PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS AND AI: CONSTRUCTION’S NEW FRONTIER

Jit Kee Chin

EVP & Chief Data Officer

Suffolk

Jit Kee ChinEVP & Chief Data Officer

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS AND AI:CONSTRUCTION’S NEW FRONTIER

What is predictive analytics? “A variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modelling and machine learning, that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events”

- Wikipedia

Sports - Baseball NETFLIX Maintenance Healthcare

Predictive Safety - Recapping the problem

Will an incident happen in the

next week?

700k+ images

360projects

10years

Proof of Concept – what it looks like

User interface Mockup

Model testingresults

Power of Predictive – one year on

Examples today:• Safety: Predicting incidents before they occur• Schedule: Predicting how long schedules will take• Weather delays: Predicting weather contingency for schedules

Future?• Quality: Predicting what issue (RfI, submittal) to attend to first • Pricing: Through-cycle prediction of supply chain pricing • Asset management: Predictive maintenance for assets

Figure 9: Industry Executives’ perception of the future landscape (within 5 years)

Source: KPMG 2019 Future-ready Index

• Data extraction• Data aggregation, cleansing,

alignment, augmentation• Model building, application,

tuning and sensitivity testing• Connectivity and visualization• Production• Ongoing refinement and

maintenance

Requirements of PredictiveData Time

• High quantities• Organized• Cleaned

Capabilities Cost

Petabytes vs Terabytes

6 to 12 months vs1 – 2 years

• Business “translation”• Data engineering• Data science

• Visualization • Software engineering• Data architecture

10 FTEs vs. 5 to 10 FTEs

• Storage• Processing • People

$500k to $2m vs.2-3% fee

Limitations of PredictiveQuestions it cannot answer Implementation implications

What was the precise cause of that risk?

Who caused that risk?

Has that risk been addressed?

Was this prediction biased?

I’ve changed behavior, now what?

• Actions taken should address aggregate risk rather than specific risk

• Culture to embrace the aggregate outcome rather than focus on the specific• Positive reinforcement rather than negative

• Prediction does not change behavior; needs to be integrated into a workflow that ties together people, process, technology to drive change

• Significant effort to unbias, starting with data

• Regular model re-trainings, significant maintenance

Predictive - Value at stake

WORKERS NOT INJURED TOTAL COST IMPACT

40 $1.4M

100 $3.6M

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017 report; NIH Study, “Costs of Occupational Injuries in Construction in the United States”. The National Center for Biotechnology Information, April 20, 2007

21% of all fatalities in the US are in construction

Model refinement

Predictive Safety – our journey

Vendor relationship

R&D brainstorming

Data Extract, Transform, Load

Algorithm building

POC results!

Investment Predictive Analytics Strategic Council

2016Dec

2017Mar2018

AprMay

Dec Mar2019

Model refinement Production

Future of Predictive – Data alliancesTo learn and explore by doing; To build new models for areas of risk; To understand the operational, social and business impacts;

To chart course through obstacles and bring the benefits of predictive analytics to the AEC industry