Efficiency Drivers in AR Construction Management

By incorporating AR into construction management, you can achieve digital-transformation benefits across multiple on-site processes. Here, we focus on three key efficiency drivers: shortening construction workflows, preventing positional and dimensional deviations, and enhancing communication among stakeholders.

Shortening Construction Workflows

AR dramatically reduces the time required for on-site tasks. Work that once demanded a multi-person survey crew can now be completed instantly by a single operator with an AR app. Obayashi Corporation’s iPhone/iPad AR-survey application, for example, lets one person measure earthwork volumes and terrain without dedicated equipment and displays results in real time.

Because surveying time and cost are slashed, the entire schedule accelerates. AR can also overlay stage-specific targets and timeline data, allowing teams to visualize progress, fine-tune schedules, and pre-allocate labor as needed. Checking progress through AR on site helps crews prepare the next activity sooner, minimizing idle time and streamlining hand-offs.

International case studies show even greater savings: by pushing 3-D design data directly to field AR and skipping 2-D drawing conversion, projects have eliminated waste equal to 7–11 percent of total budgets.

In short, AR-enabled construction management boosts efficiency at every step—shortening project duration and cutting costs.

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Preventing Positional and Dimensional Errors

Misalignments and dimensional mistakes are leading causes of costly rework. With AR, you can overlay design models onto the actual site and detect discrepancies instantly. For example, one construction site visualizes pipe and rebar layouts through a tablet, verifying interference and positional accuracy before installation. Because plans and reality can be cross-checked on the spot, millimeter-level deviations are caught early and corrected immediately, preventing major defects. Shimizu Corporation, for instance, has adopted an AR system for MEP installation management that layers design data over live site video, allowing crews to compare drawings and physical work directly on the screen.

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As a result, the verification workload is dramatically lighter than with paper drawings, and human error is greatly reduced. Some solutions even display underground utilities—pipes and cables—in AR without excavation. This capability lowers the risk of clashes or misplacement and improves the accuracy of construction planning. By allowing crews to correct positional and dimensional deviations in advance, AR minimizes rework and safeguards quality.

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Enhancing Stakeholder Communication

AR excels at building a shared understanding among everyone involved in the project. Even off-site, designers, contractors, and owners can view a realistic overlay of the finished design or current construction status, eliminating perception gaps.

For instance, overlaying a life-size view of the planned structure on a tablet enables owners and nearby residents to grasp the concept instantly, streamlining consensus building. In practice, certain AR tools can project a full-scale 3-D model on site within seconds, giving all project stakeholders an intuitive shared vision of the final asset and dramatically improving communication.

Displaying construction steps and safety notes in AR makes procedures easier to understand and helps bridge the knowledge gap between veteran and junior workers. Remote experts can also review the site through AR and issue real-time instructions, reducing travel time while preserving effective communication. This smoother exchange of information ultimately prevents construction errors and enhances safety.

AR truly embodies the adage “seeing is believing,” strengthening on-site teamwork and accelerating decision-making.

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Practical Use Cases of AR

Let’s look at how AR-enabled construction management is actually deployed on site. We will explore three scenarios: (1) general contractors and small civil-engineering firms, (2) infrastructure maintenance, and (3) surveying operations.

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AR Use Case for General Contractors & Small Civil Firms

(Reducing Construction Errors and Rework)

From major general contractors to small civil-engineering companies, AR is helping cut mistakes on the job site. One large builder, for example, developed an in-house AR system for MEP installation during building construction. By overlaying 3-D design data onto live site video on a tablet, crews can compare drawings with reality in real time, making previously labor-intensive checks intuitive and vastly reducing management effort.

Visualizing the gap between design and field conditions enables crews to spot drawing oversights immediately and prevent costly rework. In fact, contractors that have adopted construction-focused AR apps report rapid resolution of common issues—such as errors caused by misreading drawings or clashes between temporary works and permanent structures.

Pre-checking steel and formwork placement in AR, for instance, eliminates the need to dismantle and rebuild after installation errors. Because a tablet is all that’s required, even small civil firms can leverage AR, allowing everyone—from supervisors to tradespeople—to grasp design intent on the spot and build without mistakes. The payoff is higher quality, fewer extra works or claims, and shorter schedules.

 

AR Use Case in Infrastructure Maintenance

(Improving Accuracy in Road and Rail Management)

AR is now proving valuable in the inspection and maintenance of highways, railways, and other infrastructure assets. Maintenance crews must accurately assess aging structures and locate buried utilities—tasks that become far faster and more precise when invisible data are made “visible” in AR. For example, viewed through a smartphone, the routes of underground pipes and cables appear directly in the technician’s field of vision.

This visualization cuts the risk of accidentally damaging utilities during excavation, enabling crews to work more safely and efficiently. One infrastructure operator reports that AR-based mapping of underground conduits has virtually eliminated digging errors. AR manuals can also guide technicians in real time through complex disassembly steps and inspection points; in rail-car maintenance, for example, the system highlights exactly which bolts need tightening, preventing oversights.

As a result, no maintenance steps are overlooked, delivering highly reliable service. Moreover, in an era of shrinking expert resources, AR lets veteran engineers support the site remotely while younger technicians receive near-hands-on training.

AR is also used to evaluate road-sign placement: crews can simulate a signpost on site without drilling test holes, enabling far more accurate installation plans. By integrating AR into infrastructure maintenance, organizations gain higher inspection and repair precision, greater operational efficiency, and a significant reduction in human error.

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AR Use Case for Surveying Professionals

(Consistency Checks Against Design Data)

AR is a powerful tool for surveyors and site managers alike. Traditionally, verifying that a structure under construction matches the design required measuring positions and elevations with survey equipment and then cross-checking against drawings—an onerous task. With AR, design data can be overlaid on live site conditions in real time, making consistency checks dramatically simpler. Displaying a BIM/CIM model in an AR app and superimposing it on the in-progress structure instantly reveals even the slightest deviation or tilt—“this point is several centimeters too high,” “this wall is offset to the left”—allowing corrective instructions to be issued before the concrete is poured.

In Japan, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s CIM (Construction Information Modeling) initiative is driving on-site use of 3-D design data, making AR an indispensable visualization tool. AR also streamlines the surveying process itself: simply placing virtual survey poles in the AR view automatically produces cross-sections, eliminating field notebooks and office drafting. By reducing surveyors’ workload and enabling real-time as-built consistency checks, AR shortens survey and inspection cycles while raising construction accuracy.

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Introduction to LRTK and Information Request

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LRTK: No Coordinate Alignment Required on Site
The only tool that makes AR easy for anyone to use

Finally, we introduce LRTK as a solution that makes AR-based construction management easily achievable on-site. LRTK is a tool developed by Lefixea, a startup based in Minato, Tokyo, that eliminates the need for complicated coordinate alignment on-site, allowing anyone to easily use AR. Traditional AR systems required manual alignment of digital models with the real world (origin alignment) on-site, and then relied on the device’s inertial sensors to track the model. However, this led to the problem of positional drift as the user moved around.

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What makes LRTK different? By continuously acquiring high-precision real-time positioning using a dedicated RTK-GNSS receiver, LRTK ensures that the 3D model is accurately tracked and aligned with the site. As a result, the model stays fixed in the real world, and the AR display does not shift, even as the user moves around.

In other words, without the need for on-site calibration, design data can be directly displayed at the correct coordinates, precisely where it should be. This feature is revolutionary for on-site engineers, and the "drift-free AR projection" has become synonymous with LRTK.

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Furthermore, LRTK is designed for ease of use, with no special equipment or expertise required. Simply attach the pocket-sized receiver to an iPhone or iPad, and it's ready to go. Priced at only a few hundred thousand yen per unit, LRTK is more affordable than traditional surveying equipment, making it an ideal tool for field supervisors and foremen to carry one device each and use it easily.

With LRTK, you can perform high-precision positioning, point-cloud measurement, staking (positioning), photo capture, and AR-based as-built simulations—all in one device. This is expected to significantly enhance productivity on-site.