SiteHub, a Denmark-based company that delivers sustainable construction site logistics solutions to their clients, firmly believes that “data is the foundation for better processes.” On average, 10-15% of all materials that enter a construction site are wasted. Construction workers spend 20% of their time handling materials. On average, construction materials are moved 7 times from when they arrive at a construction site to when they are installed. This data helps understand construction’s massive sustainability problem and drove the creation of SiteHub - a business founded largely based on the objective of creating a meaningful change within the construction industry.
"In the UK, 43% of every single thing that hits a landfill is from a construction site."
-Ulrik Banner CEO & Co-Founder at SiteHub
We sat down with Ulrik Branner, the co-founder of SiteHub, to gain a deeper understanding of the integration of sustainability and technology at construction sites. Having been exposed to construction sites around the world for 8 years, Ulrik explained that a key issue he identified within the industry was the lack of a centralized function on big construction sites that owns and handles all the logistics. Hence, he elaborated on how SiteHub fills in this market gap by being “the partner that actively steps into the construction site and assumes responsibility for everything that moves.”
SiteHub’s holistic business model focuses on construction material delivery at the right place and the right time and simultaneously ensures waste optimization, with the end goal being “less waste, more time.”
Ulrik further emphasized on how the lack of waste management strategies at construction sites is a global issue – “41% of Denmark’s waste originates from construction. 43% of everything that hits a landfill in the UK is solely from construction sites.” At the same time, following the sustainability wave, construction sites across the Nordic countries of Europe are being challenged with rigid regulations on recording their environmental impact in terms of their C02 emissions, waste percentages, etc. SiteHub carefully addresses this need for waste optimization and documentation by integrating technology in its business model to collect and analyze data on CO2 emissions, efficiencies, recycling, and similar sustainability factors.
While SiteHub has leveraged technology to achieve its waste optimization and logistics objectives, Ulrik highlighted the need to integrate technology to visualize these objectives in the first place.
The Challenge
There are various predicted and unforeseen elements that go into making the orchestra of a construction site work. The objective of construction site logistics goes way beyond accommodating the needs of the project; they must concomitantly take into account external factors like the pedestrian and bicycle traffic, the health and security of those in and around the site, noise abatement requirements, and more. Ulrik explained that even though mapping these requirements and laying out the construction site on paper has been resourceful, the team faced a difficulty in visualizing and identifying the errors present within the layout before-hand.
Alongside, Ulrik highlighted how accommodating all of these needs often leads to a conflict of interest during the permit approval process due to blockages of roads, bicycle paths, parking lots and other such spaces; communicating the need for these blockages was a big challenge for SiteHub.
The Solution
“The first superpower we got out of cmBuilder was that we were able to visualize the professional faults we had in our minds.”
-Ulrik Banner CEO & Co-Founder at SiteHub
Ulrik painted a clear picture of the need for simulation in site planning as he explained that, “drawing the site out is one thing, but we are now able to actually show people that this how big the lorry is, and these are the exact dimensions of the crane, by putting it directly on cmBuilder, which helped them visualize how the present layout would completely create a havoc on that area. ”Hence, using cmBuilder as a digital space in the pre-planning stage addressed SiteHub’s need to incorporate a proactive, rather than reactive approach towards site logistics.
“We are able to give the municipality a very clear simulation of how the construction layout looks in different phases, and we get the official permit based on it.”
-Ulrik Banner CEO & Co-Founder at SiteHub
Ulrik also described how cmBuilder has been incorporated in the permit approval process. It served as the pathway for clear communication between SiteHub and the municipality – the assistance of clear visualizations allowed SiteHub to justify their logistical decisions, incorporate suggested changes into the visualizations to ensure feasibility, and ultimately reach a consensus on the final approved model.
While cmBuilder may explicitly function as a cloud-based platform to create 3D and 4Dconstruction site logistics simulations, it implicitly also acts as a communication tool between the various stakeholders behind a construction project, which is exactly what SiteHub achieves with cmBuilder. cmBuilder has rapidly evolved to become “the cornerstone for communication” with clients and projects stakeholders in SiteHub’s future.
