A tech firm operating under the Hong Kong Smart Government Innovation Lab recently announced that it has launched a new solution which is now ready to be acquired by companies and institutions.
Solution description
Building cost estimation has been one of the most important topics in surveying and the construction industry. It involves numerous steps of procedures from budget planning, building cost estimation to budget cost approval and cash management.
While there may sometimes be a long-time gap between budget cost approval and settlement with contractors, there incurs a significant monetary loss in terms of budget utilisation and the idle time value of money. Also, under-estimating the cost at preliminary stage could lead to extra time and monetary efforts for budgeting and funding at later stages.
Therefore, there exists a need to leverage big data analytics and state-of-the-art predictive models to better predict the building cost estimate, so as to efficiently allocate the wasted time and human efforts to perform other tasks.
Within a rather traditional construction industry, StatLytics sees the opportunities in introducing and adopting big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive modelling in building cost estimation.
In early stages, machine learning and latest algorithms in predictive analytics are expected to improve the high-level building cost estimation by a lot, throughout learning from previous sources of errors and gaining insights from all past data.
In intermediate stages, with a good foundation in the data platform and high-level estimates, big data analytics could come along and improve the prediction algorithms, e.g., obtaining tremendous data from the Internet for analytics and predicting general building cost price trend.
In later stages, artificial intelligence could be introduced by using image processing or text analytics to learn how complex a building is.
Application areas
The solution was developed to be applied in the area of Budget Cost Management.
Technologies used
The solution was developed using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Analytics, Machine Learning as well as Predictive Analytics.
Use case
Several improvements are seen as important for the departmental use case. The most significant one would be an improvement in project cost estimation. This facilitates better project and budget management, reduces extra-human efforts in the pre-approval of cost funding and minimises monetary loss associated with time value of money.
Others related improvements include, but not limited to, construction data management, digitalisation within the department, streamlining processes and procedures and better cross-team or cross-departmental data exchange and integration.
About the Smart Government Innovation Lab
In 2018, the Government established the Smart Government Innovation Lab to explore hi-tech products such as AI and relevant technologies, including machine learning, big data analytics, cognitive systems and intelligent agent, as well as blockchain and robotics from firms, especially local start-ups.
The Lab is always on the lookout for innovation and technology (I&T) solutions that are conducive to enhancing public services or their operational effectiveness. I&T suppliers are encouraged to regularly visit the Lab’s website to check on the current business and operational needs in public service delivery and propose innovative solutions or product suggestions to address them.
