Samet in the News: How the Novus is Using Artificial Intelligence to Save Time and Money
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Original article written by CHANTEL ALLAM
DECEMBER 27, 2024 | www.newsobserver.com
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Once a week, two Samet construction workers strap 360-degree cameras to their hard hats and begin the slow march through every floor of The Novus, a glassy 27-story skyscraper under construction in Durham’s Five Points district.
Starting at the top and working their way down, they take photos of every nook and cranny that are automatically uploaded to an artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Buildots. Analyzing the real-time data, it generates “true-to-life” weekly progress reports and a “punch-list” of activities — all without lifting a finger.
“Instead of having multiple people out there, walking and checking, one [or two] workers can do it,” said Clayton Simmons, Samet’s senior project manager who is based on the site. “We’re saving time and money.”
The platform also uses predictive analytics to forecast potential delays, he said.
“If you’re supposed to have a door in a wall and, say, the door isn’t there, it’ll flag it,” he said. “We’re able to catch things early.”
It’s the first time that Samet has leveraged this type of machine learning at one of its job sites. But it’s quickly reshaping how its projects are getting planned, executed and managed, Simmons said. A year into its trial run, “we’ve already started to partner with Buildots for other projects.”
AI in Construction
In recent years, AI has seen an explosion in development and adoption across industries, construction included. According to Construction Today, citing the Boston Consulting Group, up to 30% of construction work will be automated by 2025. This includes tasks like bricklaying, concrete pouring, and more complex jobs like structural inspections using drones and robots.
In March 2022, work began at The Novus at 400 W. Main St. The site backs up against the Downtown Loop in one of the city’s most bustling commercial corridors.
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