Research identifies obstacles to construction industry’s embrace of “Internet of Things”

Research & Innovation

Jayme Blaschke | February 22, 2023

In the modern U.S. economy, the digital, interconnected “Internet of Things” (IoT) has seen increasing adoption across a wide range of industries. A notable holdout, however, is the construction industry.

Broadly described as Construction 4.0 within the industry, the internet-connected technology has the potential to significantly enhance construction and operational efficiencies. IoT aims to interconnect sensors, actuators, embedded technologies, services, computing, communication, and other internet-connected objects, enabling communication between passive and active networked devices.

New research conducted in part at Texas State University has shown that a likely obstacle to the wider adoption of Construction 4.0 is limited attention to the challenges the industry faces in implementation.   

Kiran Khurshid, of the National University of Modern Languages in Pakistan, is the paper’s lead author. At Texas State, Aamar Danish, Muhammad Usama Salim, and Muhammed Bayram, doctoral students in the Materials Science, Engineering and Commercialization (MSEC) program, along with Togay Ozbakkaloglu, a professor in the Ingram School of Engineering, serve as co-authors. Their research, “An In-Depth Survey Demystifying the Internet of Things (IoT) in the Construction Industry: Unfolding New Dimensions,” is published in the journal Sustainability (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1275/htm).

The study outlines the most significant challenges that the construction industry is facing in the implementation of IoT. Major factors contributing to the hesitancy to embrace the IoT include a lack of knowledge regarding the technology; lack of trained labor; security risks; lack of implementation policies and guidelines; energy demands; cost; and difficulties integrating the IoT into the existing communication infrastructure.  

All of these issues are compounded greatly in developing nations, threatening to widen the economic gulf between developed nations and those that could potentially benefit the most from the technology.

The technology provides convenience and connectivity and also reduce the cost of human labor, eliminates human errors, and increases overall efficiency. In Construction 4.0, ubiquitous connectivity technologies would allow real-time decisions and full automation of projects for their complete life cycle. Even in the era of digitization, the construction industry still depends on manual labor, heavy machinery, and a business model that remains essentially unchanged over the past 50 years. Despite IoT technologies’ potential to enable continuous real-time interaction and automation in industries, their application in construction remains relatively unexplored.

While the researchers outline the most significant challenges that the industry must be aware of to avoid mistakes throughout the implementation of IoT, many issues remain unaddressed. Future research studies are needed to determine the roots of those issues and identify potential solutions.