EFCA report on the Future Trends in the Consulting Engineering Industry

Jun 11, 2019

The annual EFCA Conference that took place in Dublin over the 9 – 11^th of May 2019 saw the launch of the Association’s report entitled Future Trends in the Consulting Engineering Industry. In keeping with this year’s conference theme the report Future Trends: Talent, Tools and Technologies explored the trends that will disrupt the global AEC industry. The report outlines the importance of understanding and analysing all emerging trends and the impact they might have on the AEC industry and it identifies five key trends they see will have the most impact.

The first trend identified in the report is the move towards “Agile Management”. Agile management focuses on generating more value from less work. In practice this means creating a network of teams with an aim of reducing bureaucracy and increasing collaboration. It also requires a transformation from the existing hierarchy of authority, towards a hierarchy of competence.

The move away from traditional hierarchies and towards collaboration and self-organisation is reflected in other trends identified in the report, such as Wikinomics, which is the principle of mass collaboration and acting globally, and Integrated Project Delivery, which is a collaborative alliance of stakeholders who share risk and reward.

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are having a huge impact globally, and including on the AEC industry. This EFCA report predicts that, if harnessed correctly, big data and artificial intelligence will accelerate project execution, with a virtual assistant capable of parsing available data to develop real-time solutions and support decision making.

Other trends outlined in the report include Digital Dashboards, which will allow managers to monitor specific data points for departments across an organisation, facilitating improved performance analysis. Unsurprisingly Virtual and Augmented Reality is expected to have a huge impact on the industry, along with 3D printing and robotics.

You can read more in the full report here.

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