Intelligent construction enhances the core competitiveness of "Built in China"

The real economy is the foundation of a country's economy, the fundamental source of wealth creation, and an important pillar of national prosperity. The construction industry is the main body of the real economy, and the high-quality development of the construction industry is crucial to accelerating the improvement of the modern economic system. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the construction industry has firmly established a new development concept, accelerated the transformation of industrialization, digitalization and green, and our country has moved steadily and powerfully from "building a big country" to "building a strong country".

Breakthrough innovation from extensive development to high-quality development

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's construction industry has sustained rapid development, the industrial scale has continued to expand, and the construction capacity has been continuously enhanced, which has strongly supported the sustained and healthy development of the national economy. However, for a long time, China's construction industry relies on resource factor input, large-scale investment to drive development, low level of industrialization and information technology, extensive production methods, low labor efficiency, large consumption of energy and resources, insufficient scientific and technological innovation capacity and other problems are prominent, through accelerating the coordinated development of intelligent construction and building industrialization, Integrating new technologies such as 5G (fifth generation mobile communication technology), artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, forming an intelligent construction industrial system that integrates the whole industrial chain including scientific research, design, production and processing, construction and assembly, operation and maintenance, and walking out of a new road of intensive and high-quality development is a new requirement for the development of the construction industry in the new era.

Based on this, in 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, together with 12 departments, on the basis of in-depth investigation and research, extensive consultation, and careful summary of experience, jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Coordinated Development of Intelligent Construction and Building Industrialization" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions"). The Guiding Opinions clearly define the guiding ideology, basic principles, development goals, key tasks and safeguard measures for promoting the coordinated development of intelligent construction and construction industrialization, and propose that by 2035, the core competitiveness of "China construction" should be the world's leading, and construction industrialization should be fully realized and enter the ranks of world powers in intelligent construction.

Intelligent construction is a kind of engineering construction technology formed by the integration of a new generation of information technology and engineering construction with artificial intelligence as the core. The release of the "Guiding Opinions" marks a new stage of engineering construction technology innovation in China, the construction industry product form, business model, production mode, management mode and supervision mode are reshaping, new industries, new formats, new models continue to emerge, cross-field, all-round, multi-level industry deep integration application scenarios continue to emerge.

In 2021, the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of 2035 Vision Goals put forward the "development of intelligent construction", which for the first time listed the development of intelligent construction as an important content of promoting new urban construction and comprehensively improving urban quality at the national level.

Demonstration leads from exploration to scale application

With the application of earthwork measurement drones, one-click collection of terrain information, and rapid calculation of earthwork through independent intellectual property software, the measurement efficiency of Changzhen public housing project in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province is 40 times that of manual labor, saving more than 20% of the cost.

The application of intelligent steel binding robot to tie up the bay window steel mesh cage to achieve automatic clamping and structural construction of steel bars, visual identification tracking and positioning of steel bars, automatic binding of steel joints and other functions, the binding efficiency of Jindi Juyuan community project in Jiading New City, Shanghai is 3 times that of manual.

Artificial intelligence technology is used to assist the review of construction drawings to achieve batch automatic review, and the average review time of a single drawing of Chongqing Vanke Four Seasons Flower City project is about 6 minutes, with an accuracy rate of more than 90%.

The construction industry has developed from the traditional workhouse-style era of on-site mixing mortar and "full of dust and ash" to the era of building industrialization of "building houses like making cars", and has stepped forward to the era of digital and intelligent construction, attracting high attention from all walks of life.

In 2021, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the List of Replicable Practices for the Coordinated Development of Intelligent Construction and New Building Industrialization (the first batch) (hereinafter referred to as the "List"). The paper lists the exploration achievements of six aspects around the development of digital design, promotion of intelligent production, promotion of intelligent construction, construction of construction industry Internet platform, research and development and application of intelligent construction equipment, and strengthening overall coordination and cooperation and policy support, and summarizes 19 measures, comprehensively demonstrating the practice and breakthrough of the construction industry in technological progress and technological innovation.

The "List" is both practical and future-oriented, and is a summary of the test results after the implementation of the "Guiding Opinions", with a "benchmarking" effect. The active exploration around digital design, intelligent production, intelligent construction and other aspects has set a benchmark and established a model for the construction industry, which is convenient for the whole industry to reference, benchmark and learn, boost morale, and strengthen the development direction of intelligent construction. A large number of replicable and scalable experience practices provide solutions to solve common problems faced in the process of intelligent construction promotion, greatly reducing the time for construction enterprises to explore on their own.

From "quantity win" to "quality win", from "extensive operation" to "fine management", from "element-driven" to "innovation-driven", the release of the "List" has made benchmarking innovation have a replication effect, laying a solid foundation for accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry.

Pilot leads from "brisk walking" to "accelerated running"

We will foster new industries, new business forms and new models, and constantly strengthen, improve and expand our digital economy. 

As a complex system project, intelligent construction covers scientific research, design, production and processing, construction and assembly, operation and other links, which needs to be planned and coordinated. Among them, it is particularly key to increase the basic common technology research efforts of the construction industry Internet platform, and cultivate a number of industry-level, enterprise-level, project-level platforms and government regulatory platforms. At the same time, it is also necessary to give policy support from the aspects of financial support, personnel training, and promoting the establishment of a production system based on standard parts.

In order to further implement the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee and The State Council, and vigorously develop intelligent construction, in 2021, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released 124 typical cases of innovative services in 5 categories, summarizing and promoting replicable experiences and practices in digital design, intelligent production, intelligent construction and construction industry Internet, and construction robots. Guide local housing and urban and rural construction authorities and enterprises to comprehensively understand and scientifically select intelligent construction technologies and products. In 2022, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will collect and select 24 cities such as Beijing to carry out smart construction pilots, playing a leading role in comprehensively promoting the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry and promoting high-quality development.

With the support of scientific and technological innovation, the pilot project will promote the deep integration of the construction industry with the digital economy, foster new industries, new forms and new models of smart construction, and strive to solve the outstanding problems existing in engineering construction such as extensive production methods, labor shortages, and large consumption of resources and energy, so as to better leverage the important role of the construction industry in ensuring steady growth and expanding domestic demand.

The pilot objectives include three aspects: First, promote the pilot cities to establish cross-departmental collaborative promotion mechanism, form a replicable and scalable intelligent construction policy system, development path and supervision model, and provide experience for the comprehensive promotion of intelligent construction. The second is to accelerate the deep integration of the construction industry with advanced manufacturing technology and a new generation of information technology, to achieve digital control over the whole process of project quality, safety, schedule and cost, and to promote the quality and efficiency of the construction industry. The third is to build intelligent construction industrial clusters, foster a number of new industries, new business forms and new models, and create a new engine for local economic development.

From the traditional construction industry to intelligent construction and building industrialization, the essence is a substantial increase in productivity. At present, the development of intelligent construction has become the key to breaking through the development bottleneck of the construction industry, enhancing core competitiveness, and achieving high-quality development, and has become an important measure to effectively stimulate domestic demand, and has become a powerful starting point to comply with the international trend and enhance the core competitiveness of "China Construction".

At the National Housing and urban and rural Construction Work Conference held at the beginning of this year, "Continuously improve the quality of construction in the direction of industrialization, digitalization and greening of the construction industry" was one of the important tasks, and new construction methods such as intelligent construction and prefabricated buildings were proposed. With the support of intelligent construction, on the new journey towards Chinese-style modernization, the achievements of high-quality development of the construction industry will be more brilliant.