Working space, the final frontier

Context – Post COVID-19 crisis, Role of technology in getting adjusted to disruption caused by COVID-19. 

Lessons from the past 

• Neanderthals survived by making stone spears, wheels and discovering fire.
• Industrial Revolution started after overindulgence by papacy-aristocracy during Renaissance era.
• Benz and Ford disrupted the horse-based transport system with automotive carriage.
• Haussmann’s renovation of 1800s Paris, London’s reconfigured infrastructure in the wake of the city’s 1854 cholera epidemic and 19th-century New York’s reaction to the squalid conditions of tenement housing.

COVID-19 – A new disruption

• Service industry: transforming itself into a web-based activity. 

• Evolution of “work anywhere” concept will improve opportunities to collaborate, think, create and connect productively.

• Construction: it poses unique challenge but technology, both machine-based and digital, will pervade every aspect of construction.
• Public space: moving towards automation to mitigate contagion with touch-less technology such as automatic doors, voice-activated elevators, hands free switches etc.

Foreseen adaptations

• Safety of worker where physical labour is involved, should be priority while keeping the workplace safe, hygienic and disinfected.
• New Office Space: Physical design of office space will change with balance isolated concentration and productive, meaning collaboration.

Technology a great disruptor - Construction

• Construction industry: already started adopted to wave of digitalisation. 

• Machineries getting IoT will enable improved productivity and efficiency. 
• Example - L&T Construction has over 11,000 IoT-enabled machines connected across over 450 sites.

• Geo spatial technology: at pre-tender stage, to know geographical feature of site. 

• It can speed up the design and engineering work, increase accuracy and improve competitiveness.

• Surveys: using data acquisition technologies like satellite photogrammetry, lidar, sonar and GPR.

Way Forward

• The innovative use of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence coupled with new-age telecom developments like 5G will emerge as the next wave of disruptions.