GineersNow Construction magazine Dec2019 hardware, civil engineers, heavy equipment, machinery, BIM, infrastructure, mining, pipes contractor cement building materials tool EPC, contractors

work, eventually increasing
productivity and profit.
Having robots do all the
tedious work does mean less
work for humans, but
transitioning from manual labor
(mixing cement, leveling the
ground, etc.) to supervisory
work (operate the robot, do
basic troubleshooting) means
a lot of retraining as well. At
Berich Masonry, Colorado,
their workers were trained for
several weeks on the
know-how of operating a
Semi-Automated Mason
(SAM), a robot equipped with
mechanical arms which
basically lays bricks
autonomously. Although SAM,
a product of New York-based
Construction Robotics, Victor,
costs $400,000, it will
eventually pay off as it can do
the job of a regular mason
several times faster.
Apparently, it can lay roughly
3,000 bricks within eight hours.
That being said, skilled
bricklayers welcome the
change and are not, in any
way, threatened that the
robot will replace them anytime
soon. As per the International
Union of Bricklayers and Allied
Craftworkers, SAM is still not
fully capable compared to a
regular bricklayer.
Not only huge machines are of
use in this industry, but even
drones also serve a purpose in
surveying. A company in
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