Preaching the digital future

Kevin Reeves | Digital Evangelist

Preaching the digital future

Kevin Reeves has built his career at the intersection of technology and construction, with experience spanning roles at Costain, Microsoft, and now a consultant supporting Avove as Head of Digitalisation.

Known as a ‘digital evangelist’ his focus is on championing the potential of technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital twins and the Internet of Things to transform how the construction industry designs, delivers and maintains the built environment.

In this conversation with the Industrialised Construction Journal, Kevin discusses what it means to be a digital evangelist, the opportunities and challenges associated with digital adoption and why integrating technology is essential if industrialised construction is to scale effectively across the sector.

Preaching the digital future

Q: You are a digital evangelist, could you explain what that means?

A: It means that on occasion I'm allowed out to talk to people about the wonderful world of technology and construction!

Over the last ten years or so, I’ve done quite a lot on the conference circuit and I’ve covered a broad range of topics covering digital twins, AI and Internet of Things. It's been quite a whirlwind.

Q: Have you been involved with digital technology from the start, or is it a role you’ve grown into?

A: My career’s been in technology, I started off as a controls and automation engineer working for system integrators, then later in my career I worked for a company called Costain and ended up being a group director there for digital twins, supporting the National Digital Twin Programme.

I ended up working for Microsoft for a couple of years as an industry director, which opened my eyes in terms of what's possible, and then set up as an independent consultant a couple of years ago, helping water companies and tier contractors prepare for the next asset investment period.

I then recently took on a commission with Avove as Head of Digitalisation to help grow the digital side of the business.

Q: Tell me about your current role.

A: I'm fairly new to Avove, which is a leading provider of non-infrastructure, infrastructure and engineering services, and has developed into a fast-growing Tier 1 contractor.

The reason for taking on this role is that I see an opportunity to digitally transform the business, which is a rare opportunity to shape a Tier 1 construction company.

Avove is largely greenfield, so we have an opportunity to decide what a truly modern infrastructure, engineering and construction company looks like and what is the role of technology, incorporating things like AI. The Avove board are fully behind a robust digital plan aligned to industrialised construction.

Q: People tend to focus on the physical side of construction, are you here to spread the message of the digital side then?

A: Exactly that, I’m trying to raise awareness of the potential for technology to help us optimise the process of industrialised construction, really as the enabling foundation to drive accelerated adoption.

Q: What technology are you most interested in for the future?

A: I am currently supporting Avove, looking at how we use AI in all aspects of our day-to-day operations.

A good example would be a company called nPlan. They've trained a model on 750,000 different programmes across major construction projects and are now able to automatically generate a programme from project scope documents and then also provide insight and analysis into the key risks, constraints and how to mitigate them.

And that's just one example of how AI is being used. Specific to industrialised construction, digital twins have a really strong role to play.

If you look at the manufacture of a car, for example, the digital twin gets built first and they use that to understand how the different manufacturing processes and components can be sequenced to optimise production.

Car manufacturers are starting to use AI to enhance insight and support decision making. So why can't we be doing the same in construction?

Q: The Tier 1 companies have embraced digital technology, but why does uptake still seem to be slow for the SMEs?

A: Ultimately, we are a disaggregated sector over 800,000 SME organisations.

Tier 1s are quite mature now in terms their digital transformation, but the big challenge now is how we help the smaller businesses in the sector come on that journey with us.

From a Tier 1 perspective at Avove that's one of the things we’re focused on, it's not just about our organisation, it's about the diverse supply chain that we support and how we integrate them into the business.