Using tech, AI to make development jobs enchantment to ladies – DW – 04/20/2025 | EUROtoday

Larissa Zeichhardt employs a robotic canine at her development firm — a four-legged machine geared up with numerous cameras and sensors to doc the day by day work executed on the Berlin-based enterprise LAT.

LAT focuses on laying high-voltage cables alongside railway tracks, and Zeichhardt says none of her 130 workers is actually eager on getting again to the workplace to put in writing down what’s been executed after a full shift on the development web site. But with out correct documentation, the subsequent shift would not know precisely the place the cables are positioned, she advised DW.

This is the place LAT’s new robo-dog comes into play, because the high-tech cell machine begins to roam alongside the tracks, data areas and transmits the info straight right into a digital 3D mannequin of the construction, permitting human colleagues entry to it.

This type of automated information assortment additionally helps forestall injury to the cables that ultimately may result in energy outages and expensive repairs if their actual location is not recognized.

A ‘sisterhood’ of entrepreneurs

Zeichhardt and her sister Arabelle Laternser took over the medium-sized household enterprise a decade in the past after their father’s sudden dying. Their enthusiasm for contemporary know-how, made them enterprise into digitally reworking the old style development enterprise.

Zeichhardt stated the transformation was additionally partly born out of sheer necessity.

The electrical engineer by career was pregnant when their father died, and her sister saved bringing new paperwork dwelling for her to signal. Eventually, the pair grew uninterested in lugging round binders and determined to digitize the complete administration so they might work from wherever.

The workers out within the area additionally use digital apps for documentation, software administration and work security paperwork, which have since been consolidated in a construction-site database.

“Our working hours are tough,” Zeichhardt advised DW, and the executive work typically must be executed at evening, on weekends or throughout holidays. That’s why she tries to alleviate her staff of paperwork wherever doable..

Construction nonetheless no job for ladies

The development business has a popularity for being soiled, loud, male-dominated and technologically conservative. Issues like excessive waste manufacturing and carbon emissions are persistent challenges.

The business’s greatest drawback is the scarcity of expert labor. According to the German Construction Industry Association (HDB), 1 / 4 of expert development staff will retire throughout the subsequent decade. However, youthful staff — particularly ladies — are few and much between within the years to return.

The development sector, in keeping with HDB, has the fewest feminine workers in Germany, at simply 14%. Even years of robust financial development within the business, with good incomes potential, haven’t made a lot of a distinction.

In trades that require heavy guide work similar to bricklaying, highway restore and underground development, solely 2% of staff are ladies — a determine that has barely elevated for the previous 20 years, HDB information present. In planning and supervising tasks, nonetheless, the proportion of girls is a barely higher 28%.

After all, transferring from development web site to development web site, which is a part of the job, is tough to reconcile with household life. An web marketing campaign supported by the development business and referred to as WIR.KÖNNEN.BAU in German (We can development) seeks to draw extra ladies to development careers and requires extra versatile hours, little one care help, and distant work choices.

Despite being a “small company that doesn’t invest heavily in recruitment,” Zeichhardt stated LAT obtained plenty of “impressive applications” from ladies and younger folks. She attributed this to the corporate’s fashionable picture, which has already received awards for family-friendliness, and for tasks with startups.

Never bothered by being ‘the one ladies’

Bianca Weber-Lewerenz advised DW that digitization and synthetic intelligence (AI) are creating new roles for ladies in development.

Weber-Lewerenz herself grew to become the primary feminine mason within the regional German state of Baden-Württemberg in 1997, simply three years after then West Germany lifted its ban on ladies engaged on development websites.

Having discovered the bricklayer commerce from the bottom up helps the development engineer — who now holds a PhD — persuade complete workforces that development, ladies and AI are an ideal match.

“Back then, crane technology relieved us from heavy physical work. It’s the same with AI now,” she stated. “When I’ve laid pipes, I take a photo and send it to the billing department. Thanks to AI image recognition, they can immediately generate an invoice because the completed section is identified.”

Such duties — in addition to taking measurements, planning and design — may be effectively dealt with from a house workplace, she stated. Though, she stated, an architect or engineer should be on-site at occasions. “But the only question is how often and for how long.”

Weber-Lewerenz stated being the one girl amongst males by no means bothered her throughout her profession. She stated she remained pals together with her former supervisor.

“The men were amazed to see the first female apprentice mason on a construction site. Little by little, they started trusting me with physically demanding tasks. Men respect women who can handle tough conditions outside in all weather and who have a plan.”

Weber-Lewerenz stated fashionable instruments meant that modern development requires a lot much less muscle. As a mentor throughout the so-called Spitzenfrauen  group of prime feminine leaders in Germany, she additionally advises feminine college students occupied with development careers.

Making efficient use of AI

Great hopes are being positioned on BIM (Building Information Modeling)  — a digital platform more and more seen on German development websites that provides all trades concerned in a mission entry to documentation.

Weber-Lewerenz stated BIM simplified communication and “prevents a lot of chaos and conflict.”

“My focus is on identifying the tools that make sense for a company, that allow machines to take over heavy and monotonous tasks, build more efficiently, reduce material waste and protect data,” she stated, including that this could reinforce the business’s “core values of appreciation, reliability and quality.”

In 2020, she launched a so-called Initiative for Excellence that goals to advertise “sustainable, human-led AI in construction.” The initiative has made her a pioneer in linking ethics, AI, and development, and has since gained help from the German development business and past.

This article was initially written in German.