Use of AI in the construction and planning industry (PLANIUM and WAIYS)

Changes to plans are part of everyday life in almost every construction project. Until now, new drawing statuses often had to be manually compared with previous versions. BIM systems are not yet used in many projects. Especially in the implementation planning of extensive projects and a high number of planning statuses, this results in considerable testing and coordination effort in construction planning and project management.

WAIYS' DeltaPlan automates large parts of this process. AI-powered visual analysis detects changes between drawing revisions, identifies revision and annotation clouds, among other things, and directly compares the respective changes in focused sections. Related comments are automatically assigned to the detected changes. In addition, the solution extracts structured information from technical drawings and plan documents and makes it usable for further analysis during project execution.

The final quality check remains in the hands of experienced colleagues. The tool directs the view specifically to the relevant points and shows where plan statuses or planning updates do not match and still need to be consolidated.

The structured compilation reduces the analysis effort many times over. This avoids errors and gives the project participants more time for the questions that require experience: compliance with standards, effects on costs and deadlines, and the contractual evaluation of planning changes.

"Especially in complex planning processes, errors or delays do not occur because of a lack of expertise, but because large amounts of information have to be checked and compared with each other within a short time. This is where AI can relieve project teams and also reduce the risk of overlooking relevant changes," says Marie Andrea Stenfeldt, CEO of WAIYS. "Our aim is not to automate planning decisions. We want to provide experts with the information they need to make these decisions faster and more comprehensibly."

PLANIUM comprises seven specialized companies at eleven locations in Germany with a total of around 350 employees. The group covers services ranging from early consulting to architecture and technical building services to construction management and operational support. The group also includes Hamburg-based sh+ GmbH, which specializes in project management, project control and real estate consulting.

"A plan revision is not just about determining that something has changed. It is crucial to quickly identify the relevant changes and to be able to evaluate their impact on deadlines, costs and further planning processes. If AI relieves us of a large part of the manual comparison work, our experts gain time for this important assessment," says Barbara Vagt, Managing Director of PLANIUM GmbH.

The use at PLANIUM is a promising pilot project. In addition to the joint further development of the planning review software, add-ons for further review processes are also under development. The aim here is also to reduce the standard processes for engineers through AI in order to create space for analysis and strategy consulting.

In addition to comparing plan revisions, the solution can also include planning law information on properties, such as types of use, zoning or building restrictions. To do this, it draws on official planning data in Germany and Norway.

Technically, DeltaPlan is not based on a single AI model. WAIYS combines classic graphical analysis methods with specialized AI agents that come into play where complex plan elements need to be reliably recognized. Text, tables and graphical information are first recorded in a structured manner and then processed in a contextual manner. Recognized plan elements are compared across the plan statuses and displayed in a structured overview – from the overall overview to the individual changed element. The AI models used are selected in a performance- and cost-optimized manner depending on the task.

WAIYS and PLANIUM will both be present at EXPO REAL in Munich from 5 to 7 October. At the WAIYS booth (TB48 in Hall A3), DeltaPlan and other agents of the WAIYS platform will be presented, and the humanoid robot Ameca will also be on display as a showcase.