Calgary’s SAIT gets $2.5M for alternative construction centre

The work being done at SAIT to advance Alberta’s construction sector just received some major support from the federal government.

A total of $2.5 million is being given to the school to establish an Alternative Construction Technologies (ACT) Centre on the Calgary campus.

Once completed in 2025, the centre will bring together the manufacturing, automation, robotics, and material science sectors to develop new technologies used by Canada’s construction sector.

It will be home to equipment and laboratories that small and medium-sized businesses can use to test and develop new products, processes, and services.

Hamid Rajani, chair of the centre, said this type of work is critical right now, as there continues to be a nation-wide housing shortage.

“We are still using a lot of technologies in this industry that go back to 50 years ago. The productivity is not there, we have a lot of lack of efficiency, we have the workforce issue, a lack of trained labour,” he said.

The space will foster the development of technology that will lead to lower cost construction projects that are completed quicker, with less environmental impact.

“We need to look into alternative solutions, there are so many potential solutions out there to solve this problem,” he said. “But the ACT hall at SAIT will focus on a very specific part of it, which is the intersection of advanced manufacturing industry and the construction industry.

Rajani says the construction industry needs to adopt more efficient methods to address the problem.

He explains that the research will be based off technology proven useful by other sectors

“We want to borrow successful technologies like robotics, automation from other industries and adopt them into the construction industry and hope to reshape this industry going forward.” Rajani said.

About 50 business will use the centre, which will create about 50 new jobs and training for 60 students and industry personnel.