Events > Tilt-Up Future Think 3.0 > SESSION

Session 2: Workforce

May 16, 2022 from 2:00pm to 3:15pm Central Standard Time

Edlis Neeson Theater

Tsz Yan Ng

Derrick Morse

Mark Filippelli

Session 2 will consist of three talks concerning ideas and technologies related to workforce issues. These talks will be followed by a panel discussion reflecting on their potential impact.

Remote or Hand Free Load Orientation Technology
Verton has developed the world’s first remote- controlled load-management system, eliminating the need for taglines and workers to be in the proximity of a moving load.

Intelligent Automation for Commercial Construction
Rugged Robotics is a Houston-based construction technology company. Their first product tackles the challenge of field layout, and replaces slow, error-prone, manual layout with an autonomous vehicle that marks fully-coordinated A/E designs directly onto unfinished floors. The team has been prototyping and testing for 18 months and is now starting to scale commercially with several multi-billion-dollar general contractors.

Emergent Labor - revising workforce skills in context to R+D and automation
Labor shortages are prevalent in many economic sectors today. The construction industry is no exception. This is not only a national problem, but a global issue. Labor shortages are envisioned to continue. Even though wages are up 7% from a year ago (especially for home construction in the US), why are we not seeing more people taking on construction work? The presentation takes a nuanced look at skills and specialized trades in regard to construction labor. While there is a broader cultural fear of construction automation to take over jobs, the reductive one-to-one replacement deserves careful examination. Could this very moment, with the confluence of factors that contribute to labor shortages, be in fact, an opportunistic path toward accelerating industries' readiness for adopting automation technologies?