Construction 4.0

An Innovation Platform for the Built Environment

Anil Sawhney, Michael Riley, Javier Irizarry, Anil Sawhney, Michael Riley, Javier Irizarry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429675102
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Modelled on the concept of Industry 4.0, the idea of Construction 4.0 is based on a confluence of trends and technologies that promise to reshape the way built environment assets are designed, constructed, and operated.

With the pervasive use of Building Information Modelling (BIM), lean principles, digital technologies, and offsite construction, the industry is at the cusp of this transformation. The critical challenge is the fragmented state of teaching, research, and professional practice in the built environment sector. This handbook aims to overcome this fragmentation by describing Construction 4.0 in the context of its current state, emerging trends and technologies, and the people and process issues that surround the coming transformation.

Construction 4.0 is a framework that is a confluence and convergence of the following broad themes discussed in this book:

• Industrial production (prefabrication, 3D printing and assembly, offsite manufacture)
• Cyber-physical systems (actuators, sensors, IoT, robots, cobots, drones)
• Digital and computing technologies (BIM, video and laser scanning, AI and cloud computing, big data and data analytics, reality capture, Blockchain, simulation, augmented reality, data standards and interoperability, and vertical and horizontal integration)

The aim of this handbook is to describe the Construction 4.0 framework and consequently highlight the resultant processes and practices that allow us to plan, design, deliver, and operate built environment assets more effectively and efficiently by focusing on the physical-to-digital transformation and then digital-to-physical transformation. This book is essential reading for all built environment and AEC stakeholders who need to get to grips with the technological transformations currently shaping their industry, research, and teaching.

PART I

Introduction and overview of Construction 4.0, CPS, Digital Ecosystem, and innovation

1

Construction 4.0

Introduction and overview

Anil Sawhney, Mike Riley, and Javier Irizarry

1.1 Aims

• Provide an overview of Industry 4.0 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
• Provide a comprehensive review of the current state of the construction sector.
• Describe the overall Construction 4.0 framework.
• Articulate the purpose of Construction 4.0.
• Describe the handbook, its three parts, and its various chapters.

1.2 Introduction to Construction 4.0

With the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the resulting framework of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) (MacDougall, 2014), the built environment sector also has the opportunity to leapfrog to more efficient production, business models, and value chains. Such a transformation is possible through the convergence of existing and emerging technologies that form part of the Industry 4.0 paradigm (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2016). This transformative framework is called the Construction 4.0 framework in this handbook. Modelled after the concept of Industry 4.0, the idea of Construction 4.0 is based on a confluence of trends and technologies (both digital and physical) that promise to reshape the way built environment assets are designed and constructed.

In 4IR, the fundamental driver is the use of cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are enabling technologies that bring the virtual and physical worlds together to create a truly networked world in which intelligent objects communicate and interact with each other (Griffor et al., 2017). A conceptual model of the CPS is provided in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Conceptual model of CPS

The Construction 4.0 framework uses CPS as a core driver and links it with the concept of Digital Ecosystem where ‘A digital ecosystem is an interdependent group of enterprises, people and/or things that share standardized digital platforms for a mutually beneficial purpose, such as commercial gain, innovation or common interest’ (Gartner, 2017). The idea of a Digital Ecosystem is shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Conceptual model of a Digital Ecosystem

Construction 4.0 combines CPS and Digital Ecosystem to create a new paradigm for the design and construction of our built environment assets as shown in Figure 1.3.

Figure 1.3 Construction 4.0 as a combination of CPS and Digital Ecosystem

Using the CPS, the cyber-physical gap that exists in the built environment can be bridged, and by concomitantly using the Digital Ecosystem the work processes to collaborate efficiently across the project delivery network to design and construct the asset can be enhanced. The Construction 4.0 framework, therefore, provides a mechanism via which we can:

1. Digitally model the built assets that already exist in our physical world.
2. Design new assets in the backdrop of what already exists or plan for the retrofit and rehabilitation of existing assets using these digital models.
3. Once these assets are digitally captured and designed, use digital and physical technologies to deliver these physical assets.

The same framework can be adopted during the operation phase of the constructed asset by using similar digital and physical technologies to support Facilities Management (FM) functions. However, the focus of this handbook is limited to the design and construction phases.

The aim of this handbook is to describe the Construction 4.0 framework and consequently highlight the resultant processes and practices that allow us to plan, design, and deliver built environment assets more effectively and efficiently by focusing on the physical-to-digital transformation and then digital-to-physical transformation. This concept is illustrated graphically in Figure 1.4.

Figure 1.4 Physical to digital and digital to physical transformation

With the pervasive use of Building Information Modeling (BIM), lean principles, digital technologies, and offsite construction the industry is at the cusp of this transformation. The critical challenge is the fragmented state of our teaching, research, and professional practice in the built environment domain. The authors and editors of this handbook aim to overcome this fragmentation by describing Construction 4.0 in the context of current state, emerging trends and technologies, and people and process issues that surround the proposed transformation.

Construction 4.0 is a framework that is a confluence and convergence of the following broad themes:

• Industrial production (prefabrication, 3D printing, and assembly, offsite manufacture).
• Cyber-physical systems (robots and cobots for repetitive and dangerous processes, and drones for surveying and lifting, moving and positioning, and actuators).
• Digital technologies (BIM, video and laser scanning, IoT, sensors, AI and cloud computing, big data and data analytics, reality capture, Blockchain, simulation, augmented reality, data standards and interoperability, and vertical and horizontal integration).

With this background and motivating factors, the handbook will address issues surrounding the key themes of people, processes and practice, and new technologies (as shown in Figure 1.5).

Figure 1.5 Themes of Construction 4.0

Modern digital and physical technologies are required to achieve the overarching vision of the 4IR (Jacobides, Sundararajan, and Van Alstyne, 2019) that underpins the Construction 4.0 framework, therefore, the framework relies on two broad paradigms: (1) cyber-physical systems and (2) Digital Ecosystems. Innovations in both cyber-physical and digital paradigms are necessary to advance the vision of Construction 4.0 in our industry.

1.3 Current state of the construction sector

Given the importance of the construction sector to their national economies, several countries have undertaken studies to identify the challenges and opportunities that the industry presents. For example, the UK has conducted several prominent studies to document the problems of the construction sector to put in place a program for improvement of the whole-of-the-sector. Sir John Egan, the chair of the Construction Task Force, published his report entitled Rethinking Construction in 1998 (Egan, 1998). It was instrumental in laying out a road map for the efficiency improvements within the construction industry in the UK. This came close on the heels of the report, titled ‘Constructing the Team’ authored by Sir Michael Latham and published in 1994. The Latham report identified inefficiencies and made recommendations for enhanced collaboration and coordination in the industry (Latham, 1994). More recently, the UK released a report by Mark Farmer entitled ‘Modernise or Die’ (Farmer, 2016) that used a ‘strong medical process analogy’. Around the time that this study was being conducted, the UK government also released their Construction 2025 industrial strategy with a plan to commit close to £75 million in research and development.

Other countries, such as the US, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and China, have also undertaken sector-wide studies. For example, a similar exercise was conducted in the US, where Construction Users Roundtable produced a detailed report to outline a path to competitive advantage for construction users.

Several developing nations have also undertaken such studies that identify the problems faced and listed the difficulties hindering growth (Al-Momani, 1995b, 1995a; Edmonds, 1979; Manoliadis, Tsolas, and Nakou, 2006; Moavenzadeh, 1978; Moore and Shearer, 2004; Ofori, 1989, 1994, 2000). This is even more important because in developing countries the construction sector’s capacity constraints impact the economic development process (Wells, 2001). These studies have also developed action points necessary for the development of the construction industry (Ofori, 1994, 2000) including the importance of developing key performance indicators (Beatham et al., 2004; Ofori, 2000). A priority-based approach was proposed to rank solutions offered by the researchers and policymakers (Ofori, 1990) with several researchers presenting an optimistic case about the improvement plans (Koenigsberger and Groak, 1978; Turin, 1973).

The repeated nature of these national studies show that there is stagnation and barring some incremental improvements; the industry as a whole has still not managed to show major improvements. The results have been mostly disappointing (Chemillier, 1988; Ofori, 1984, 1990; UNCHS, 1990). Barring a few countries, the problems have persisted over a long period despite efforts made to overcome them. This has been pointed out in the Farmer report that states ‘construction has not even made the transition to “industry 3.0” status which is predicated on large scale use of electronics and IT to automate production’ (Farmer, 2016; Gerbert et al., 2017). Research has pointed towards a long-term strategic approach to be followed, which is related to the socio-economic needs of the country, often overseen by a steering committee (Farmer, 2016; Ofori, 1994).

The studies described above have generally identified a standard set of challenges or problems that the industry faces. In one such study a list of ten grand challenges (shown in Figure 1.6) faced by the construction sector in India were identified (Sawhney, Agnihotri, and Paul, 2014).

Figure 1.6 Key challenges faced by the construction sector (Sawhney, Agnihotri, and Paul, 2014) reproduced with kind permission of Emerald Publishing

The following are the key challenges that have been collated from these studies (Farmer, 2016; Gerbert et al., 2017; Global Industry Council, 2018; Sawhney and Agnihotri, 2014; Witthoeft and Kosta, 2017):

1. Low levels of research and development leading to a lack of innovation and delayed adoption of technologies.
2. Workforce issues including shortage of young talent due in part to poor industry image.
3. Informal processes and lack of process standardization leading to structural fragmentation.
4. Low levels of cross-functional cooperation and limited collaboration leading to a lack of improvement culture.
5. Low productivity, predictability, and profits.
6. Adversarial transaction-based procurement regime.
7. Insufficient knowledge transfer from project to project.
8. Cultural and mindset issues that act as a blocker to any change.

These issues require a transformational change (Farmer, 2016) in the industry, and we envision that Industry 4.0 can provide a broad framework for such a change.

1.4 Overview of Industry 4.0

During the Hannover Messe in 2011, the German Federal Government released its vision for the future of the manufacturing sector under the broad umbrella term INDUSTRIE 4.0 (Roblek, Meško, and Krapež, 2016). It became part of the ‘High-Tech Strategy 2020’ project that continues to grow a...