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| Davies discusses what can drive digital transformation. |
Cloud computing can be used for the heavy lifting required in digital transformation, said Simon Davies, VP, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Asia.
He shared that the results of a Microsoft survey, where:
- Eight in 10 of business leaders agreed that every organisation needs to transform into a digital business to enable growth, and
- Eight in 10 (79%) agreed that new data nsights can lead to new data streams. However,
- Seven in 10 (71%) recognised they do not have a full digital strategy in place, with
- Two in 10 (22%) saying they have a limited or even no strategy in place.
Asian success stories with Azure, Microsoft's cloud solution, include Oyanagi Construction in Japan, and ICRISAT India, Davies said. "(Cloud is) delivering great impact right across the board," he said.
Oyanagi Construction Co., Ltd. and Microsoft Japan have partnered on Holostruction, a project that will make use of Microsoft HoloLens, the world’s first self-contained Windows 10-powered holographic computer, to improve productivity and traceability.
Because devices like the HoloLens would enable online conferencing between geographically-separated employees while sharing the same mixed reality world, Oyanagi Construction realised from even before the product's release in Japan that HoloLens and Microsoft cloud services could be used to resolve or mitigate a wide range of construction industry issues. The company joined Microsoft’s global HoloLens development programme, and has worked with Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft Japan’s consulting services to develop its concept models.
Three concept models are being developed with the HoloLens under Holostruction:
As a construction company, Oyanagi Construction will be required to digitise a wide variety of data to ensure transparency of its projects and operations in line with the Japanese government’s i-Construction initiative. Oyanagi Construction has developed a concept model that visually ensures operations traceability, including a mechanism for dynamically displaying reference materials according to the date chosen by the user on a timeline slider.
Oyanagi Construction is also developing new, intuitive inspection standards that make use of building information modelling and construction information modelling (BIM/CIM) methodology that simplify document preparation. For this concept model, the company is making 3D visualisation of blueprints a reality. With BIM, the data and documents required for inspection are integrated with the 3D model so that they can be promptly displayed whenever needed.
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| Source: Microsoft. Oyanagi Construction isusing the HoloLens to associate data with a BIM model. |
The third concept model allows virtual walkthroughs of life-sized scale models of construction environments.
Davies also shared how International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), working with Microsoft and the Andhra Pradesh government in India, used the cloud and digital technologies to reach out to farmers who are not technically savvy.
"These people don't have smartphones. They're using SMS technology to interact," Davies pointed out.
ICRISAT adopted Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite including machine learning and Power BI to create a Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard displaying insights around soil health, fertiliser recommendations, and seven-day weather forecasts derived from the world’s best available weather observations systems and global forecast models. The data was then scaled down to the village level to help smallholder farmers plant more effectively.
During the pilot, farmers were sent sowing recommendations via SMS in the Telugu language, including information such as seed treatment, optimum sowing depth, and land preparation. Registered farmers who did the sowing in the last week of June and managed their crop according to the weather-based advisories provided by ICRISAT and Microsoft throughout the crop-growing period achieved 30% higher average crop yields per hectare. In contrast those who were not in the programme and who had sowed earlier received meagre yields.
Explore:
Watch the video introducing Holostruction at Oyanagi Construction Japan
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