The Finishes and Interior Sector (FIS) has launched the Digital Spine, a new tool to help members to follow and understand the technologies that are shaping the present and future of construction.
The construction sector may well be familiar with the concepts ‘Industry 4.0’, ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and the ‘Digital Revolution’ but as an industry it is one of the least digitised. The Construction Playbook isolates the need to “develop new solutions including improved digital capabilities,” but what does the digitalisation of the finishes and interiors sector actually mean to projects and businesses in the supply chain? A new Digital Spine produced by FIS will provide the FIS community with a greater understanding of the language behind digital tools and technology.
Commenting on the launch, FIS CEO Iain McIlwee said:“The Digital Spine was born at a roundtable we hosted with key experts from our sector. We looked at where digital is having influence and what is holding us back. A key concern was that behind all of these digital solutions is a whole new language that we are struggling to get to grips with. The roundtable also isolated that the environment can be bewildering with solutions not always matched to the problem and real concerns over interoperability of all of the rapidly expanding range of tools at our disposal.”
“Taking a step back we decided that the best way to help was to create the Digital Spine, a simple outline of the language behind the technology that is evolving to support the FIS community, but vitally also to contextualise tools against the core areas of business operation where they have the potential to support change. We are grateful to all the members who have supported the development to this point and encourage all users to bombard us with questions and omissions to support development from here.”
Mark Norton, Group BIM Director, ISG added: “The Digital Spine is great because it is simple, and the key to innovation is to keep it simple and align it to genuine problems, not get caught-up in the technology. We recognise that this is a start and the tool will evolve with questions and as new innovation emerges. We’ll look at where the biggest impact is and how we can ensure the FIS community is aware of opportunity, alert to the challenges and vitally too has influence in the way that some of these tools are emerging to support standardisation.”