Buildots digital twins aid Helsinki construction projects
- February 22, 2022
- Steve Rogerson

NCC Finland is using technology from Israeli AI start-up Buildots to provide objective, data-backed insights to contractors and project managers on two construction projects.
The first is an 8000m2 residential project and the second a 9000m2 commercial project, both in Helsinki.
NCC is one of the leading construction companies in the Nordics and the first company in Finland to introduce Buildots across the entire indoor construction phase of any project. From the fit-out stage to handover, AI technology has improved NCC’s situational awareness at the sites and is keeping track of produced quantities of indoor works.
Using Buildots’ hardhat mounted cameras, NCC captures every detail of the construction site indoors during regular site walks. Buildots software creates a dynamic digital twin of the site so NCC gets an entirely accurate and objective view of construction advances, which it can then compare with the existing BIM model.
Unlike the standard method of relying on time-consuming manual tracking and self-reporting by trades, the digital method allows NCC to set realistic goals and then continuously measure performance based on real-time information. Access to a single source of truth also means NCC can keep track of issues without the risk of anything falling through the cracks. All this has freed up time from site engineers’ schedules, allowing them to focus on other critical areas.
“We are able to give more transparent and reliable information to our customers about the construction progression,” said Jari Valo, head of strategy and project support at NCC Finland. “Buildots supports our site digitalisation strategy, where we are seeking completely new ways of working at our construction sites.”
Aino Salmi, a site engineer at NCC Finland, who has done progress tracking manually as a part of her masters thesis, is also involved in these pilots.
“Using Buildots saves time on weekly schedule tracking to produce quantities at the site, and gives more detailed and accurate information than the traditional way of estimating produced quantities,” she said. “Buildots also enables us to monitor the quality of installations by flagging instances in which something is installed incorrectly compared to BIM. This is something we got as a bonus because this pilot was mainly focussed on new solutions for situational awareness at our worksites.”
Nithesh Frei Nadarajah, digital engineer at NCC Finland, added: “Using the Buildots platform has transformed the way our site manager oversees the project. Instead of spending hours tracking the construction site with 2D plans and taking notes manually, we are now able to shift some of our focus to issues like safety and quality, freeing up valuable human resources. The introduction of technologies like Buildots into the construction industry is changing how managers approach the construction process. We are now able to achieve more in less time.”
And Roy Danon, CEO of Buildots, said: “NCC understands the power of technology in the construction space, so we are honoured that such a respected construction company chose to pilot Buildots’ digital solution on these two projects in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Working on multiple projects simultaneously while also keeping track of worksite progress can be challenging. We were able to provide NCC with a single-source-of-truth that has changed the way they can manage their projects.”
NCC Finland will continue using Buildots in the We Land office building project in Helsinki this year.
Buildots is a Tel Aviv and London-based start-up leveraging the power of AI and computer vision to modernise the construction management industry. It uses hardhat-mounted cameras to capture imaging of every detail of an ongoing project during regular site walks. The data are then analysed using AI models to transform random visual data into accurate, actionable insights that are correlated with the project’s designs and schedule.