— 6 min read
How Data Is Revolutionizing the Future of Construction (But Only if We Use It)
Last Updated Aug 18, 2025
Israel Simmons
Civil & Infrastructure Solutions Specialist
Israel Simmons, DBIA, CCM, PMP is a seasoned construction professional with over 12 years of leadership experience delivering over $3 billion in complex civil and infrastructure projects across the U.S. His diverse portfolio spans major freeways, bridges, rail, wastewater treatment plants, aviation, and more. He joined Procore to help transform the construction industry through a unified, integrated platform that streamlines project execution from start to finish. Israel earned a bachelor’s degree in construction management with minors in Business Administration and Communications from Drexel University.
Marlissa Collier
23 articles
Marlissa Collier is a journalist whose work focuses on the intersections of business, technology, policy and culture. Her work has been featured in digital and print formats with publications such as the Dallas Weekly, XO Necole, NBCU Comcast, the Dallas Nomad, CNBC, Word in Black and Dallas Free Press. Marlissa holds an undergraduate degree in Construction Engineering from California State University, Long Beach and an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.
Last Updated Aug 18, 2025

For centuries, the construction industry was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the tangible. Think visible materials, roaring machinery and the undeniable grit of folks who actually built things. Today, though, there’s a new, somewhat quieter, yet infinitely more powerful force reshaping every facet of our built environment: data.
It's no longer just a spreadsheet: Data is the very bedrock upon which efficient, sustainable — and most importantly — smarter cities are being erected. But while this industry now produces data at an unprecedented speed, many firms are still scrolling past its most impactful potential.
Table of contents
An Unused Goldmine: Why Construction Data Sits Idle
Traditional construction often moved at the pace of a heavily laden concrete mixer, relying on gut feelings and reactive problem-solving. While human intuition remains invaluable, modern technology now allows us to couple that real talent with real-time, objective data insights.
Today, construction sites are data factories. Affordable, robust sensor technology tracks everything from equipment utilization and material inventory to environmental conditions and the precise temperature of curing concrete. These leaps promise not just efficiency gains, but the foundational intelligence needed for truly smarter building practices.
The industry's biggest missed opportunity is that most of this goldmine sits dormant. That sophisticated telematics system on your excavator? It’s likely only checked when someone forgets where the bulldozer was parked, or when a major breakdown forces a reactive inquiry.
Contractors have to get better with data. We need to help them understand how to process and digest it to gain actionable insights. It's a very precious resource that folks aren't using.
Israel Simmons
Civil & Infrastructure Solutions Specialist
Procore Technologies
The Rise of the Intelligent Jobsite
The true power of data in construction extends far beyond marginal gains in individual projects: It's about embedding intelligence from the ground up, laying the literal groundwork for the smart cities of tomorrow. Traditional construction has historically relied on reactive problem-solving.
But the advent of affordable, robust sensor technology is ushering in an era of unprecedented real-time visibility, while analytics and project management tools are fundamentally altering how we build and, by extension, how our urban environments function.
Imagine construction sites as intelligent hubs: a dynamic convergence of information where sensors monitor everything from granular equipment utilization and dynamic material inventory to real-time environmental conditions and direct feedback on material curing.
Importantly, this data is augmented by vital inputs from project professionals themselves — from workforce availability, efficiency metrics and daily output, to comprehensive safety information.
Laying a Smarter Foundation with Data
Fortunately for the builders of today, the technology needed to gather and make sense of this tapestry of data exists.
When properly leveraged, this rich, multi-faceted information moves beyond simple record-keeping, instead painting a vivid, real-time picture colored in with data. It becomes a live operational blueprint, enabling builders to make instant, data-driven decisions that optimize resource allocation, reduce waste and accelerate timelines with surgical precision.
Harnessing aggregated data from past projects is helping shift the industry from a reactive, problem-solving model to a predictive, preventative one. Instead of relying on intuition or "gut feelings," companies can use a wealth of historical information to make evidence-based decisions that mitigate risk — and boost profitability.
Down the line, this aggregated data feeds into strategic planning, allowing for more informed, proactive decisions that contribute to the creation of truly smarter, more resilient cities.
Consider the monumental NEOM project in Saudi Arabia. Here, FCC Construction’s deployment of Giatec's SmartRock sensors monitored concrete curing in critical tunnels. This delivered real-time, precise insights into concrete strength development, allowing for exact formwork removal schedules and ensuring the foundational elements of a massively complex, interconnected city were engineered with accuracy.
Data from buildings, along with data from traffic sensors, utility grids and public transport systems, creates a truly "responsive" city. This means infrastructure can react in real time to a changing environment.
How Integrated Platforms Drive Smarter Construction and Smarter Cities
The fragmentation of information is a pervasive challenge. Because companies might use various systems to track equipment or capture site data, information often remains siloed.
Consequently, this data being too siloed means it can't influence what may be critical decisions in the process, from equipment allocation to proactively scheduling maintenance. Similarly, valuable sensor data often only materializes when funneled into a single, cohesive platform.
The vast streams of data flowing from drones, site cameras and daily reports are often siloed, unanalyzed or flat-out ignored. This isn't just a minor oversight. It's a critical bottleneck preventing the industry from reaching its smarter potential.
Israel Simmons
Civil & Infrastructure Solutions Specialist
Procore Technologies
This is where a new generation of integrated digital solutions proves transformative. These platforms act like a central hub, collecting, organizing and analyzing data from every part of a project. Imagine a world where:
- Building Information Modeling (BIM) data seamlessly flows to the jobsite, allowing teams to confirm information in real time and find mistakes right away, helping to avoid expensive rework.
- Real-time site data (from sensors, telematics, drones, daily reports) feeds directly into one dashboard, giving a team one complete, live picture of operations.
- Predictive analytics, powered by aggregated historical data, can accurately forecast potential risks and identify cost overruns before they escalate, creating a proactive risk mitigation framework.
- Resource optimization becomes data-driven, allowing firms to understand exactly how often and for what duration different assets are utilized across their portfolio. This informs strategic procurement, allowing companies to lease specialized equipment only when needed rather than making costly purchases, leading to substantial savings. Historical data can even predict equipment breakdowns, minimizing unplanned downtime and keeping projects on schedule.
Case Study: A Data-Driven Approach to Construction
Harkins Builders — a construction company specializing in multifamily, commercial and government projects — found that its team was spending a significant amount of time on manual data entry between systems. But after adopting construction management software, the company was able to eliminate the need for an entire department dedicated to this double data entry.
With an integrated software solution, the firm achieved:
- Peak Financial Visibility: Project managers gained a complete and current view of all project costs in near-real time.
- Improved Safety: Harkins' teams were able to flag high-risk areas and move from a reactive to a proactive safety strategy, all by analyzing safety data collected in the platform.
- Boosted Efficiency: The company was able to centralize its data, which previously was siloed, to create a more efficient and standardized workflow across all projects and teams.
Embracing the Data-driven Revolution
The world is undergoing a data-driven revolution. The construction industry is no exception. And the potential for unparalleled efficiency, significant cost reductions, enhanced safety and truly sustainable, intelligent environments is immense.
However, this potential will only be fully realized when construction firms move beyond simply collecting data and actively embrace its comprehensive analysis and intelligent application. The future belongs to those who can effectively harness the power of their data to build smarter.
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Written by
Israel Simmons
Civil & Infrastructure Solutions Specialist | Procore Technologies
Israel Simmons, DBIA, CCM, PMP is a seasoned construction professional with over 12 years of leadership experience delivering over $3 billion in complex civil and infrastructure projects across the U.S. His diverse portfolio spans major freeways, bridges, rail, wastewater treatment plants, aviation, and more. He joined Procore to help transform the construction industry through a unified, integrated platform that streamlines project execution from start to finish. Israel earned a bachelor’s degree in construction management with minors in Business Administration and Communications from Drexel University.
View profileMarlissa Collier
23 articles
Marlissa Collier is a journalist whose work focuses on the intersections of business, technology, policy and culture. Her work has been featured in digital and print formats with publications such as the Dallas Weekly, XO Necole, NBCU Comcast, the Dallas Nomad, CNBC, Word in Black and Dallas Free Press. Marlissa holds an undergraduate degree in Construction Engineering from California State University, Long Beach and an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.
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