In a startup office in Pangyo, CEO Song Joong-seok displays construction drawings on his monitor and clicks the mouse a few times, and figures and graphs appear on the screen in an instant.
“That’s it. What used to take 10 hours now takes 20 minutes.” He is explaining Pobicon’s automatic estimation solution, ‘Auto-estimation.’
The 'estimation' work of calculating the quantity of materials by looking at drawings at construction sites has always been a headache since the past. The method of having experts manually check drawings one by one and calculate them was not only time-consuming but also prone to human error. Even large construction companies have not been able to solve this problem, and small and medium-sized construction companies and subcontractors have been experiencing even greater difficulties.
To solve this long-standing problem at construction sites, a startup called 'Pobicon' was established in January 2024.
“At first, many people were skeptical, wondering, ‘Will it work?’ The construction industry is one of the sectors that is slow to transform digitally.” As CEO Song Joong-seok said, the construction industry is conservative.
“The technology to automatically recognize DWG drawings and calculate quantities using Vision AI is the first of its kind in Korea. Its effectiveness has already been verified by several construction companies.”
10 hours of manual work, 20 minutes with AI… ‘Time Revolution’ in Construction Sites
CEO Song Joong-seok mentions an actual project case. It is a case where a mid-sized construction company completed a task that took more than two days to calculate the skeleton quantity in 30 minutes using automatic calculation. “Time is money at construction sites. It is 50% cheaper than the existing method, and errors are greatly reduced.”
Pobicon’s technology lies in drawing recognition based on DWG files. Many competitors analyze PDF files, which results in significant information loss. On the other hand, Pobicon directly analyzes DWG, the original CAD file. According to CEO Song Joong-seok, all layers and attribute information of the drawing are preserved, allowing AI to perform more accurate analysis.
“The thing I hear the most on-site is ‘I won’t have to work overtime anymore.’” His words show the real changes in construction sites. We can see that Pobicon’s technology is changing the quality of life of construction workers beyond simply improving efficiency.
Innovations Found in the Field, Investors Also Pay Attention
When asked about the secret to Pobicon’s rapid growth, he summarized it as a “field-centered approach.” “From the beginning, we found problems by directly encountering them at construction sites. Success is not achieved by just having good technology. The key was to create solutions that actual users want.”
This approach has also been a great help in attracting investment. Pobicon, which attracted seed investment from Mark & Company and Yoon Min-chang’s Investment Foundation, is planning to launch ‘Auto-Accumulation 2.0’ in the second half of this year. This version provides a more intuitive UI and various accumulation tools than the previous version.
“The question investors asked the most was, ‘Is this technology really needed in the field?’ We proved it with the voices and data of actual customers.” The words of CEO Song Joong-seok reveal the key to startup success.
From Paper Drawings to a Global Construction Platform, a 10-Year Vision
Regarding Pobicon’s future vision, CEO Song Joong-seok said, “We will not simply stop at being a quantifiable solution. Our goal is to integrate the entire construction process based on data and become a global construction automation platform.”
Currently, 11 employees are working in Pobicon’s office located in the Pangyo Startup Zone in Gyeonggi Province. The future of the construction industry is being created in this space. “Pobicon wants to play a leading role in the construction industry’s complete transformation into a technology-intensive industry.”
CEO Song Joong-seok also gives advice to prospective entrepreneurs: “Technology alone cannot change the field. It is important to deeply understand the problems in the field, communicate continuously with users, and quickly reflect feedback.”
“Our job is to make people’s jobs easier. Technology is just a means to that end.” It is anticipated how Pobicon’s steps, which are creating a wind of digital innovation in the forest of paper drawings, will change the construction industry in the future.
CEO Song Joong-seok received a Ph.D. in Computer Software Engineering from Hanyang University and has 17 years of experience in Computer Vision, GPGPU (CUDA), and Vision AI R&D. He served as CTO at Interminds and Samaddi, and as a manager of the AI technology team at Goyoung Technology. He has published over 50 papers in domestic and international SCI journals and conferences, and has won the Best Paper Award three times at domestic and international conferences.
You must be logged in to post a comment.