Three General Contractors Agree on Technical Partnership in the Areas of Robot Construction and IoT

The three companies, Kajima Corporation (President, Yoshikazu Oshimi), Shimizu Corporation (President: Kazuyuki Inoue), and Takenaka Corporation (President: Masato Sasaki) have concluded a basic agreement concerning a technical partnership in the areas of robot construction and IoT. The goal of this agreement is to improve productivity and increase the attraction of the construction industry as a whole.

This technical partnership will include Shimizu as a new partner in the collaboration by Kajima and Takenaka in the areas, which began in December 2019. The target technologies are construction technologies related to robots, machinery and equipment, software, and IoT. In addition to joint research and development of new technologies, improving and upgrading of existing technologies, and the companies will engage in mutual use of existing robot technology and other technologies that have reached the level of practical application.

The construction industry is confronting the pressing challenges of securing new workers, improving productivity, and achieving workstyle reform to respond to the future shortage of workers due to a decline in the working-age population and the aging of skilled workers. General contractors are pursuing development of tools to support construction that utilize robots and IoT, but it is difficult for companies to recover the cost of development through mass production on their own, given the number of construction robots produced. This results in a high price tag for each robot and presents an obstacle to widespread use at job sites. Moreover, the increasing number of robot types means that the subcontractors who actually operate the robots need to learn how to operate new robots, and this is also hindering improvement in productivity.

The three companies will collaborate on these issues and jointly develop new robots and promote mutual use of existing robots. This will lead lower R&D expenses and robot production costs, and they aim to accelerate widespread use of construction robots. Effective use of advanced technology in this manner will substantially improve subcontractors’ productivity, improve work-life balance and benefits for skilled workers, and the companies believe that this will, by extension, encourage young people to enter construction companies and contribute to improving the attractiveness of the construction industry.

The three companies will pursue collaboration based on this agreement, and will influence the entire industry to engage in a broad range of technical partnerships to solve the various issues confronting the construction industry.