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INTRO: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Industrialised podcast, where we speak to those leading the charge towards the future of construction. In this episode, Darren Richards of Cogent Consulting is joined by Vassos Chrysostomou, founder of IBE Humanoids and a construction productivity specialist with more than forty years experience.

They discuss the development of Leo, a construction-ready humanoid designed to work alongside construction teams, and what embodied AI could mean for industrialised construction. The conversation examines how humanoids could support factory assembly, site logistics, maintenance, and overnight preparation while taking on dull, dirty, demanding, and dangerous tasks.

To hear why Vassos believes the industry must help shape this technology now and how it could improve productivity, safety, well-being, and inclusivity, we hand over to Darren

Darren Richards: Welcome to the Industrialised podcast, where we're joined today by Vassos Chrysostomou from IBE Humanoids. Hi, [00:01:00] Vassos. So tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Yeah, good morning. Thank you very much for having me today. Um, I am a civil engineer by profession, but, uh, you'd be glad to hear that I never build or design anything in my life. I've been involved in process improvement, and particularly in productivity improvement for the last forty odd years. Uh, starting with before Terminal five all the way through to BRE, and since two thousand and one, I've been running my own company called IB Partnerships, and IBE Humanoids is the latest development in that.

So yeah, industry-focused and continuous improvement and productivity is key to what I'm doing.

Darren Richards: And you've got an ambition to develop what you've called Leo, um, as a construction-ready humanoid. Yeah. Um, and a, a collaborative type approach, a very open approach to the market. And today we're gonna focus on how Leo can [00:02:00] support productivity, safety, quality improvements, et cetera, uh, and new delivery models in construction.

So I suppose the first question really is why, why is now the right time for the industry to take humanoid technology seriously?

Vassos Chrysostomou: The industry is, I believe, now mature enough to understand the importance of data and the embodied AI. We've been playing with, uh, digital AI for a couple of years now, but the next step is the embodied AI, and data is beginning to raise its head as a critical area for the construction industry.

Um, you know, we, we had our experience on Beam over the last fifteen years, which has not been as brilliant as w- I would hope to be. But now the industry is realising that without data, without actually understanding what's going on in real-time on your sites, you can't possibly run a, a business, never mind a construction project.

So I think the environment is ready [00:03:00] in terms of understanding and, and, and competence of the industry. And I believe, like it or not, humanoids are coming around the corner From outside the industry. It's not an initiative that is gener- started from the industry. It's coming from outside, and I think the industry, although it's not on the radar of most of the humanoid organisations out there at the moment, companies, uh, in Europe and in the West, um, it will become an i- an industry that will, they'll be focusing in the next few years.

So I think, like it or not, humanoids are coming.

Darren Richards: Yeah, and I think what you, what you're saying is, you know, they're here now in other sectors, um, in automotive or in other manufacturing sectors, for example. It's not sci-fi anymore, is it? It's not a science fiction concept anymore. You know, it's a, it's, it's a practical solution that's been proven in other, uh, sectors, and you're looking really to s- uh, convince the construction industry to embrace it and bring it into our sector.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Absolutely. Yeah. And [00:04:00] they need to Own it. They need to understand how Leo will actually add value to their business, and the only way to do that is actually be involved in its development, and is, uh, define the needs, define the tasks, test it, break it, re-engineer it. So, you know, when Leo-- when a humanoid, and in our case Leo, is ready, then they already, um, understand the capabilities, and they know the possibilities that a humanoid can actually do for the construction industry.

Darren Richards: So where do you see the greatest opportunity for humanoids in industrialised construction in this new kinda landscape, where we're using off-site manufacturing, and we're using more sophisticated design concepts, platform design, et cetera? Obviously, it's a, it's a physical entity we're talking about here.

So where do you see the greatest opportunity?

Vassos Chrysostomou: I, I see, um, Leo as being a multitasking workforce enabler. So [00:05:00] therefore, it's... Leo's role is only limited by our imagination because I can see it working offsite in the factories alongside assembly lines with the, the current workforce there. And I see working as a member of the team in the assembly, um, issues around the construction site.

So Leo is not a one-off task robot. It is gonna be adapted and developed to feed the requirements and the needs of the individual construction organisations and, and groups that will be working, developing it. And that's why it's important to bring the industry together in a consortium to define it, to own it, to test it, to believe in it.

Because oth-otherwise, um, if we adopt something when it becomes available as a, as a technical, uh, solution, then [00:06:00] the throwback from the industry and the guys on site will be huge. Whereas if we are involved in the journey to actually define it and work with it, I think they're gonna embrace the opportunity to enable them to become safer, more productive, uh, better wellbeing, and more importantly, I think by taking the 4D tasks away from the current human environment, I think it's gonna encourage more women to come into construction than ever before.

Because if you ask women why they're not in construction, they mention the four Ds. They don't wanna be dirty. They don't wanna be doing dull stuff. They don't wanna be in a physically demanding oppor-- uh, tasks. So therefore, if Leo takes over those tasks, I think we will find more women coming into construction.

So inclusivity is part of our... one of our goals of actually defining Leo.

Darren Richards: So we're not looking at necessarily [00:07:00] re-replacing, um, humans or human labour. We're looking at complementing what we already do, supplementing it by maybe getting the humanoid to do the repetitive tasks, to do some of the tasks that are physically demanding is, i-i-is, is what you're saying.

And, and effectively working as an integrated part of the way we operate already.

Vassos Chrysostomou: A-absolutely. I mean, Leo will be part of a team. It will be integrated, it will be augmented, the different, uh, teams on a construction site or, or in a manufacturing, offsite manufacturing yard, et cetera. It will not be doing the tasks that actually are take, are taken at the moment by the workforce.

And in addition, I believe Leo's input into the team will enable the workforce to be more efficient, more productive, more effective, safer, and therefore, they will be earning more money. They will be doing more work. They'll be, uh, working longer if that's what they wanna do because all those physical tasks will no longer [00:08:00] be part of the restrictions that stop them from working at the age of fifty-five because of musculoskeletal issues or any other health issues that they develop.

So on the contrary, I think Leo will become a necess-necessary tool that every workforce gang or-- and every workforce organisation will actually say, "Do you have a Leo in your team? And if you haven't, I'm not gonna come and work with you. I'm gonna work with your competitor who's already embraced that technology, and therefore it will make me safer and more productive and allow me to earn more money."

So now on the contrary, I think the workforce so far been talking to those guys on site. They can actually visualise it now what it can actually do for them, and that's why we haven't had any kickback.

Darren Richards: And that example you just gave, um, you know, of people kind of demanding and wanting to work with the Leo, uh, technology, how far down the road do you see that?

Is that a couple of years away, five years away, [00:09:00] a decade away?

Vassos Chrysostomou: We will, we will be having Leo on a construction site with the members of our consortium by twenty thirty, late twenty thirty. This time in five-- in four years' time, it will be on the construction sites. Not across all construction sites, but across construction sites.

By twenty thirty-five, I see Leo as being ten percent of the workforce You know, at the moment we go one black hat and, you know, to ten operatives. I think in the future, we will have ten workers and one humanoid, maybe two humanoids. But that's the kind of combination we have because it becomes... It's an enabler.

It's a tool. Although I, I would like to think that eventually the workforce will see more than just a machine, but at the moment they need to understa-- Because they're gonna define it, they will be able to embrace that technology very quickly. They will be like, um, you know, when you first start as a carpenter, your dad gives you a hammer, which is engraved with your name on [00:10:00] it, et cetera.

I think they're gonna see it like that. They're gonna see it as a vital tool in their tool belt And when they sh-- And that's very important because unless they see that, they're not gonna embrace that. And that's why we're starting the journey today rather than wait five years when other companies develop humanoids, because by r- working with us, with Leo, and going through the learning journey, it becomes a learning journey for all those operatives or all those managers or all those organisations.

So by the time Leo comes on site, it's a normal, um, a, it's a normal situation for them on site. They don't have to stand there and take a selfie with him or put a cone on his head or take a mickey out of it because it's a new tool or a new bit of a kit. It's already part of their family.

Darren Richards: Yeah. And they're used to seeing it around.

So w-we need to enable that, and I can see the vision, but obviously there's steps to get to that. [00:11:00] Uh, and previously you and I have spoken about reimagining the process of construction and trying to avoid, uh, simply inserting humanoids into existing broken processes or workflows. Um, so I guess a big role of the consortium is, is to bring people together with the, the right mindset to say, "This is all about transformation.

This is about enabling change." Um, and how far in the journey are you with engaging the industry?

Vassos Chrysostomou: Okay. I mean, you're absolutely right. I think in order to optimise the opportunities that Leo can bring to or any robotics can bring to construction, we need to reimagine the construction process. We can't carry on doing what we're doing and, and, and assuming the humanoids or the robots will actually optimise what we are trying to do, improve our productivity.

So therefore, we need to, uh, reimagine that process from scratch. And there-- That's the reason why we, we had the summit on the twentieth of [00:12:00] April. That's the reason why we are now pulling together a cooperative, a consortium of the-- made by the industry members. So we are looking for tier one, tier one main contractors and their key supply chain to come on board and not only work with us to develop Leo technically, uh, software-wise, et cetera, but also to ask the question: Why are we doing that?

Why are we carry on to doing a lame, you know, one brick at a time? You know, why do we need to carry, you know, these materials in this way, et cetera? Why do we need to actually assemble in this way? Can we assemble differently now we've got humanoids and Leo helping us to actually do this differently? And that's what our reimagination is gonna be all about.

So like it or not, with robotics and automation, which by the way, in my view, anything that moves in the future [00:13:00] will be automated, will be robotics. It doesn't matter if it's vertical or horizontal Leo will be only be, Leo will be part of an ecosystem of robotics on a construction environment. And Leo is actually the on-- the last ten meters of that process.

It's not... No, I don't expect Leo to be walking through the site carrying plasterboard, you know, through mud, et cetera. I expect another robot, a different type of machine to be doing that. But Leo will be the one that dep-depalletizes that for the team, hands over the materials for the team, cleans for the team, you know, enables m-- the team to actually be more productive.

And that's why he's gon-he's gonna be or it, sorry, it's gonna be the last five, ten meters of the ecosystem. So that ecosystem to be effective, has to be reimagined. Re-- I don't know, re-engineer, but I, I prefer to [00:14:00] reimagine it. And then, and the limitation is only as far as where is our imagination gonna take us.

So that's why the journey is very important. That's why, why the consortium is being put together to enable those, uh, competitors as they see each other at the moment, but I see them as, you know, stakeholders or actors working on the same environment, to sit down together and actually reimagine those processes themselves.

Darren Richards: And I think the key is, is to get people to see beyond the novelty and the potential kind of gimmick of having a robot. Your point about, you know, operatives having selfies with- Yes ...with Leo, you know, we gotta move beyond that. We've got to prove, I think, with measurable, um, data, productivity gains. You know, it's got to pay for itself at the end of the day, isn't it?

Absolutely. So how do you see or what do you see as the, um, impact, you know, the kind of level of impact it could have on, um, productivity? 'Cause we, we all acknowledge our industry, you know, has suffered from low productivity- [00:15:00] Oh, absolutely ...for decades now.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Yeah. I mean, I measure productivity now over the last forty years.

Mm. Before Terminal Five, the productivity in the construction industry was forty percent. During Terminal Five process and during the Olympics, we, and, you know, and other major projects, we hit eighty percent productive time from forty percent because we re-engineer through the help of Sir John Egan and rethinking construction.

We re-engineer the processes. Now, if you go back to a construction site today, and I'm measuring projects today, we are back to forty percent. Because we actually not very good at driving those initiatives without leadership. So I see Leo as being an enabler to improve the productivity of those guys.

Because if you go walk on a-- or if you go on a construction site today and you stand somewhere and you just look, what do you see? You see people walking around. That's all you see. It doesn't matter if it's on [00:16:00] a motorway, if it's on a hotel or a housing or a hospital. People are walking around looking for things, fetching things, searching things, asking for information, asking for, uh, previous trades to clean up in front of them or whatever.

All those tasks are what is costing, what is the wasteful activities at the moment in construction. Those tasks will be eliminated with the introduction of Leo. So therefore, not only the industry will become more productive, those operatives will be more effective because they don't have to walk around to find the materials.

Leo can fetch it. Leo will make sure the materials are there actually before they even start in the morning. Because Leo is not a, a fi-- an eight-hour machine, eight-hour workforce. It's actually twenty-two, twenty-three hours a day workforce. So when the bricklayers go home at five o'clock, Leo will undertake other tasks, which will include getting ready the next day's workpa-- [00:17:00] area for the guys to do their work, for their materials to be there, for the equipment to be there, to the...

for the check-in and the s-- and the oversight to be done before they arrive the following morning. So therefore, Leo will improve productivity. But a-actually, to me, the biggest cha-- uh, biggest goals and the biggest KPIs will be inclusivity, will be health, safety, and well-being. Those are gonna be the targets that I wanna see not only improving every year, yeah, but breaking records And that's where robotics, and that's where, uh, um, humanoids will come in its, in its own because suddenly, you know, when you go to inspect a scaffold, you send Leo up there first, check everything.

Yeah. When you go into confined spaces, you send Leo there. Leo will have so many sensors on him that we will actually, you know, identify hazardous gas, [00:18:00] gas areas, you know, hazardous, uh, I don't know, like today, for example, temperatures. Yeah. Or high carbon emissions in the work site. Therefore, it will stop those harms m- happening.

And though to me, it's not just about productivity, although productivity will be a by-product. I think to me it will be having a better, healthier, safer workforce.

Darren Richards: And reducing exposure to high-risk- Absolutely. -site activities.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Darren Richards: So the vision I think is really clear and, and, and the ambition is, you know, noble.

But you've got to create an environment, a consortia, uh, a group of people to, uh, start to move this initiative forward. And, um, I know you're working as part of the, um, model to include a simulation training college and, uh, various upstream activities, um, so that Leo can be, uh, taught and simulations can take place before you put him into a real environment.

So- Absolutely. -just give us a little bit of a [00:19:00] view around what the training college looks like or how it functions, and then, um, the next steps beyond that.

Perfect.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Yeah. I mean, I see Leo as a child. You know, uh, children go to school to learn how to write. Yeah. So therefore, how do I teach it how to write?

I do bricklaying, do carrying materials, do painting, do whatever other task I want it to do. Yeah. How do I do that? Well, I send it to college. But I can't send Leo to the college. He's not an apprentice. I can't put him in front of other workforce to actually do it and watch them do it. So what we are doing at the moment, we are doing a two-pronged attack.

I, I got a relationship already with Moulton College and Northampton College, and they are recording using... And this is actually ironic. I don't know if you've been watching World Cup, but you see the referees with the cameras on their heads. That's exactly the same cameras we're giving to the c- to the teachers and the final year students of the Northampton [00:20:00] College.

So they're recording how they are teaching and how they are learning how to do dry lining or how to do, um, you know, carpentry or whatever, you know, all the other tasks that the industry is teaching at the moment. So that is the teaching element. Now, however, every operative, once he goes on site, like you and I, you know, when we start painting, we paint differently.

We have our own handwriting. So although we've been taught to-- in our school how to write, every one of us has a different handwriting. So we need to re-- capture all the different handwritings from the different, uh, scenarios out there. So already I've given those cameras to the hot courriers, to bricklayers, to painters, to electrical contractors, apprentices or maids, and they're recording how they are doing it on a day-to-day basis on real sites.

Now, you take that information, and because you can't have Leo standing next to a bricklayer or a carpenter or a [00:21:00] hot courier to do the work to learn, so you lear-- you teach Leo in the simulation digital environment, what I call the simulation college So that's what he learns first time round. When he's ready physically as a hardware, then we'll repla-- we'll embed it there what he learned from the simulation college, and that will be millions of hours.

Uh, and a-again, it takes ten thousand man-hours for somebody to, uh, optimise whatever they do, whatever they're good at. Doesn't matter if you're a bricklayer or, or a, a sports person or a, a tennis player or, or wha-- or whatever, or a carpenter or whatever. It takes you about ten thousand man-hours to learn something to be professional.

Leo will be spending millions of hours in the simulation environment learning those tasks. But next, we need to transfer it to the hardware, to the physical embodied AI, in Leo. Then that's where the college, [00:22:00] the universities I'm working with, Warwick and Cranfield and others, they will have their own labs where we will insert that knowledge into the physical AI, into physical Leo, and then test it in the lab.

That's level number two. Level three is we then send the, uh, Leo and members of the supply chain of my, uh, consortium to Constructionarium, the Norfolk site, where Leo and the team can practice whatever Leo has learned in the real controlled world of, of Norfolk or Constructionarium. That's stage three of learning.

If he passes those tests and that every time he learns something, he will be broken. He will, you know, make mistakes. We will have, we have to re-engineer it and, you know, improve it. When he passes those, that gateway, then he's ready to go into one of my consortium partners', members' control zones [00:23:00] on a construction site to work with a specific team.

And again, he will make mistakes. He will learn. And then finally, when he's ready and he's passed that test, he will be allowed to go on a construction site for the first time. So he has to go through four different training gateways before he's allowed onto a real construction site You know, I call it the SpaceX, um, you know, construction, uh, protocol.

You know, you don't allow the universities to go in a black hole and develop Leo and then come back and say, "Oh, it's ready." You've got to be continuously developing it with the supply chain, with the members of the consortium, you know, defining it, redefining it, testing it, breaking it, and making it better and better.

Darren Richards: And how successful has your industry engagement been so far? This is a relatively new journey.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Absolutely.

Darren Richards: You've only been working on it for twelve months or so, and, um, you're obviously spreading the word, very [00:24:00] evangelical about this vision, which is great. We need people like you to give us a vision and something to work towards.

Um, but you need real companies that are gonna give you these environments to play with.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Absolutely. And at the summit, we had over seventy construction companies. From tier ones, the big boys, you know. We have Vinci, we have Laing O'Rourke, we have Mace there, we have Willmott Dixon. You know, we had all the big boys there, as well as supply chain.

I even had a two-man carpenter company come along, and they're engaging at all those levels with us. So yes, we've been, we've been talking since April. We've been talking to the tier ones, but also to the SMEs, the regional contractors. The individuals are actually... The ones that actually do have the workforce, and they're ones that are gonna see the benefit straight away.

So I, I think the engagement so far has been brilliant since April, and I'm hoping by, you know, we kick off the [00:25:00] consortium in, in September with a minimum of ten tier one anchor contractors and half a dozen of their supply chain along with them, plus any other organisations already engaging with us, which are, you know, regional, local SMEs, um, that have their own direct labour.

So I've been surprised how, um, how encouraging and how, you know, enthusiastic the people have been through the summit. I think we've woken 'em up. You know, they know this is a hard thing to do. They know it's not gonna be easy, but I think that's the challenge. If it was easy, then they would just sit back and wait for somebody to do it for them.

But because it is hard and because it's got nothing to do with technology, it's got nothing to do really with software and hardware, it's all about human-to-humanoid augmented [00:26:00] collaboration. It's about reimagining the construction process. I think that's the things that excite them most, and that's what is gonna drive the success.

Darren Richards: And have you had, um, much engagement? 'Cause I guess your focus is on the construction coal face and the s-- con-construction site. Have you had much engagement from the off-site manufacturing supply chain yet, or is that the next

Vassos Chrysostomou: engagement? That, that I would love to get them involved as well. Because to me, you know, uh, for wha-- as far as what I know so far of the off-site, it's still limited.

It's not optimised the way it should be. And I think introducing Leo into a f-- off-site factory environment is not gonna replace those workers. It's gonna assist them to become more efficient, more productive. But also maybe we should, uh, h-- I don't know, think about, "Wait a minute. We are finishing our shift at five o'clock, and the factory is shut between five and seven o'clock the next day."

What Leo can you do to prepare that environment for the-- [00:27:00] when they come back in the morning? And maybe this is part of the reimagination of the off-site production line. Because instead of thinking, "Oh, maybe we should follow this process because that's what the humans do in eight-hour shift," we say, "Wait a minute.

If Leo does this during the night, then I can do this during the day. My productivity and my number of units I can get off the, off the factory floor of the components or whatever we have will be increased rapidly." So the reimagination of the construction process is not only in con-- on a construction site, and I think it's...

And it's not only in the off-site manufacturing. I think that the biggest opportunity for construction or for the build environment is reimagination of the maintenance programs, facilities management. You know, at the moment I'm talking to a housing association, and they're very excited having Leo as part of their supply chain members, their team.

Why? Because if they get a call at three o'clock in the morning in the call centre and they say, "I got a leak on [00:28:00] a, on, in, in Croydon on the thirteenth floor," somebody from wherever the, the nearest operative is has to drive at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning to go and have a look what the leak is like, et cetera, and then try to make it safe or fix it or go back and next day again, again.

Well, if I had a-- if they, they said to me, "If we had a Leo as part of our maintenance gang on that block, in that estate, if we're doing other tasks during the day, but during the night, if there is a problem, Leo goes and have a look," which is connected straight away to the call centre, to the operatives.

They can see what the problem is, and then they can either instruct Leo to do whatever he needs to do or send somebody already, um, with the right tools, the right equipment, the right, uh, know-how to make it right first time at two o'clock in the morning, only if he has to. So I don't think we're even scratching the surface of what Leo can actually [00:29:00] do.

Yeah.

Darren Richards: The applications are only limited by our imagination. Exactly. Yeah.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Absolutely.

Darren Richards: So you mentioned this short-term vision, um, looking ahead to twenty thirty and then looking beyond that. Um, what needs to happen for humanoid robotics to become part of mainstream industrialised construction, the kinda next era of construction?

Obviously, you've got to engage with people, but m-my guess is Communication, you know, awareness, having these types of conversations is important. So- Absolutely. Um, are you going to do demonstration days, open days with the universities and things? Just give us a bit of a flavor. Oh, yeah.

Vassos Chrysostomou: Absolutely. I mean, to me- Yeah

this is more, um, uh, an educa-- as I said, it's an education and learning and a trust journey. So in order to im-ensure that Leo is effective and it does what it's supposed to do, we need to make the, not only our industry, but our society to trust the humanoids that are [00:30:00] gonna be out, arriving on their doorstep.

So not only we want to have a continuous, maybe even live stream of how we develop Leo in the labs, you know, with the universities, et cetera, but I want to be able to give Leo to, I don't know, let's say, uh, a tier one contractor or a SME, to go to the school with Leo and actually allow Leo to demonstrate what it can do on a construction site.

So suddenly we are engaging with the society as a whole, not, not only just the workforce. So yeah, um, you know, as I say, marketing, PR, um, exposure. Uh, and it's... I don't want it to be a secret. I don't want it to be in a black hole somewhere. I want people to see it being developed, to, to get used to it because it is gonna arrive and we are gonna need to embrace it.

And the sooner we make it as a normal [00:31:00] day-to-day activity, the better. You know, I said to my, my daughter, I said, "I can't wait when I get, I get on a Petswood Station train and Leo is sitting next to me to go on a site in, in the middle of London." The reaction I'm gonna get from the people in the train, it will be unbelievable.

But that has to be the normal You know, when the guys arrive, when Leo arrives on a construction site, you know, it has to be normal. Nothing unusual. And that, that is what we're aiming, and that's why I call it a learning education and embracing journey. It's not a technology solution. That's not what I'm offering the members of the consortium.

I'm offering them a journey of excitement, enthusiasm, but a journey of learning with us of how to use that kind of technology to optimise [00:32:00] the wellbeing, the wel- the welfare of our people, but, and make our businesses more sustainable.

Darren Richards: Well, it's a fascinating vision, fascinating journey. I'm sure it will happen, and it'll probably happen faster than we think 'cause I think, you know, we are very, um, m- much more minded nowadays, I think, to embrace technology.

You know, we, we, w- we're prepared to embrace it, trial it, fail with it- Yeah ... do it again. Absolutely. So, you know, we, we wish you all the best on that journey, and, um, clearly from a industrialised construction perspective, we will try and support you as much as we can. Thank you. And thanks very much for coming in today.

Vassos Chrysostomou: No, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity and looking forward to it.

OUTRO: Thanks for listening to this edition of The Industrialised Podcast. This podcast was produced by Radar Media. The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Radar Media.

For more information, head to [00:33:00] www.industrializedconstruction.co.uk.