Hexagon's Harring on Autonomous Outlook Study

Hexagon AB released its Autonomous Construction Tech Outlook, a 1,000-respondent study that reveals construction companies are embracing technology rapidly. However, the data suggests a disconnect between how they are applying technology and the challenges they face. We interviewed Hexagon Geosystems President Thomas Harring about the study in a wide-ranging conversation.

IRONPROS: I read this study with interest because I love this stuff, and this is a pretty good effort. There are some things that jumped out at me. One of them was procurement. Procurement was identified as the most pressing business need across the board--across regions. What's going on there, and how is technology coming to market to help contractors with this function?

THOMAS HARRING: Yes, You're absolutely right. That surprised me as well. But then I thought a little bit about that, and supply chain topics have been always a long-term trend for construction. It's become much more important, but then there's a short-term dimension of course because of availability issues. Working with supply chains, material price increases and all these kind of things increased the urgency of focusing on that.

I think that's it's two things--the short-term challenges and the long-term need of investing in that area. And what we are seeing is that ...

Stream our full discussion for more, right here on IRONPROS.