined informatization and national informatization as :

● Informatization refers to the historical process of cultivating and developing new productive forces represented by intelligent tools and making them benefit the society.

● National informatization refers to the application of modern information technology in agriculture, industry, science and technology, national defense and social life under the unified national planning and organization, in-depth development and extensive use of information resources, and the acceleration of the national modernization process.

Realizing informatization requires building and improving a national informatization system with six elements (development and utilization of information resources, construction of a national information network, promotion of information technology applications, development of information technology and industries, cultivation of informatization talents, formulation and improvement of informatization policies) .

Today, Western informatization has been developed for 70 years, while my country's informatization has only been developed for more than 30 years. During these 30 years, we have developed a set of informatization development models with Chinese socialist characteristics. Then we gather the information development of the construction industry.

1.3 The development process of informatization in the construction industry

1.3.1 2003-2008 Construction Industry Informatization Development Outline

● Construction industry informatization infrastructure construction: establish building materials and equipment information database , engineering cost information database , construction method information database , construction new technology, new technology, new product information database and other information resource databases, establish corresponding websites, and carry out online information services and project bidding business, etc., and gradually implement e-commerce;

● Informatization infrastructure construction of construction enterprises ( engineering general contracting enterprises and construction general contracting enterprises) : focus on the construction of "one platform (network platform), three major systems ( engineering design integration system, comprehensive project management system and operation management information system ) ";

At the same time, Internet companies in this era include Glodon and Tongwang, which are well-known in the engineering industry. We can see that the development of Internet products is inseparable from the general direction of the country.

1.3.2 2011-2015 Construction Industry Informatization Development Outline

● Enterprise information construction :

①Engineering general contracting further optimizes business processes, integrates information resources, improves design integration, project management, enterprise operation management and other application systems, builds a network-based collaborative work platform, improves integration, intelligence and automation, and promotes design and construction integration.

②Survey and design Improve and upgrade the enterprise management system , strengthen the integration of survey and design information resources, and gradually establish a development, management and utilization system for information resources. Promote the construction and application of collaborative design systems based on BIM technology , improve the ability to analyze engineering survey problems, improve the level of detection, monitoring and analysis, and improve the degree of design integration and intelligence.

③ Construction optimizes enterprise and project management processes, improves the integrated application level of enterprise and project management information systems, builds a collaborative work platform, researches and implements enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) systems , and supports intensive management and sustainable development of enterprises.

● Special information technology application :

Accelerate the application of BIM , collaborative design, mobile communication, radio frequency, virtual reality, 4D project management and other technologies in survey design, construction and engineering project management, improve the traditional production and management mode, and improve the production efficiency and management level of enterprises

1.3.3 2016-2020 Construction Industry Informatization Development Outline

● Enterprise information construction :

①Survey and design enterprises promote the deep integration of information technology and enterprise management, improve and integrate enterprise operation management information systems, production and operation management information systems, and realize the upgrading of enterprise management information systems; accelerate the popularization and application of BIM, realize the upgrading of survey and design technology, promote Based on BIM collaborative design, carry out data sharing and collaboration among multiple disciplines, optimize the design process , improve design quality and efficiency; strengthen enterprise knowledge management, support the construction of smart enterprises, study and improve the acquisition and expression of survey and design information resources, and explore knowledge management and development model, and establish a survey and design knowledge management information system.

②Construction enterprises establish data centers that meet the needs of multi-level management of enterprises , and can adopt private cloud, public cloud or hybrid cloud ; popularize project management information system, carry out basic application of BIM in the construction stage , promote the construction of enterprise management information system, improve And integrate project management, human resource management, financial fund management, labor management, material management and other information systems to realize the informatization of enterprise management and main business; carry out BIM and Internet of Things, cloud computing, 3S and other technologies in the construction process Research on the integration and application of advanced technologies, establish a construction site management information system, and innovate construction management models and methods.

③Economic general contracting enterprises further optimize the management organization structure, work process and information flow of general engineering contracting projects, and continue to improve the project resource decomposition structure and coding system; promote the "Internet +" collaborative work mode, realize the informatization of the whole process, and study " Internet The multi-participant collaborative work mode of the general contracting project under the environment of +" establishes and applies an Internet-based collaborative work system to realize efficient collaboration and information sharing among the multi-participants of the project ;

● Industry supervision and service informatization :

Mainly from the five levels of construction market supervision, engineering construction supervision, key project informatization, construction industry modernization, industry information sharing and service, establish a digital delivery, review and archiving system for design results, and promote the two-dimensional map-based and BIM-based Delivery, review and archive management of digital results; construction of engineering quality and safety supervision models and mechanisms based on BIM, big data, intelligence, mobile communication, cloud computing and other technologies;

● Special information technology applications: mainly develop cloud computing, mobile Internet, Internet of Things, big data, 3D printing and other applications in the construction industry .

● Informatization standards: Strengthen the top-level design of construction industry informatization standards, continue to improve the construction industry and enterprise informatization standard system, combine the application of new technologies such as BIM, and focus on improving the informatization of construction engineering survey design, construction, operation and maintenance throughout the life cycle The standard system lays the foundation for information resource sharing and deep mining.

From the informatization development outline, we can see that the existing OA, ERP system, and CRM system can already realize the online business process, but with the informatization construction of construction enterprises, multiple data islands have also formed. The data in the ERP system, the OA system, and the project management system are not interlinked, and our informatization work is trying to break through.

It is precisely because of the informatization stage that it is difficult to build data relationships, data integration and calculations are difficult, and the background processing of data is quite limited. Too much front-end data can easily cause troubles. To judge, it is easy to collapse.

Therefore, to achieve data interconnection and collaboration, data modeling must be done well. For the project management and enterprise management of the construction industry (engineering industry), the requirements are much higher. Digital modeling must have the basis of BIM. The management object project of the engineering industry is an industry with the largest products and non-standard production. Digitalization must be realized , intelligent, digital modeling of management objects must be based on BIM technology. If it is not based on BIM, the human-machine-material-law loop of the engineering project, the data correlation relationship of each system of progress, quality, safety, and cost cannot be constructed with high efficiency, low cost, and high dimensionality, so it is impossible to talk about digitization and intelligence.

Therefore, the digital transformation of the construction industry is centered on BIM. We can also see from the guidelines for 2016-2020 that the promotion of BIM by survey and design companies is placed first, because BIM collaboration must start from the design stage .

Similarly, we can see that digital transformation is based on the previous informatization construction, and digitalization is not an overthrow of the previous informatization construction, but an advancement on the basis of informatization.

2. Digitization

In the first part, we mentioned that digitalization is essentially an advanced step in informatization, and the digital transformation of an industry must be inseparable from the previous informatization construction. So why is digitization frequently mentioned? Since when did the upsurge of digital transformation start unknowingly?

2.1 Data becomes a new factor of production

On April 9, 2020, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council announced for the first time a document on the market-oriented allocation of factors - "Opinions on Constructing a More Perfect System and Mechanism for the Market-oriented Allocation of Factors" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"), pointing out that land, labor, capital The direction of reform of the five major production factors, technology, and data, and the requirements for the construction of related systems and mechanisms .

What does factor of production mean? Factors of production: In economics, it refers to various basic resources required for social production and business activities. These production factors can be exchanged in the market to form various production factor prices and systems, and thus form a factor market.

The marketization of data elements also requires the establishment of complete systems and mechanisms for data rights confirmation, pricing, openness, circulation, trading, supervision, and security protection, so as to form an ecosystem of data elements and promote the multiplication of data on the efficiency of other elements.

Therefore, on the premise that data becomes a new factor of production, the digital transformation of the industry is an inevitable trend.

2.2 Digital transformation is the main theme of the 14th five-year plan

The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the new opportunities and challenges brought by the digital age.

The "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for China's National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035" clearly states: "Embrace the digital age, activate the potential of data elements, promote the construction of a network power, and accelerate the construction of a digital economy , digital society , and digital government. , Drive the transformation of production methods, lifestyles and governance methods through digital transformation as a whole ."

In the 14th Five-Year Plan and Outline, some people made statistics, the word "digitalization" appeared 25 times, and other related words, such as digital society, digital twins, digital technology, etc., appeared more than 60 times.

Why is digitization so important? On a larger scale, it is a major opportunity for China's rise and overtaking on a bend. At the same time, it is also a tool for the government to greatly improve social governance capabilities, and it is also the only way for all enterprises to improve efficiency.

The digital transformation of industry, society, and government promote each other. The digital transformation of society and government creates a development ecology for the digital transformation of industry, and the digital transformation of industry lays the economic foundation for the digital transformation of society and government.

The digital transformation of enterprises is the main body of industrial digital transformation. It is not only related to the future of the enterprise itself, but also closely related to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain where the enterprise is located. It is not only limited by the degree of digital transformation in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, but also deeply affects its upstream and downstream. linkage.

3. Digital Transformation in the Construction Industry

Exactly what, how, and where to turn to in the digital transformation of the construction industry is a real challenge faced by the industry.

3.1 Barriers to digital transformation in the construction industry

Quoting Huang Qifan's summary at the 2021 China Digital Architecture Summit:

(1) The upstream and downstream industrial chains of the construction industry are long, there are many parties participating in the construction, and the investment cycle is long . The data and information formed in each link of the industrial chain are difficult to flow with the progress of the project, forming an information island that is not easy to interact with.

(2) There are a large number of engineering teams participating in a single project , especially the quality of small and medium-sized engineering teams is uneven, and the management granularity is rough, making it difficult to promote information technology.

(3) In addition to the challenges of the construction industry itself, the level of industrialization, digitalization, and intelligence in the entire construction process is relatively low .

This is also a problem that must be solved in the digital transformation of the construction industry.

3.2 Digital transformation of the construction industry

In the digital age, personalized customer needs, deep integration of informatization and industrialization, and open supply chain cooperation are the basic characteristics of economic development. This is also the basic requirement for the development trend of the digital economy and the realization of high-quality development. Enterprises in the construction industry must follow this trend, change the extensive labor-intensive production methods, and accelerate the pace of informatization, digitalization, and intelligent transformation.

Digitalization has the following five characteristics: full-scale and full-element connection, real-time, on-demand, self-service, and socialization.

3.2.1 Connection of all elements

Full quantity, easy to understand, means that the quantity is complete enough to cover all business objects; what about all elements? Even all the properties of a single business object are complete.

Digitization refers to the process of deconstructing and modeling entities and entity activities, constructing digital models mapped to entities, and realizing the digitization process of the whole process, all elements, and all participants. The digitization of the construction industry can be divided into digitization of construction entities , digitization of production factors , and digitization of on-site operation processes.

① BIM is used as the carrier to realize the digitization of building entities;

② 5IABCD ( 5G , I oT, A I, BlockChain , Cloud Compute, Big Data , Edge Computer) facilitates the digitization of on-site production elements;

③Enterprise informatization, that is, the informatization of the construction process within the enterprise. At present, major construction companies are carrying out the construction of enterprise-item integration and business-finance integration to ensure the digitization of on-site operation processes;

3.2.2 Real-time

Regarding real-time performance, Ren Zhengfei once said in Huawei's digital transformation process that "information flow cannot outpace logistics." In the past, Huawei's core IT system was based on the ERP system, which was an ex post recording system, complex and closed. There will indeed be a strange situation where the goods have been delivered, but the order information has not been processed.

Therefore, real-time refers to the ubiquitous link and real-time online of HCPS (Information Physical System) based on "people, things, and things" between virtual buildings and physical buildings, so that the whole process, all elements, and all participants can be "digital twins". The emergence of the form, forming a fusion mechanism of virtual-real mapping and real-time interaction, so that the management benefits, production efficiency, and decision-making capabilities of projects, enterprises, and industries can be effectively transformed and improved.

3.2.3 On demand

When data can be recorded and fed back in real time, and then reflected in customer-oriented production and services in real time, we have actually reached the third level of experience improvement, meaning on-demand and following-demand.

On-demand means dynamic adjustment, dynamically matching customer needs and production factors.

The era of industrialization has brought about unprecedented large-scale manufacturing, but it is difficult to solve this set of contradictions in reducing costs and meeting individual needs. In the digital age, mass customization is becoming a reality.

3.2.4 Self-help

In the digital age, users can use the platform built by digital means and the tools provided to meet their needs by themselves, thereby obtaining a better experience.

From "on demand" to "self-service", not only is it more convenient, but it is actually a redistribution of power and responsibility. On-demand, or with the supply side as the main body, I will do what you need. Self-help, on the other hand, has become user-centered, and they can do what they need.

At present, we can also see the emergence of products in many industries, and the rise of zero-code platforms and low-code platforms. For example, Ali's Yida, Mingdaoyun, Jiandaoyun, Qingliu, etc.

3.2.5 Socialization

With the improvement of experience brought about by digital transformation, our imagination can be richer and bolder. The dominance is in the hands of users, that is socialization. The social networking here does not refer to user group interaction, but social networking in a broader sense, which is a re-upgrade of on-demand and self-service. We can imagine that the degree of digitalization in the construction industry has reached a certain level. Can remote video acceptance be fully realized for project handover and acceptance?

Written at the end : Peter Drucker said that a new era of strangeness has definitely arrived, and the modern world we were once familiar with has become a past that has nothing to do with reality. Under the wave of digital transformation, we can only enter the game by bowing down.

References in this article:

Get "Huawei Digital Transformation Compulsory Course"
"From 1 to N: Enterprise Digital Survival Guide"
"Huawei's Digital Transformation: A New Engine for Sustained and Effective Growth of Enterprises"

Starting from informatization and digitalization, let’s talk about the digital transformation of the construction industry