First "Observatory of innovation trends in the construction industry"

It makes it possible to adapt to new needs and also to rethink the problems linked to prevention and to always improve the performance of companies. Having a clear vision of innovation trends has thus become a strategic necessity for all players in the construction sector.

With this in mind, Impulse Partners, CCCA-BTP and the OPPBTP, players committed to serving the construction sector, have joined forces to produce and publish an “Observatory of construction innovation trends”. This deciphers the major innovation trends, their impact on businesses, safety, prevention and training.

Its objective is to enable all players in the sector, whether they are manufacturers, builders, companies, large or small, but also training centers, federations and professional organizations, to understand and grasp as well as possible the main fields of activity. innovation at work in the sector, to make it a vector of positive and lasting transformation. To do this, it will be enriched regularly and disseminated each year.

The major objectives of innovation

Thanks to an in-depth study of the actors of innovation in the construction industry, the Observatory reveals that the major innovation trends are concentrated around three major objectives:

Increase business productivity

Three major trends are transforming the construction trades: off-site construction solutions make it possible to achieve 80% of production in the factory, which is causing massive changes in trades, production methods and the associated risks. Intelligent management systems for equipment and structures (IoT sensors, BOS platforms, etc.) offer the opportunity to seize new markets in smart buildings with very high added value for the businesses concerned. Finally, the tools for editing and sharing the digital twin constitute one of the levers for modernizing businesses and reinforcing safety on construction sites.

Produce better quality works

The quality of the structures is based on their compliance with the specifications, their performance and the environmental impact of the sites. Solutions favorable to the use of wood, which are increasingly in demand, are disrupting traditional value chains and require new skills (logistics, lifting, adjustment, etc.). Platforms and tools for reuse are also a major lever for transformation, in particular for the deconstruction sector. In addition, the progress monitoring and compliance control tools support professionals in a lean management and continuous quality control approach, vectors of productivity and risk prevention.

Improve safety on construction sites

Finally, improving safety on construction sites requires anticipating risks upstream as well as managing them during the work. To achieve this, connected PPE and accident detection devices (sensors, camera robots, artificial intelligence) mobilize a large number of innovation players, due to their very strong impact on reducing the risk of accidents. . In addition, digital tools for the training of professionals, such as e-learning tools or using virtual reality, make it possible to train employees in best practices and to make them aware of the various risks of the site.

An Innovation Observatory which is part of the missions of the CCCA-BTP and the OPPBTP

In order to adapt to the major changes impacting the sector (ecological transition, digitization, etc.), innovation is at the heart of the challenges of the construction industry. The CCCA-BTP and the OPPBTP are both mobilized to support its development and help all stakeholders to seize it in order to derive all the benefits. On the one hand, the CCCA-BTP, the leading actor in apprenticeship in France, has for mission to anticipate the professions of tomorrow and the development of skills to adapt training courses and thus better meet the needs of companies in construction. On the other hand, as a branch body, the OPPBTP is positioned as a driving force for detecting, supporting and promoting innovation for the benefit of all players in the sector. The analysis of innovation trends from a health and safety perspective enables it to adapt the preventive actions to be carried out as closely as possible to emerging issues. In this context, the Observatory of construction innovation trends is a valuable monitoring tool for deciphering trends in the sector. It allows both to highlight the role of training in the development of skills and to assess the consequences of innovation on professions and safety issues. Its promotion to all stakeholders is essential to enable them to evolve collectively towards greater operational performance.

A methodology based on a study of the actors of innovation in the construction industry

The CCCA-BTP, the OPPBTP and Impulse Partners have decided to support this Observatory on the 222 start-ups identified within the Impulse Partners ecosystem. Indeed, these have been developing at an accelerated pace for several years and their fields of action are a precious indicator of the transformations underway in the construction industry. All the start-ups have been grouped into 41 innovation fields. For each of these fields of innovation, the observatory details the major challenges and the main tools and solutions developed by innovators to respond to them. The economic dynamics of each field of innovation was also measured according to three key indicators: the number of start-ups, the cumulative turnover of the players and the volume of funds raised by them. In addition, the observatory gives an estimate of the transformation potential for the sector, in terms of professions, the impact in terms of prevention, as well as in terms of new training needs for professionals.

Finally, the partners also interviewed several professionals representing large companies, companies of intermediate sizes, federations or organizations representative of the entire profession:

• David Amadon, Technical Director of the National CAPEB;
• Guillaume Bazouin, Start-up and intrapreneurship program manager at Leonard;
• Mathieu Boussoussou, Sustainable innovation manager at Eiffage Construction;
• Valérie Cassous, Member of the management board and communications director of the Cassous group;
• Jonathan Chemouil, Technical Innovation Director at Demathieu Bard;
• Dominique Chevillard, Technical and Research Director of the FNTP;
• Christian Cremona, Technical and R&D Director at Bouygues Construction;
• Isabelle Dubois-Brugger, R&D and Innovation Manager at LafargeHolcim;
• Marc Esposito, Director of the GSE Lab;
• Antoine Gibour, Strategy, Marketing and Innovation Director at Léon Grosse;
• Claire Guidi, FFB project manager;
• Philippe Robart, Technical Director of the OPPBTP.

These interviews largely guided the structuring of the observatory and made it possible to collect market opinions on the innovations identified.

Trends structured around three main objectives: productivity, quality and safety

The study of the 41 fields of innovation and the exchanges with companies allowed the three partners to highlight three major objectives for all innovation initiatives in the construction industry, which are not mutually exclusive: to achieve a higher level of productivity, quality and safety. To move forward in each of these directions, the players can implement various levers of action that bring together several fields of complementary innovation.

Greater business productivity

One of the main challenges for the construction sector is its low productivity. It is one of the few sectors of the economy whose productivity has not increased over the past 20 years, but has instead fallen in Europe. Across the entire value chain, manufacturers, designers, builders, and operators of buildings and infrastructures seek to reduce their costs in order to consolidate their margins. Productivity is therefore the first major objective driving innovation in the sector.

The observatory highlights six main levers for action: controlling the costs of land, raw materials, labor, general business costs, user costs of structures, as well as reducing the cost of land. economic weight of equipment and logistics. It also reveals that the three fields of innovation in favor of greater productivity of the most economically dynamic companies are:

✓ The digital twin editing and sharing tools, which make it possible to share information between the various stakeholders of a construction project and to ensure continuous monitoring of information on the life cycle of a work. They have imposed themselves on major construction projects for several years and constitute one of the main levers of the digital and industrial transformation of the sector.

✓ Collaborative digital tools for site monitoring. Simple, mobile and adapted to current processes and methods, these digital tools make it possible to digitize and optimize the work of the site manager or manager to monitor the progress of tasks and share information between all stakeholders.

✓ Intelligent control devices for equipment and structures, such as IoT sensors or Building Operating Systems platforms. These devices make it possible to optimize energy consumption, organize better waste management, ensure user comfort and reduce operating costs. They also have a strong potential for transforming construction trades into trades with very high added value.

✓ In addition, the observatory highlights off-site construction solutions among the fields of innovation with high potential for transforming the sector's trades, since they make it possible to achieve 80% of production, which greatly increases productivity.

Better quality works

The second major challenge for the sector is improving its overall level of quality. As the requirements of project management are strengthening in many areas, this quality requirement is no longer assessed only on simple compliance with functional specifications, but also on a growing number of performance criteria (including environmental impact). This quality is of course assessed on the structure itself over its entire lifespan, but also through criteria specific to the sites (impact on the environment, nuisances, etc.).

✓ The progress monitoring and compliance control tools appear to be both the most dynamic innovative solutions and among the most transformative in the sector. They make it possible to detect any implementation errors, to correct them quickly, in order to reduce costs and ensure that the construction conforms to the designed.

Among the fields of innovation for a better quality of the most economically dynamic structures, we also find:

✓ Solutions for air quality: to improve the health and comfort of occupants, IoT sensors, data analysis and air quality simulation platforms are being developed. This dynamic has also been reinforced by the context of the health crisis which has placed this issue at the heart of building issues.

✓ Solutions for the use of new energies on construction sites such as hydrogen solutions, biofuels or the electrification of machinery and equipment, which reduce non-renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions .

Finally, the fields of innovation for quality with the highest transformation potential in the sector are:

✓ Solutions favorable to the use of wood materials, increasingly in demand because of its ecological and environmental advantages. Timber construction is often synonymous with industrialized construction and as such disrupts traditional value chains. The timber yard also requires new skills (logistics, lifting, adjustment, etc.) for players who historically have had better control over concrete construction.

✓ Platforms and tools for reuse. Reuse is a major challenge for materials manufacturers and their distributors, but also a major transformation lever for the deconstruction sector, in order to allow clean and selective dismantling of materials that can be reused.

Increased safety on construction sites

Safety on construction sites is an issue of continuous improvement for all construction companies. The sector still contains many risks against which prevention policies, reinforced by innovation, can be effective. Several fields of innovation favorable to productivity and quality also have a positive impact on safety. In addition, certain fields of innovation can be totally focused on these security issues. The two action levers identified to increase safety on construction sites are the anticipation of risks upstream, as well as their management during the works.

The observatory highlights three fields of innovation, which are both the most dynamic and the most transformative for the sector in terms of security:

• Connected PPE: personal protective equipment is increasingly connected, in order to reinforce the safety of companions beyond so-called conventional protections. They make it possible, for example, to alert in the event of danger situations (gas leaks, landslides, etc.), to reduce human / machine accidents, or to monitor companions in real time.
• Accident detection devices: thanks to tools such as sensors, robot cameras or artificial intelligence, many devices make it possible to reduce accidents on site by analyzing risky situations, or to intervene quickly if they occur.
• Digital tools for the training of professionals: the annual needs for initial and continuing training are estimated today at 430. These new tools aim to massify training and make it as impactful as possible through new teaching methods (e-learning tools, virtual and augmented reality training, anchoring tools that combine face-to-face and digital, etc.). They make it possible to train employees in good practices and to make them aware of the various site risks.

“Innovating today in our sector also means rethinking the issues of prevention and safety to make them assets for the performance of companies. It also means integrating training and skills development needs very early on. This is the meaning of our partnership with the OPPBTP and the CCCA-BTP in the realization of this observatory. " Antoine Thuillier, Partner Impulse Partners.

“As a body for the prevention of construction risks, we are convinced that the performance of construction sites goes hand in hand with prevention and that technical innovation is the first factor in improving safety and working conditions. Let us know how to collectively seize this observatory of innovation trends in the construction industry to increase the operational performance of our sites and our operators. " Paul Duphil, Secretary General of the OPPBTP.

“Digital is a facilitator, an accelerator. It is of invaluable help in the training course of young people and professionals who are trained throughout their professional life. But beyond the intrinsic transformation of professions, digital can also be a facilitator of articulation and coordination in the realization of projects: a catalyst for productivity. It promotes decompartmentalization between professions, to gain versatility and transversality and also contributes to greater openness between subjects (smartcity, well-being, etc.) ” Franck Le Nuellec, Marketing, Development and Strategic Innovation Director of CCCA-BTP.

The full report of the Observatory of innovation trends in the construction industry is available here.