Smart infrastructure can offer exciting opportunities and transform our thinking, but there is an urgent need to incorporate it more quickly, as argued here by Nabil Abou-Rahme, Head of Smart Infrastructure at Mott MacDonald
While the digital revolution has made several in-roads into our industry, the most far-sighted companies are not stopping to congratulate themselves. Instead, they are heading towards a different destination – one in which smart infrastructure is the norm.
Smart infrastructure is what you get when you apply a digital nervous system to traditional physical assets in order to improve efficiency and realise new capacity gains. Smart infrastructure applications differ widely, ranging from transport management tools which eliminate congestion to water monitoring systems which allow leaks, blockages and other problems to be quickly identified and remedied.
However, all smart infrastructure systems share a common anatomy, which can be represented by a ‘digital pyramid’. A data acquisition layer feeds data from BIM, GIS, sensors, CCTV and other data sources into the system. This is followed by a data management layer, where this data is sorted and refined. A sense making layer analyses data to drive better intelligence. The final part of the system is the decision making layer, where intelligence is used to define actions. But the most important part of the system is the feedback loop in which the effect of actions defined at decision making level are monitored to continuously refine asset performance, enabling a truly smart approach.
While we have had a number of models which combine all layers of the digital pyramid for years, a dramatic change in pace is being driven by an explosion in availability of software, hardware and digital tools at the bottom of the pyramid, and greater innovation in management systems at the top. This means exciting opportunities for the infrastructure industry from a new baseline, with smart systems set to become the ‘new normal’.
And the need for smart infrastructure systems couldn’t be more urgent. The demand for social development combined with pressures such as population growth, urbanisation, climate change and limited financial resources creates the demand for more capacity. And with little scope to meet this need through new physical assets – particularly in mature economies where most of the necessary infrastructure has already been built – smart infrastructure is the best way to realise new efficiencies from existing assets.
However, smart infrastructure will do more than simply increase efficiency. It will transform the way we design and think about infrastructure, shifting our focus from capital to whole life costs, and ensuring we consider the ultimate customer alongside clients as we tackle the brief. We will also see the value equation shift away from concepts of paying for access to information or hiring human resources by the hour, towards paying for outcomes, delivered through a mixture of human and digital intelligence.
This isn’t something that can be achieved in isolation. It requires leadership, investment and a drive to develop common standards as well as dialogue and a willingness to embrace the unfamiliar. Sometimes it feels like digital is being done to us. Imagine how exciting it would be if we stepped up as a sector and made the future of infrastructure smart? ■
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Nabil Abou-Rahme
Head of Smart Infrastructure
Mott MacDonald
smart.infrastructure@mottmac.com
