I have been writing about the IoT (Internet of Things) before we even called it the IoT. In the past few years, traction has steadily picked up in the construction industry and it isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. One area the IoT has made its mark is with tools.

Zion Market Research predicts the global demand for smart hand tools was valued at $16.69 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $24.88 billion in 2025. This is a compound annual growth rate of more than 5.87% between 2019 and 2025. While growth is still imminent, I think what makes this noteworthy is the value it can offer to the construction industry.

Last week, I had the opportunity to see all the new innovative solutions firsthand at World of Concrete in Las Vegas. The talk of the show was definitely connectivity and the Internet of Things—and what I like is the technology is addressing real needs in the construction industry.

Consider this example. Many contractors know documenting every anchor, screw, and bolt can be time consuming and inefficient. Hilti looks to solve this challenge with the launch of connected fasteners that enable unique identification and digital documentation on the construction jobsite.

The Tracefast technology leverages the IoT and provides control and digital access to instructions, training, and inspection documents and certifications. Using a data matrix code, every fastener is uniquely identifiable and traceable. Contractors can then use the Hilti Connect App to scan the code with a phone and view installed fastener details. “Think about it as a tiny QR code,” says Rafael Garcia, CMO and SVP of marketing, Hilti. He adds, “It’s a visual identifier that can be scanned. Now we can start putting intelligence into that anchor because if you can identify it then you can use the information to do other things, so that will be done.”

As a result, this smart technology can, and will, increase jobsite productivity and provide traceability from design and ordering through to installation. What’s more, this addresses a big challenge in the construction industry and that is that inspections has its limitations because the information is not available, according to Garcia. Now, this is a win-win for both the inspection and construction community.

“The amount of work that contractors have to put into documenting, especially highly inspected jobsites, is massive and we’re solving that with one technology step, and then the application use cases, and services connected to them.”

Garcia continues to explain that Hilti is just building the platform and insists this has implications all the way to production of these anchors.

“If the anchor that I scan gives me a serial number—by the way, we didn’t have serial numbers on fasteners—there’s a serial number. There’s a batch code and an item number. The batch code tells you when it has been produced, under which circumstances. So, you can start thinking from a sustainability point of view.”

He adds there are many, many other factors that customers will be able to assess different use cases and users too. In time these fasteners might even reveal any changes in time in seismic events, destructive testing, dynamic anchors in a vibration environment like production on machinery, and even remote monitoring. He adds, “Those are all use cases where we actually want to know what’s happening over time with that anchor or their fasteners.”

Martina Mclsaac, new region head and CEO, Hilti North America admits, “Competitors will try to copy us on the product levels. We don’t see players in our space that have that end-to-end vision and investment and structure of infrastructure already in place. So a smart fastener without the whole software platform with the service offering behind it, without the ability to take that data and do something with it, I don’t know where it gets you. So I think we have some level of protection over and above our innovation, which is always industry leading. But I think it’s also this breadth that we’ve built that will help us.”

I have written about how digital transformation and the Internet of Things will continue to positively disrupt the construction industry a number of times, including close looks at the current state and future projections for connected tools. I think the big takeaway at this point is that the technology is here. We are moving out of the early adopter phase and into more mainstream adoption.

For construction professionals, the time to invest in the technology is now. Will you tap into the technology that is available for your construction jobsite in 2020?

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