What is the future vision of i-Construction 2.0? Reading changes toward 2040

The background that requires this long-term perspective is the simultaneous progression of a labor shortage in the construction industry and the aging of infrastructure. As of 2024, the proportion of workers aged 55 and over in construction is 36.7%, and the proportion aged 29 and under is 11.7%—the industry is older and has a smaller share of young people than the overall industrial average. Furthermore, by March 2040 the share of social infrastructure that has been in service for more than 50 years after construction is expected to rise to about 75% for road bridges, about 52% for tunnels, and about 65% for river management facilities. In Japan, where population decline and aging are advancing, it will be difficult to maintain infrastructure using traditional labor-intensive methods alone, and it will be necessary to change the way construction is done.

Table of Contents

• Why do we have to look to 2040 now?

• i-Construction 2.0 is not an extension of the past but a shift to automation

• Five changes that will occur at construction sites in 2040

• How will the role of the site and the work of practitioners change?

• What companies should start preparing for now toward 2040

• Realistic first steps for small and medium-sized enterprises and site personnel

• Conclusion

Why do we have to look to 2040 now?

Another important point is that many of the problems that will occur in 2040 have already begun. Population decline is not a future forecast but an ongoing reality, and the White Paper on Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism repeatedly points out the aging of workers and the future decline of the working-age population as issues. Even in i-Construction 2.0 documents, while infrastructure aging progresses, it is summarized that in one-quarter of municipalities nationwide there are no technical staff assigned, raising questions not only about construction but about the sustainability of maintenance systems themselves. In other words, looking to 2040 is not daydreaming about 20 years ahead, but reworking site operations by working backward from constraints that have already begun.

i-Construction 2.0 is not an extension of the past but a shift to automation

However, the policy focus has changed here. It has become clear that merely expanding ICT devices and 3D data along the traditional trajectory will not be enough to cope with the coming labor shortage and aging demand. i-Construction 2.0 indicates a direction to automate construction sites themselves through three pillars: “automation of construction,” “automation of data linkage,” and “automation of construction management.” The important point here is that the objective is not simply to replace paper with digital. The design philosophy has shifted to reduce repetitive tasks, duplicate data entry, travel, attendance, document organization, and waiting for confirmations that people perform on site, so that humans can concentrate on judgment, management, exception handling, and overall optimization. This change in design philosophy is the essence of i-Construction 2.0.

Five changes that will occur at construction sites in 2040

The second change is that the “data walls” between investigation, surveying, design, cost estimation, construction, and maintenance will become thinner. i-Construction 2.0 emphasizes linkage across the entire construction production process centered on BIM/CIM: from geological surveys to design, survey results to preliminary design, 3D models to contract documents and cost estimation, and construction data to maintenance. This will reduce losses such as retyping the same information multiple times, transcribing from paper drawings to other forms, and re-explaining things every time personnel change. At sites in 2040, deliverables will not be materials submitted and finished, but operational data used as-is by the next process.

The third change is that construction management and inspection will no longer be “tasks that cannot proceed unless you go to the site.” Policy documents show expansion of remote supervisory inspections, measurement via image analysis, robotic equipment inspections, and the development of high-speed, high-capacity communication environments. This is not merely about reducing travel time. It means reducing attendance for confirmation only, making the necessary decisions on site, and proceeding with everything else from the office or other locations. At sites in 2040, the value of supervision and inspection will be replaced from “were you physically at the site?” to “were you able to see the necessary data and make appropriate judgments?”

The fourth change is that the actual amount of work performed on site will decrease, and the proportion of factory and preparatory work will increase. i-Construction 2.0 promotes the use of precast elements, reducing cast-in-place work, and the ideas of standardization and normalization. This not only reduces onsite manpower but also suppresses quality variation and reduces dependence on weather and worker skill. In other words, construction management in 2040 will not be sustained by effort on site alone. It will be more important to standardize components and dimensions at the design stage and to be able to assemble ahead of time, including transport and installation—that is, to read the entire supply chain.

The fifth change is that project completion will no longer be the endpoint; data organized with maintenance in mind will become standard. By 2040 the share of aging infrastructure will increase greatly, and construction work will shift more toward “keeping things in use longer” than “building new things.” Therefore, as-built records, positional information, 3D models, point clouds, photos, and sensor information will become the basis for preventive maintenance rather than mere completion evidence. In the future, construction companies and site personnel will need to design data not for what to leave at completion, but for who will use it and how 10 or 20 years later. i-Construction 2.0 is both an efficiency measure for construction and the creation of an information foundation for the maintenance era.

How will the role of the site and the work of practitioners change?

Amid these changes, the amount of work for people on site will not decrease so much as change in content. Tasks that previously took up much time—travel, attendance, duplicate data entry, document organization, simple machine operations, and checking paper materials—will shrink. Instead, the proportion of judgment tasks will increase: which data to trust, when to issue corrective decisions, how to isolate when exceptions occur, and how to synchronize information between the site, office work, and partner companies. i-Construction 2.0 aims for productive sites where a small number of people can work safely and comfortably, so it assumes not only reducing workers but shifting the work focus to higher-value judgment.

Furthermore, what will become important is not preserving veteran instincts but translating them into reproducible forms. The more construction automation progresses, the more safety conditions, allowable tolerances, construction sequences, and verification points must be verbalized, made into rules, and converted into shareable formats. This is not merely creating manuals. It is the work of turning on-site experience into a common language that spans design, construction, inspection, and maintenance. The success of i-Construction 2.0 depends not only on the speed of technology introduction but also on whether on-site knowledge can be inherited both as data and in operational practice.

What companies should start preparing for now toward 2040

What companies should tackle first with 2040 in mind is not to introduce new machines all at once, but to review data flows. Simply identifying where information is interrupted among investigation, surveying, design, construction, inspection, and maintenance; where the same content is entered twice; and where things revert to paper will reveal starting points for improvement. The core of i-Construction 2.0 is to organize the information needed at each stage and build an information-sharing platform that stakeholders can easily share. In other words, future automation does not start with machine introduction but with first reducing information round trips.

Next, it is necessary to change the concept of deliverables. In conventional construction sites, producing submission forms and drawings has often been treated as the work boundary. But going forward, 3D models will be used in contract documents, survey results will flow into design, and construction data will be used directly for inspection and maintenance. That means being able to submit is no longer sufficient; quality will be judged by whether the next process can use the data as-is. It is important to standardize formats so that file names, coordinate systems, attribute information, photo positioning, and methods of organizing as-built data are transferable. On the regulatory side, the institutionalization of BIM/CIM is advancing, and postponing preparation will create larger rework in the future.

Also, on-site labor reduction cannot be realized by the site alone. The more precast, remote inspection, and off-site work progress, the more coordination among design, procurement, construction, inspection, and client response will be required. In other words, responding to i-Construction 2.0 is not a theme to leave solely to site personnel but is an operational design for the entire company. Practically, it is realistic to first narrow target work types and standardize recurring tasks. For example, digitalizing highly repetitive tasks such as initial survey, as-built confirmation, rebar inspection, progress recording, and 3D records at completion will create reproducible patterns within the company. Preparation for the future means increasing small but functioning standards more than launching grand plans.

Realistic first steps for small and medium-sized enterprises and site personnel

With that in mind, what is easy to adopt on current sites and connects naturally to the 2040 trend is improving the accuracy of daily measuring, recording, and sharing. For example, by using iPhone-attached GNSS high-precision positioning devices such as LRTK, it becomes easier for a small number of people to handle position acquisition on site, photo positioning, simple surveying, and entry-level as-built confirmation. The important point is not merely using convenient devices. It is being able to accumulate site data with coordinates now in a way that will endure future automation and data linkage. Since the essence of i-Construction 2.0 is to transform construction sites into data-connected production systems, site-originated high-precision data acquisition like LRTK is very well suited as a foundation.

Conclusion

If you were to express the future vision of i-Construction 2.0 in one phrase, it is transforming construction sites from “places where people work hard to keep things running” into “production systems operated safely and efficiently by a small number of people using data.” The targets of a 30% reduction in manpower and 1.5-times productivity by fiscal 2040 are only symbolic numbers. The actual changes that will occur are automation of construction, cross-process data linkage, remote construction management, off-site work, and information organization with maintenance in mind. Behind this are unavoidable realities: intensifying labor shortages and increasing aging infrastructure. i-Construction 2.0 is not a future-oriented slogan but a realistic redesign for the sustainability of the construction industry.

That is why it is important not to overcomplicate the starting point for response. There is no need to create a 2040-spec site overnight. First, start by preserving position information, photos, point clouds, and as-built data on site in a usable form. Those accumulations will connect to future BIM/CIM utilization, remote construction management, and handover to maintenance. If you bring i-Construction 2.0 down to your company’s reality, a meaningful first step is to use LRTK and begin improving on-site data accuracy from simple surveying. The changes toward 2040 do not exist only in distant policy documents; they have already begun in the choices made today on which data to preserve at the site.