Business Chief APAC+ANZ Magazine October 2020 | Page 12

EEI CORPORATION

Lauro Matias , CIO of EEI Corporation , discusses the technologies involved in its digital transformation and its response to COVID-19

12

L auro Matias is the CIO of the Philippines ’ EEI Corporation , a leading construction company in the country . “ First and foremost , we ’ re a general contractor company – the biggest one in the Philippines . Unlike engineering , procurement and consulting firms , we do not end up owning or operating any of the property we have been tasked to construct , such as heavy civil infrastructure , electromechanical , petroleum refineries , beer-making and geothermal facilities , large building complexes , etcetera .”

AI and machine learning have played a significant part in predicting construction outcomes . “ The primary algorithm we ’ re using considers multiple risk factors such as fluctuating prices , labour availability , weather and environment disruptions or major change orders , and then tells us whether or not we ’ re still going to make money at the end . Typically these projects last for about three years , so AI is invaluable . We ’ re exploring the use of machine learning studios available in AWS , Azure or GCP , trying to push it into the cloud . That ’ s
OCTOBER 2020