The construction industry continues to seek innovative ways to safely, timely and cost-effectively deliver construction projects. Several efforts have been made to automate construction processes but marginial success has been achieved in effectively reducing the long standing risks suffered by the industry. While industry 4.0 promises to improve project efficiency, reduce waste and improve productivity, the transition to this will depend on the successful adoption of many emerging technologies such as virtual design modeling technologies, sensing technologies, data analysis, storage and communication technologies, human-computer interaction technologies, and robotics. To accelerate innovation, digital twins and cyber-physical systems will be a necessity to advance automation and real-time control with these technologies. While digital twin represents a digital replica of the asplanned and as-built facility, cyber physical systems involve integration of physical systems with their digital replica through sensors and actuators. Despite evidence of the efficacy of cyber-physical systems and digital twins for reducing non-fatal injuries, enhancing safety management, improving progress monitoring and enhancing performance monitoring and control of facilities, their adoption in the construction industry is still in its infancy. This paper sheds light on the opportunities offered by cyber-physical systems and digital twins in other industry sectors and advocates for their increased deployment in the construction industry. This paper describes cyber-physical integration of emerging technologies with the physical construction or constructed facility as the next generation digital twin and cyber-physical systems. Potential scenarios of next generation cyber physical system and digital twin for improving workforce productivity, health, and safety, lifecycle management of building systems, and workforce competency are presented.

The emergence of digital twin technology presents tremendous opportunities for several industry sectors. A digital twin is defined as the virtual representation of a physical asset that collects and sends real-time information. A digital twin collects data from the physical asset in real-time and uses this data to create a virtual model of the physical object. Its functionality depends on the bi-directional coordination of data between the physical and virtual models. This is likened to cyber-physical systems, which seek to provide bi-directional coordination between the physical and virtual worlds. While digital twins have found applications in the various industrial sectors such as aerospace, manufacturing, and industrial engineering, their applications in the construction industry are relatively limited. Although some level of progress has been made in the construction industry with the application of a digital twin, it still lags in other sectors. Virtual models of constructed facilities are developed and used to plan and construct the actual facility, with changes in the physical facility being automatically reflected in the virtual model based on real-time data and vice-versa. The digital twin shows promising possibilities in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a facility. This paper reviews the development and implementation of digital twin technology in the construction industry and compares its use with other industries while assessing the benefits of DT to the construction industry. A systematic literature review including a thematic analysis was employed to address the purpose of this study. Limitations associated with the existing and emerging applications are also identified. It concludes by highlighting the importance of DT applications in the construction sector.

Effective knowledge transfer can improve the work efficiency of project network members. However, as traditional labor-intensive enterprises, construction companies do not pay enough attention to knowledge management, and the characteristics of projects increase knowledge loss to a certain extent. This results in the knowledge-transfer performance of a project network not being ideal and work efficiency reduction. This paper aims to explore knowledge-transfer factors and their relationships in construction project cooperation networks (CPCNs). A framework model and hypotheses were formulated through literature research, theoretical analysis, and practical experience. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses based on a questionnaire survey data set of 210 workers from Chinese construction companies. The results showed that, in the context of Chinese relationships, the temporary nature of projects will not affect knowledge transfer in CPCNs. The urgency of projects will positively affect parts of network members’ knowledge transfer. The relationship between knowledge suppliers and recipients plays a critical role in mediating the influences of project characteristics on knowledge-transfer performance.

Technological advances have enabled the monitoring and control of construction operations and assets remotely. Digital twins, based on computational modeling, have enabled the creation of a digital map for physical structures. Research on digital twins (DTs) for constructed facilities projects has gained widespread traction in the industry. While these applications have increased over the years, there has been sparse review of them. This paper systematically reviews the applications of digital twins in construction using content analysis. We identified and analyzed 53 academic journal and conference papers, which revealed several DT applications that could be categorized into nine areas: lifecycle analysis, facility management, energy, education, disaster, structural health monitoring, DT for cities, infrastructure management, and miscellaneous. This enables the visualization of the current state of DT, comparison with the desired state, and possible integrations with other technologies. Among the observed benefits of DTs are the ability to increase engagement and collaboration, reduce construction and operating costs, reduce human error, automate energy demand, manage assets throughout their lifecycle, and apply structural health monitoring. It also enables the collection of real-time data on an asset’s status, history, maintenance needs, and provides an interactive platform for managing an asset. Future directions include addressing how to standardize data acquisition as well as the semantic interoperability and heterogeneity of data. Additionally, modeling human cognitive processes as well as spatiotemporal information would be beneficial to a smart city and other infrastructure systems, especially in disaster situations.

Though Building Information Modeling (BIM) has been proposed as a lean solution for the construction industry, its implementation would itself benefit from a proactive lean approach. This paper aims to study the implementation of BIM in Facilities Management (FM), and explores the synergistic potential of a lean approach. This was carried out through an integrative review of existing literature. BIM-FM implementation was categorized into three phases, which were analyzed to uncover the challenges and barriers faced in each; and explore the potential of a proactive lean approach to counter them. A number of key findings emerged. The existence of inefficiencies and variability in information management leading to an increase in labor hours was identified as a persistent problem in BIM-FM implementation. This had been derived by systematically mapping the challenges to their resultant effects on business processes based on the seven identified wastes in business. The paper provides both academics and practitioners with a collated list of issues based on a new way of examining BIM in FM implementation. It discusses the need for and synergistic potential of lean concepts to reduce information and time waste.