Industrial Automation Magazine India

Hilti unveils BIM-enabled construction jobsite robot

Published on : Monday 02-11-2020

Construction automation solution to help contractors tackle productivity, safety and labour shortage challenges on jobsites.

Plano, Texas, November 2020 – Hilti, an innovator of tools, technology, software and services to the commercial construction industry, has recently introduced its first robot, Jaibot, for semi-autonomous mobile ceiling-drilling. The Hilti Jaibot construction robot will help mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) installation contractors tackle productivity, safety and labour shortage challenges. With this new construction automation solution, Hilti makes a further step toward the digitisation of construction sites. The Jaibot executes its tasks based on building information modelling (BIM) data. The robot is a completely cordless and easy-to-use system that doesn't require expert skills. It locates itself accurately indoors, drills the holes dust-controlled and finally marks them according to the trade. This is what makes the solution ideally suited for the MEP trade.

"The productivity of the construction industry has been lagging behind other sectors for years. Margin pressure and shortages of skilled labour are already facts of life in our industry and make it increasingly difficult to overcome productivity shortfalls. But leveraging the opportunities offered by digitisation will compensate for it. We do this by intelligently linking processes, teams and data," said Jan Doongaji, Member of the Executive Board, Hilti Group. "With Jaibot, and in close collaboration with our customers, we are further stepping toward realising the efficiency that digital transformation can and will bring to construction sites."

Time and budget overruns are common, especially for large construction projects. Significant productivity gains are possible with digitally planned construction projects and their realisation with the help of robotic solutions. BIM-enabled robotic solutions also make the construction process more transparent with improved execution speed, constant performance and fewer errors. Daily progress can be reported from the field to the project office via cloud computing. Potential conflicts between the trades involved on a jobsite also can be detected at an early stage and then limited, resulting in more projects delivered on-time and within budget.