Construction is trailing other industries in the adoption of information and communication technology (ICT). A major European project Digiplace is investigating if this problem could be addressed ...using digital platform technology. In the context of this project the current state, future goals and barriers in between have been researched through literature studies, surveys, and interviews. Several similar studies have been done in the past; however, the barriers are still there. The paper, therefore, introduces a novel framework to study technology transfer. It identifies three key vectors of transfer: standards and regulation, software, and people. Along these vectors, it identifies elements that pull and elements that push technology, but which need to overcome the various frictions and barriers. These are then structured according to the PESTEL approach. This approach encourages the holistic study of factors beyond technology. The paper concludes that there is a need for a better way of deployment, organizing, marketing, and learning about new technologies which would mostly benefit small and medium enterprises which lag most in the use of ICT. This could be implemented in the form of industrial digital platforms as a part of the Industry 4.0 strategy.
Blockchain technology enables distributed, encrypted and secure logging of digital transactions. It is the underlying technology of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is expected to ...revolutionize computing in several areas, particularly where centralization was unnatural and privacy was important. In the paper, we present research on where and how this technology could be useful in the construction industry. The work is based on the study of literature on open issues that exist in construction process management. These are than matched to the capabilities of blockchain.
We are motivated by the fact that construction projects involve a dynamic grouping of several companies. We study the degree to which the relationships among them are hierarchical or peer-to-peer and note that particularly in information intensive phases, centralization of information management was necessary because of technology. When using un-constraining technology, communication patterns among participants show a peer-to-peer nature of the relationships. In such environment, blockchain can provide a trustworthy infrastructure for information management during all building life-cycle stages. Even if building information modelling (BIM) is used, which assumes a centralized building information model, there is a role for blockchain to manage information on who did what and when and thus provide a basis for any legal arguments that might occur. On the construction site blockchain can improve the reliability and trustworthiness of construction logbooks, works performed and material quantities recorded. In the facility maintenance phase, blockchain's main potential is the secure storage of sensor data which are sensitive to privacy.
We conclude that blockchain provides solutions to many current problems in construction information management. However, it is more likely that it will be built into generic IT infrastructure on top of which construction applications are built, rather than used directly by authors of construction related software. It has a potential to make construction processes less centralized which opens needs for research in that direction.
Successful applications of artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, have been prompting regulators to speed up the related regulation processes. China and the EU have been particularly ...ambitious in this regard. The EU AI Act has been swiftly progressing through the institutions and is expected to be officially adopted in spring 2024. This article argues that its overall approach is wrong, that it extends EU regulation into policy areas which come under national competences and that it will hurt European AI innovation in particular and society in general. Instead of regulating AI per se, the EU or the member states should regulate the use of AI in specific sectors or, better still, regulate it in technologically independent ways—by specifying what is allowed or prohibited, regardless of the technology used.
In navigating the currently troubled waters of inflation and the rising cost of living, politicians are tempted to treat the symptoms—offsetting the increasing expenses with subsidies and expanding ...welfare programmes. But one should also treat the cause. The cause is not Russian aggression towards Ukraine. That is also a symptom—a symptom of the weakness of Europe and the West, either real or perceived. This weakness should be addressed. In 2022 power politics made a comeback. It has become clear that a world in which prosperity is spread by innovation and trade is not a given but has to be protected by real power. In 2022, with war once again on European soil, the EU woke up to a world it thought only existed in the history books—where power rests on the pillars of demography, energy security, food security and military strength. To maintain its borders, its prosperity and its prestige in the world, the EU will need to be stronger. It will have to work harder, work smarter, improve productivity, innovate more and build alliances. Digital innovation is an important talking point, but one needs to look at the fundamentals first. The time is past for resting on one’s laurels, lecturing the world on European values and enjoying the American guarantee of safety for free.
Throughout the history of human civilization, specialization and division of labour have been key factors of progress. They were made possible by the cooperation of ever-larger groups of people. ...Construction has been no exception. However, specialization leads to fragmentation - unless specialization is supported by approaches and technologies that enable people to work together and that systems are interoperable. When it comes to interoperability, the construction sector is often considered special, but it is not incomparable to other industries. Methodologically, this paper is based on the frameworks developed in the field of Enterprise Information Systems. It considers interoperability as a means to achieve a goal. Novel is the understanding that the ultimate goal is neither integration nor more efficient construction but rather the division of labour and specialization. A comparison of approaches to interoperability with those in other areas reveals some gaps. Research in construction information technology has focused on one type of interoperability - semantic interoperability - intending to achieve computer integrated construction. There are other types of interoperability - legal and organizational - and other levels of interoperability - federated and unified. These also deserve investigation. In the future, there will be a growing number of systems that would need to be made interoperable, especially in connection with the construction 4.0’s Internet of Things, sensors, intelligent systems, etc. Since interoperability problems are caused by the emerging specializations, the problems of interoperability will never go away. The industry will have to recognize that it will always operate in an environment where interoperability is challenged. While research will continue working towards making systems interoperable and integrated it would need also to give attention to exploring collaboration in environments that are only partially interoperable.
•Suggests new framing of the issue of interoperability in construction: Its goal is not integration but specialization.•Puts interoperability in architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) into context of Enterprise Information Systems.•Argues that AEC will never be integrated because of the fragmentation into novel specializations.•Identifies gaps in the semantic interoperability apporach and suggest study of legal and organizational interoperability.•Provides a brief history of interoperability in construction and outlines future trends.
Building information modelling (BIM) has been a dominant topic in information technology in construction research since this memorable acronym replaced the boring “product modelling in construction” ...and the academic “conceptual modelling of buildings”. The ideal of having a complete, coherent, true digital representation of buildings has become a goal of scientific research, software development and industrial application. In this paper, the author asks and answers ten key questions about BIM, including what it is, how it will develop, how real are the promises and fears of BIM and what is its impact. The arguments in the answers are based on an understanding of BIM that considers BIM in the frame of structure-function-behavior paradigm. As a structure, BIM is a database with many remaining database challenges. The function of BIM is building information management. Building information was managed before the invention of digital computers and is managed today with computers. The goal is efficient support of business processes, such as with database-management systems. BIM behaves as a socio-technical system; it changes institutions, businesses, business models, education, workplaces and careers and is also changed by the environment in which it operates. Game theory and institutional theory provide a good framework to study its adoption. The most important contribution of BIM is not that it is a tool of automation or integration but a tool of further specialization. Specialization is a key to the division of labor, which results in using more knowledge, in higher productivity and in greater creativity.
•BIM is causing a major paradigm shift in the AEC industry.•Paper focuses on ten key big-picture questions related to BIM.•Studies BIM present & future through the structure, function, behavior framework.•Suggests the concept called BIMS - building information management system.•Key advantage of BIMS is not support of integration but of specialization.
A social-product-process framework for construction Turk, Žiga; Klinc, Robert
Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration,
10/2020, Letnik:
48, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper introduces a new framework for understanding, modelling and software engineering in construction information activities. The current framework is based on understanding that products are ...the results of processes, which are performed by actors. Such frameworks are influenced by the available technology. The Internet of today is supporting also other kinds of human activities: communication and social interactions among humans. The construction industry uses them as well but without having a proper understanding of their role. There is a gap in the current framework. In this paper, the relevant theories to specify this gap in terms of what could exist in theory and what is offered by technology are analysed. As a result, a new framework of construction information activities that fills the gap is proposed. The key concepts and relations among them are identified and elaborated within the existing framework. The framework introduces the third major integrative element of the otherwise fragmented construction information activities - the social network - the existing two being the physical building and its digital twin. The framework provides a theoretical and conceptual basis for designing, planning, creating, monitoring and evaluating construction-related online services that include a strong social component and use social media services.
Digitalisation of the construction industry is exposing it to cybersecurity risks. All phases of construction can be affected. Particularly vulnerable are information-intensive phases such as ...building design and building operation. Construction is among the last industries that are discovering its cybersecurity risks and can rely on frameworks developed for other contexts. In this paper, we evaluate the cybersecurity risks of the design phase of construction using the Cyber Assessment Framework from the National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) of the UK. The goal of this study is twofold. First, to examine cybersecurity risks themselves, and second, to evaluate the applicability of the NCSC framework for construction to see if and how construction is specific. The analysis shows that the cybersecurity risks follow the information impact curve that has been motivating the introduction of Building Information Modelling (BIM). The framework is applicable but is weak in addressing the specifics of the construction industrial ecosystem, which involves a multitude of dynamically connected actors, their overlapping authorities, and conflicting motives. It is suggested that a specialized constructionrelated framework should be developed.
Across Europe there is growing concern about populism. In this article populism is analysed through the lens of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundation theory. People make choices, including political ...choices, based on their morals. Political families also base their policies on moral foundations. The article analyses this phenomenon and identifies both the opportunities it provides for the European People’s Party (EPP) and the threats it poses. The opportunities have to do with a special feature of conservative parties: they address the entire spectrum of moral foundations while other political families specialise in one or just a few of those foundations—this is even truer of populists. This factor also forms the threat to the EPP: while others can specialise, the EPP family must stay balanced and broad. The other way to address populism is through subsidiarity—the closer people are to decisions, the less abstract they are and the less they are guided by moral foundations, and thus there is less opportunity for populism.
Many countries have issued standards to stipulate the quality of BIM models. However, due to the complexity of BIM models and the textual expression of the standards, checking the quality of BIM ...models against the standards manually is challenging and time-consuming. In order to solve the problem, this paper presents an ontology-based approach for the automatic compliance checking of BIM models against the standards. Taking the Chinese standard as an example, it is represented in OWL to obtain an ontology, and SWRL is used for representing the checking rules. Then, an inference process is established to fulfill the checking. Finally, a prototype system is developed to validate the approach. It is concluded that the approach can be applied to check the quality of BIM models in IFC format automatically. This research contributes to the development of automatic compliance checking systems for the quality of BIM models against real standards.
•An automatic compliance checking approach for IFC models against BIM quality standards is proposed.•Ontology technology is used to computerize the contents of BIM quality standards.•An inference process is established to check the quality compliance of BIM models against a real standard.•A prototype system is developed to validate the approach.•It contributes to the automatic compliance checking of BIM models against real standards and the promotion of BIM technology.
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