Blockchain Archives

Blockchain in Construction

August 13, 2020December 7, 2018 by

Is Blockchain going to save construction or is it an ineffective innovation toy?

This presentation was held on 1 8th October 2018. at Digital Construction Week 2018 at Industry 4.0 stage by our Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Simon McCabe.

Does Blockchain add value in Construction? With crypto currency fever well behind us, is the underlying Blockchain technology headed for a similar fate? While the UK construction industry faces another painful year should we be investing in Blockchain? Crystal ball style predictions are great talking points but should not drive business strategy. Strategy and execution in innovation is more important than predicting winners, just ask Apple.

In this video of the talk given at Digital Construction Week, Simon provides some critical analysis to help innovators and managers evaluate the amazing claims about Blockchain and more importantly whether or not it is relevant to you and your business.

You can watch the full presentation here:

You can read the full PDF presentation here:

BaseStone – Blockchain in C… by on Scribd

BaseStone at Digital Construction Week 2018

October 9, 2018October 8, 2018 by

Here at BaseStone, we are very excited to be attending Digital Construction Week on the 17th and 18th of October at the Excel Centre in London. BaseStone will also be providing two presentations, so be sure to not miss them if you plan on attending the event (full session descriptions and times below). Last year at Digital Construction Week we asked the big question – “How can we improve productivity in construction?” Check out the responses we received in this video and register for your ticket to this year’s event here. Be sure to come by and visit us at Stand E75, meet the team, and have a chat with us (or simply have a play on our arcade machine!).

Our presentation sessions are listed below:

17th October 12:30 – 12:45, Tech Stage: The largest problem in the construction industry by Alexander Siljanovski MEng(Hons) MSc CEng MIET FRSA Chief Executive Officer – BaseStone

Poor productivity is one of the largest problems in the construction industry, with estimated losses worldwide of $1.6tn per year. Technology has been seen as a productivity enabler in many industries, and construction offers the largest potential productivity gain. However, construction is often the last industry to adopt new technologies. BaseStone, through our mobile and web based collaboration tool, has for the past few years been direct involved in addressing the productivity problem head on. In this talk we will discuss our findings, wins and challenges faced in cracking the largest problem in construction.

18th October 15:30-16:00, Industry 4.0: Blockchain in construction by Dr. Simon McCabe, Chief Technology Officer – BaseStone

Introduction to the blockchain: An overview of areas of applicability Benefits and Blockers. Is the blockchain fit for construction and is construction fit for new technology? What are the real problems that the blockchain can solve? What are vanity ‘me too’ projects Quality and evidence is? If trust is the issue does the Blockchain solve it? What does the blockchain mean for quality? Why is this needed in construction? How could it change the industry Conclusion? You can’t solve business problems with technology. You can improve business with technology. Construction needs innovation but needs to tread carefully. These are all the questions that will be answered in Dr. Simon’s lecture on Digital Construction Week 2018.

Also, we would like to remind you that we have been shortlisted for the 2018 Digital Construction Awards in the Category for the Best Application of Technology! Our nomination for this category comes down to the massive productivity gain of 60% that was achieved using BaseStone, by our partner and long-standing customer, the Costain Skanska Joint Venture (CSJV), for their work on the London Underground Bakerloo Line Link (BLL) project at Paddington Station.

The winners will be announced at the Digital Construction Awards on the 17th October – so wish us the best of luck!

Blockchain in construction

April 5, 2018April 4, 2018 by

Hype vs. Reality

In 2015 BaseStone was part of the Barclays Techstars accelerator program. This cohort was almost 50% blockchain* startups. Blockchain hype was not at the crazy levels it reached in 2017 and this cohort, which included EverLedger and Safello were tackling interesting problems rather than pushing pump and dump schemes to the masses as seems to be prevalent today.

At that time we speculated about blockchain in construction and we were sceptical. Not because of the lack of potential of the technology but because we saw the challenges in the industry as much more fundamental. Fast forward 30 months and blockchain is being mentioned as a solution for all ills in every industry and Construction is not exempt.

The issue for blockchain is the common one for new technologies. With a shiny new distributed ledger hammer every problem looks like a nail. Into the hype the BRE have dropped a refreshing dose of reality in their report: “Blockchain – feasibility and opportunity assessment available here. This is a hype free and measured review of the potential for blockchain technology. It examines a number of proposed applications and should be required reading as an antidote to the unconstrained hyperbole the industry has been subjected to recently. While the review is not exhaustive it assesses a number of the issues that impact technology adoption in construction in general and should not be ignored. Let us not forget that the blockchain technologies unlike BIM does not set out to solve any particular construction industry problem, and BIM adoption has not been without its problems. Use your favourite search engine to find articles on “problems adopting BIM”.

I am not here to damn the blockchain with faint praise, far from it. At BaseStone we see the potential that this technology has for addressing some fundamental issues within the industry. The BRE article examines the potential for Smart Contracts as made possible by the ethereum network. Ethereum has a more complete execution engine than Bitcoin that is in effect Turing-complete i.e. is almost a general purpose computer. We believe that the leap to replace JCT, NEC and other forms of contract with Smart Contracts is premature and potentially self defeating. The majority of the proposed benefits can be achieved with a different mechanism. In particular the use of sidechains would provide a distributed, semi-private consensus platform for evidencing project data. Such a platform, which could utilise Smart Contracts with limited scope, would provide the validation for payment stages which already form part of the standard contracts. If the industry was able to take this first step, perhaps we could set the groundwork for faster payments and smarter contracts which could benefit the whole industry.

BaseStone are members of the Construction Blockchain Consortium.

Dr. Simon McCabe
Chief Technology Officer
BaseStone

*A blockchain, originally block chain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”. More on Blockchain Wikipedia page.