Q&A with COMIT's chairman

COMIT (Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT) aims to prove the cost benefits of using mobile communications. It began as a two-year R&D project, part funded by the DTI, but the sponsorship finished in September 2005. However, the organisation has won over 40 members and continues its work.

How did COMIT start?

COMIT comes from a similar background as Constructing Excellence, and emerged from one of the eight Egan principles. We’re part of the technology/collaborative working theme.

We began in August 2003, and became self funded in September 2005.

It was initially led by Arup, in partnership with BSRIA (Building Services Research and Information Association) and Loughborough University.

How did you get involved?

I’m the IT manager at Jackson Civil Engineering, which joined COMIT in Aug 2003. I wasn’t expecting to be elected chairman, and it was all a bit daunting at first. I’m one year in to my two-year tenure.

What’s the next big thing, technology wise?

It was PDAs, but it varies so much. It still is PDAs to some extent, but now there’s digital pen and paper. It goes back to culture – give someone on site who’s not that technologically aware a PDA and straight away you have a barrier to overcome. But with the pen and paper, you’re not changing the way that the person usually works. That person will still sign things in the same way as before, but the signatures will be captured electronically – there’s no need to fax anything.

Global Positioning System is also a big area. There should be a tie up between Ordinance Survey (online mapping) and GPS that would help construction in areas where you can’t get a signal.

What’s been the toughest struggle so far?

The nature of the construction industry - risk averse and low margins. R&D isn’t great. People wait for others to try something new first, to see if something actually works, and then learn from other people’s mistakes. But if everyone has this attitude, you get nowhere. We want people to come together, share the risk. We’ll test new methods, relay the results to the industry to prove it saves money. We want to become a centre of excellence.

How are you showing the benefits?

You can see eight case studies on our website (www.comitproject.org.uk). All the studies were a success. The costs varied from £7,400 to £135,000 and the return on investement payback period was attained in a year.

Are there any technical problems with mobile devices?

Well, we work with steel cabinets a lot. Sometimes the quality of signals with mobile devices is variable. It’s not a problem for the big firms, like Skanska or O’Rourke. They can afford to use satellite. But for medium/small firms that’s not commercially viable.

What projects are next then?

Some of the projects being worked upon include quality inspections at Heathrow’s T5, rapid site set-up and RFID in construction.

We’ll also research cultural aspects. I’ll give you an example. One group of maintenance engineers at Taylor Woodrow used to meet up to be given their drawings, but were then given PDAs to use. The efficiency went up at first, as they saved time, but then dropped as they began to feel isolated. They used to enjoy meeting up, talking about the jobs they’d done.

Will your work help PMs or QSs?

We’ve had projects that look at maintenance inspections, monitoring progress, site design and problem resolution. Methods traditionally have been largely paper based. For example, if someone is doing an inspection, they’ll have a laptop, camera, and mobile phone. But if you use a PDA, it can do all of this in one – it’s a logical step forward.