Young Woman Using Information Technologies to Transform China's Construction Industry

Qiao Liang poses for a photo [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

Qiao Liang, originally an employee of a State-owned enterprise, had a "stable job" that many people envied. However, with her ideal of serving China by developing technologies, including using information technologies to transform the construction industry, Qiao decided to quit her job and start a business, Wisdom Cloud Building Information Technology Co., Ltd. As the company's chairwoman, she has led the firm in its rapid development, by using big-data technology in promoting the digital transformation of the construction industry. Qiao has shown the courage and charm of a female business leader in the male-dominated construction industry.

"My name, Qiao Liang, is a homonym with the Chinese word bridge. Some friends joked that I was born with architecture and came with a mission," says Qiao. "My mission is to build a bridge between the Internet and the construction industry, and to build application scenarios for digital cities with new-information technologies."

Qiao used to be a cost-budget supervisor with China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corp. Ltd. (CCEED), and the corporation's head of BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology for overseas projects. During her exchanges and competition with international counterparts, Qiao became acutely aware the traditional construction industry needed to be digitalized. So, she quit her job and started a BIM-related business in 2015. "I believe it's the mission of our generation of engineers to master the core technology of BIM, and to serve the country with the technology," says Qiao.

Evacuation Experience

Her evacuation from Libya, in 2011, will remain an unforgettable event for Qiao. As CCEED's employees, she and her colleagues worked in Benghazi, Libya, in early 2011. The corporation's construction site was attacked by an armed mob, and communications were disrupted during the evening of February 20. "At that moment, I thought I couldn't go back," recalls Qiao.

The Chinese Government quickly evacuated Chinese nationals from the North African state. Tens of thousands of Chinese citizens, who were living and/or working in Libya, were evacuated by air, sea or land routes.

"Of the people who were evacuated by land routes, many were robbed and lost their passports. When they passed through the Egyptian-Libyan border, they sang China's national anthem together to prove that they were Chinese. The scene might have been the most impressive experience of singing the national anthem in my life," says Qiao.

Back in China, Qiao burst into tears as she watched a colleague get off the plane, kneel down and kiss the ground. "Finally, we returned to our homeland," says Qiao. "I felt gratitude to our motherland for the quick, and strong, evacuation operation."

That gratitude, combined with the ideal of serving the country by developing technologies, has been the driving force in her effort to start her business.

Qiao Liang talks with her colleagues. [For Women of China]

Transforming the Industry

As Qiao participated in CCEED's overseas-construction projects, she learned about BIM technology; BIM is an intelligent, 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and infrastructure.

The BIM technology supports architects throughout the design process. For example, BIM helps architects gain more insight, earlier in the process, so they can better meet clients' requirements and deliver projects with improved quality and efficiency. In essence, the technology helps architects make better design decisions earlier in the process, with insight into what the design will represent through visualization, coordination, collaboration and analysis tools.

The technology not only makes it easier for design and construction teams to work more efficiently, it also makes it easier for them to capture the data they create during the process to benefit operations and maintenance activities. The BIM data can also inform planning and resourcing on the project, whether at the city or country level.

"To put it bluntly, by using the technology, we can simulate the construction on the computer before the building is built, find the problem ahead of time and correct it online, to reduce the waste and greatly save construction costs. It can also provide data for accurately customizing production, thereby avoiding a large inventory backlog," Qiao explains. "The application of BIM technology in construction can save 5 to 10 percent of the cost for typical projects."

Qiao gradually realized BIM technology would revolutionize the traditional construction industry. The technology can greatly minimize the discharge of pollutants and reduce the energy and material consumption in the construction industry.

Qiao Liang gives a lecture at a forum. [For Women of China]

However, BIM technology had not been fully utilized in China. That inspired her to establish a technological company to develop the technology. Many of Qiao's friends and relatives encouraged her not to quit her stable job. However, that did not curb her enthusiasm for exploring the fantastic and mysterious technology.

Soon after Qiao quit her job, at the end of 2015, she and several other young people established Wisdom Cloud Building Information Technology Co., Ltd. Qiao during the past few years has led her employees in developing an intelligent, model-based online platform. The platform integrates new-information technologies with the building model, and realizes the "digitization, networking, visualization and intelligence" of urban management.

Qiao has led her team as it has participated in the construction of a number of key projects, including Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport, Jinan Qilu Hospital and Golden Times Square, by providing a variety of BIM solutions for the architecture, engineering, and construction of the projects. The team has helped achieve efficient operations in the planning, design, construction, cost, operation and maintenance stages of the projects.

Qiao Liang attends a meeting. [For Women of China]

Developing Enterprise

During the first year, her company did not make a profit, so Qiao used her savings to pay the daily expenses, including her employees' wages. "Despite all of the difficulties, I was still confident about the direction of the company's development. I told my employees with the support of national policies on encouraging entrepreneurship, we could beat the challenges. We should have faith in ourselves," says Qiao.

"Thanks to the Chinese Government's call to promote innovation-driven development and entrepreneurship, the business incubator of Weifang (a city in Shandong) provided an office for our newly launched company and granted our core technical personnel with special subsidies . Various training sessions on the legal, financial, and taxation aspects of the business were provided to us by the incubator," says Qiao. "We have not only got spiritual inspiration, but also have benefited a lot from the policies.

"Although our team only had a few members at first, our company was by no means inferior to many large companies, in terms of creative ideas involving information technology. To keep pace with the times, we attended national and international conferences and forums on new - and high- technologies. We also studied various online courses to update our knowledge," says Qiao.

"In our company, after receiving the client's comments on our proposal, we will hold a meeting immediately to ensure the client will receive an improved proposal the next day. In the last three to four years, we have had a 50-percent increase in profits per year," says Qiao.

Qiao Liang signs a contract on behalf of her company. [For Women of China]

'We Live in a Good Age'

Generally, the construction industry is dominated by men. But Qiao believes women are an indispensable force in the field. She says, "Women have a strong sense of responsibility and resilience. In a technology company, it is important to have such female members at the core of the team if the company wants to overcome the difficulties and stay afloat."

Qiao attaches importance to the training of female managers. "In the farming age, we might not have been as good as men in carrying hoes; but in the information age, we all use the mouse. And in the future, the development of artificial intelligence technologies will help close the gender gap," says Qiao.

"I often go to the gym and encourage my colleagues to go. It's an inspirational place. There, you will see that people who are already in good shape are still sweating," says Qiao. "This confirms a popular saying on the Internet, 'The people who are more excellent than you still work harder than you do.' So, there's no reason for us to stop making progress."

Given Qiao and her colleagues' efforts to develop the business, the company has obtained the largest number of intellectual property rights among the national certificated BIM companies in Shandong Province. Their project, named "BIM, New Revolution in the Construction Industry," in recent years has earned the company several prizes during national and provincial entrepreneurship and innovation competitions.

The company has completed projects in Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania, providing BIM-based cloud services around the world. Qiao says both the company's technical advantages and the nation's policy support have strengthened her confidence in using information technologies to transform China's construction industry. "We are lucky that we live in a good age," says Qiao.

Qiao Liang and her colleagues pose for a group photo. [For Women of China}

(Women of China)