Imagine that you are building a residential complex, but each team has its own project. Some are building walls, others are laying communications, and others are paving roads without checking with each other. As a result, the pipes do not match the openings in the walls, the elevator shafts do not correspond to the storeys, and the roads have to be dismantled and re-laid.
This situation is not just a hypothetical scenario, but a reality of many modern construction projects. Due to the large number of general and subcontractors working with different systems and without a single coordinating center, the process turns into a series of endless approvals, rework and conflicts. All of this leads to significant delays and multiple project costs.
A classic situation on a construction site is a simple one: the formwork is ready, but the delivery of reinforcement has not arrived on time. When checking information in various systems, the communication is roughly as follows:
The foreman at the construction site on the 20th writes to the project manager, “We finished setting the formwork, where are the rebar?”
Project Manager (PMIS) to the Procurement Department: – “The formwork is ready. In my [PMIS] system, the rebar was supposed to arrive on the 18th. Where are the rebar?”
Supply Chain Specialist (ERP): – “Our ERP says delivery will be on the 25th”
Data Engineer or IT (responsible for integrations): – “In PMIS the date is on the 18th, in ERP it is on the 25th. There is no OrderID link between ERP and PMIS, so the data is not synchronized. This is a typical example of an information gap“.
Project manager to general director – “The delivery of fittings is delayed, the site is standing, and who is responsible is unclear”.
The cause of the incident was the isolation of data in disparate systems. By integrating and unifying data sources, creating a single repository of information, and automating through ETL – tools (Apache NiFi, Airflow, or n8n), the silos between systems can be eliminated. These and other methods and tools will be discussed in detail in later sections of the book.
It’s the same with enterprise systems: first you create isolated solutions, and then you have to spend huge budgets to integrate and harmonize them. If data and communication models had been thought through from the start, there would be no need for integration at all. Siloed data creates chaos in the digital world, like an uncoordinated construction process.
According to KPMG’s 2023 study “Cue construction 4.0: Time to make or break”, only 36% of companies share data effectively across departments, while 61% face serious problems due to isolated data “silos” (KPMG, “Cue Construction 4.0: Make-or-Break Time,” 1 Jan. 2023).
Company data is stored in isolated systems, like individual trees scattered across the landscape. Each contains valuable information, but the lack of connections between them prevents the creation of a single, interconnected ecosystem. This siloing hinders the flow of data and limits the organization’s ability to see the full picture. Connecting these silos is an extremely long and complex process of growing mushroom mycelium at the management level to learn how to transfer individual pieces of information between systems.
According to a 2016 WEF study, one of the main barriers to digital transformation is the lack of common data standards and fragmentation.
The construction industry is one of the most fragmented in the world and depends on the smooth interaction of all participants in the value chain (W. E. Forum, “Forum Shaping the Future of Construction – A Landscape in Transformation:,” January 1, 2016).
– World Economic Forum Report “Shaping the Future of Construction”
Designers, managers, coordinators and developers often prefer to work autonomously, avoiding the complexities of coordination. This natural inclination leads to the creation of information “silos” in which data is isolated within separate systems. The more such isolated systems there are, the more difficult it is to get them to work together. Over time, each system gets its own database and a specialized support department of managers (Fig. 1.2-4), further complicating integration.
The vicious circle in corporate systems looks like this: companies invest in complex iso customized solutions, then face high costs for their integration, and developers, realizing the complexity of combining systems, prefer to work in their closed ecosystems. All this increases the fragmentation of the IT landscape and makes it more difficult to migrate to new solutions (Fig. 2.1-5). Managers end up criticizing data silos, but rarely analyze their causes and how to prevent them. Managers complain about outdated IT systems, but replacing them requires significant investment and rarely yields the expected results. As a result, even attempts to combat the problem often make matters worse.
The main reason for the disconnect is the prioritization of applications over data. Companies first develop separate systems or buy off-the-shelf solutions from vendors, and then try to unify them by creating duplicate and incompatible storage and databases.
Overcoming the problem of fragmentation requires a radical new approach – prioritizing data over applications. Companies must first develop data management strategies and data models, and then build systems or purchase solutions that work with a single set of information rather than creating new barriers.
We are entering a new world where data may be more important than software.
– Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
McKinsey Global Institute’s study “Rethinking Construction: the path to improved productivity” (2016) demonstrates that the construction industry lags behind other sectors in digital transformation (McKinsey, “REINVENTING CONSTRUCTION: A ROUTE TO HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY,” February 1, 2017). According to the report, the adoption of automated data management and digital platforms can significantly improve productivity and reduce losses associated with process inconsistency. This need for digital transformation is also emphasized by Egan’s (UK, 1998) report (Construction Task Force to the Deputy Prime Minister, “Rethinking Construction,” 1 October 2014), which highlights the key role of integrated processes and a collaborative approach in construction.
As a result, while in the last 10,000 years the main problem for data managers has been a lack of data, with the avalanche of data and data management systems, users and managers are faced with a problem – an overabundance of data, making it difficult to find legally correct and quality information.
Disparate data silos inevitably lead to the serious problem of reduced data quality. With multiple independent systems, the same data can exist in different versions, often with conflicting values, creating additional complexity for users who need to determine which information is relevant and reliable.
