Industry 4.0 for the Construction Industry

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 Discussion

State-Of-The-Art Industry 4.0 in the Construction Industry

Whereas the first industrial revolution introduced mechanical power, the second industrial revolution lightened up the industry, and the third industrial revolution digitized the information and production [15,16,19], Industry 4.0 has amalgamated the physical world with the information era directed by the cyber-physical system approach [24]. Industry 4.0 is also known as “smart manufacturing”, “industrial internet”, or “integrated industry”, which has shifted the value chain of organization and management across the lifecycle of products by integrating complex devices, machines, and networked sensors and software, deployed to predict, control, and plan for better business and societal outcomes [60]. The combination of these digital innovations is collectively called the Internet of Things (IoT) in the cyber-physical system, which are able to meet new emergent needs and provide capabilities that instigate the next evolution of society and its organization or institution [26] and transform how products are designed, fabricated, used, operated, maintained, and serviced [61]. Robotic technologies have been merged with the construction industry, known as construction automation technologies, to create elements of buildings, building components, and building furniture [25].

Industry 4.0 has challenged the construction industry by providing a glimpse of the construction digitization potential with the availability of digital data and online digital access that automatically gather and process electronic data into the value chain on discrete tasks [24]. BIM (within the planning domain), as the center of construction digitization together with Industry 4.0 (production domain), is able to close the digital gap that still exists and sustain the impact on future building processes [59]. The innovation in and approaches to construction automation are still in their infancy [62] and not fully employed as the technical aspects of the available technologies are still being investigated though some technologies have reached maturity, such as BIM, cloud computing, mobile computing, and modularization [32]. The fact that construction projects are becoming increasingly complex despite construction being a flat market for the previous five decades requires Industry 4.0 as a solution for a new business model [24,25]. This has occurred because, currently, the construction industry has one of the lowest capital investments as well as low capital intensity [25] with the lowest R&D intensity [32] compared to other sectors despite being a major contributor to the employment and economy of many countries [63]. The fragmented supply chain of the construction industry, which includes several small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), limits the ability to invest in innovative technologies [33]. Another reason behind the slow adoption is because the gap between construction and manufacturing is relatively huge though both industries are categorized into the same group and work together [24]. The unavailability of a dedicated process change strategy, dedicated implementation plan, and business strategy alignment have also contributed to the slow adoption. Since Industry 4.0 creates value that transforms the overall business strategy in the construction industry, there is a need to propose some strategies for implementation. With the capability to automate both design and manufacturing processes and the possibility of handling a heterogeneous and significant amount of information, Industry 4.0 is expected to be able to improve the quality and productivity of construction and attract domestic and foreign investors.

This review, though we are not claiming it to be exhaustive, has provided an overview of Industry 4.0 concept in construction industry in the last five years. The selected papers revealed the active collaboration between BIM with technologies from Industry 4.0 (Figure 7), such as the use of BIM to support design decisions for mass customization production [54], structural health monitoring (SHM) using open BIM [43], allowing schedule monitoring in real time [50], smart steel bridge construction enabled by BIM and IoT [51], and a digital platform that uses augmented reality (AR) combined with BIM to provide workers with relevant information in real-time [58]. However, the pattern of topics discussed are broad and conceptual. The targeted papers only mention the benefit of Industry 4.0 to the construction industry conceptually. A detailed study should be completed to understand the benefits brought by Industry 4.0 to the construction industry. In addition, studies are lacking on management processes for overall project life cycle as well as the operation, and tactical and strategic planning in this collaborative and autonomous synchronization system. Studies in this area are needed in order to transform the construction network and construction economy and to integrate BIM with Industry 4.0 technology. The relationship of Industry 4.0 as the production domain with BIM as the planning domain acts as the core structure of the cyber-planning-physical system, influenced by the benefits and challenges of Industry 4.0 for the construction industry is illustrated in Figure 8 [32,59,64]. Figure 7 shows how the physical and cyber domains are controlled by the planning domain.

Figure 7. Concept of technologies in Industry 4.0 with BIM as its core structure with collaboration and an autonomous synchronization system.

Figure 8. The relationships in the cyber-planning-physical system with BIM as its core. Adapted from previous studies [32,59,64].

The bi-directional coordination between the physical domain and cyber domain has the potential to improve real-time progress monitoring and control the construction process, track changes, model updates, and exchange information between the design and operational stages [65]. This is a solution to the infamous construction practice epitomized by the management inefficiencies that result in delays, unforeseen costs, and poor work quality [66]. Since BIM is the core of this bi-directional coordination, its role is to digitize and control the overall process of the construction life cycle. However, for this to be realized, the construction industry needs to accommodate their activities with BIM functionalities, as BIM tools have the potential to be used for managing different activities [67]. BIM functionalities include six components [68]:

(1) Team communication and integration,

(2) Parametric modelling and visualization,

(3) Building performance analysis and simulation,

(4) Automatic document generation,

(5) Improved building lifecycle management, and

(6) Software interoperability with other applications.

The relationship between the cyber-planning-physical system, BIM functionalities, and construction phases is illustrated in Figure 9. However, this improvement requires data transparency, concurrent viewing and editing of a single federated model, and controlled coordination of information access [69]. For this to be implemented, the three main components clustered in the findings need to be highlighted.

Figure 9. Relationship between cyber-planning-physical system, BIM functionalities, and construction phases.

 Cluster Technology

The first cluster includes a wide range of technologies available in Industry 4.0: internet, automatic equipment, Internet of Things, augmented reality technology, and sensors. This cluster completes the cyber-planning-physical ecosystem by integrating physical machineries and devices, non-physical technologies, and BIM to accommodate BIM functionalities to improve construction activities during different phases. The application of these technologies in the construction industry could not possibly be realized without the digitization of data from BIM as the collaboration medium. For example, design automation combining the BIM model with advanced simulation tools and genetic algorithms was able to mass-customize housing construction [54]; the use of BIM in the navigation core provided an augmented reality navigation system to navigate pathways in building [47]; the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons, Extended Markup Language (XML) formatted informative BIM, and BIM model on the Unity platform provided workers with relevant information in real-time based on their current position on the construction site through augmented reality [59]; and BIM, IoT, sensors, data computing, and advanced analytics tools were used to simulate, re-simulate, and map the simulation for steel bridge performance monitoring as the core enabling the technology system [51]. Automated real-time construction technologies would help the construction industry to improve the productivity and quality of a project throughout its lifecycle. As such, the availability of the Internet and Internet of Things enables the creation of a cyber domain to support these smart technologies in the physical domain with the support of BIM in the planning domain.

 Cluster Security

Cluster two includes system, cyber-physical system, data, environment, and legislative aspects that can be categorized as a security cluster in Industry 4.0 for construction. Since Industry 4.0 involves data and systems in a virtual environment, it is crucial to be concerned about the security issues as any wrong information has the potential to have negative consequences [70]. BIM, as the planning domain, possesses rich information and data about the construction life cycle that can easily be extracted and reused [71]. BIM open standards were developed to represent information in a building information model and openly exchange this information [68]. The BIM open standard has been recognized a standardization to exchange information and documents with other partners that previously could not be executed automatically [69]. These standards include the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), Green Building XML, and the newer Construction Operations Building Information Exchange [68]. Green Building XML is an open schema created to facilitate the transfer of building data stored in BIM to engineering analysis tools. However, most construction professionals are still unaware of the legal implications arising from BIM adoption, although several BIM protocols and contracts have been developed [11]. This requires protection of the ownership of the model through copyright laws [72] to avoid data loss, theft of intellectual property, or misuse during data exchanges within a common data environment [73]. However, security issues faced by Industry 4.0 in the construction industry are not only limited to the ownership of the data in BIM, but also include the system security and data security associated with the cyber-planning-physical system security, software, and hardware. The main objectives of cyber-physical system security are confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authenticity [74]. Without a properly designed cyber-planning-physical system security, the whole system might be at risk of cyber-attacks such DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service), data theft, eavesdropping, and malicious software. The attacker can delete, modify, steal, or exploit the information and resources for inappropriate reasons [75]. Most published papers did not properly cover providing security involved with BIM. Further studies on the cyber-planning-physical system security are required.

 Cluster Management

Cluster three included articles related to management related to Industry 4.0, including management, innovation, design, performance, quality, and digital transformation, which are related to BIM functionalities. Management in the Industry 4.0 era with BIM as its core has slowly been revolutionized, as shown by higher performance and good quality in construction practices. The targeted papers have demonstrated the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies by achieving real-time project management [49], smart technology management [51], smart indoor navigation management [47], creating a digital twin for facility management [53], road construction management [50], as well as mass-customization of design management [54]. With the clear distribution of managerial framework for the integration of BIM and Industry 4.0, the construction industry is able to capture the benefits from BIM and Industry 4.0 from a management perspective and is expected to develop and deploy more technologies to enhance productivity. As the core of the project with a collaborative and autonomous synchronization system, BIM provides a new means to predict, manage, and monitor the quality and performance of the project throughout the whole project life cycle.

Methodological Concerns

Concept papers have flourished in the Industry 4.0 for construction research topic. This review provided a summary of the current state of the research related to Industry 4.0 in the construction industry, both conceptually and providing an in-depth systematic discussion. From 20 targeted papers, 9 papers were concept papers. Concept papers generally contain a clear description of the research topic, including a summary of what is already known about that topic and the importance of the studies without documenting statistical evidence of the sources for the purpose of attracting readers to understand what the researcher is currently investigating, usually published during earlier stages of research [76]. Four papers were categorized as systematic literature reviews (SLRs), reviewing the trend toward digitization and automation of the construction industry and identifying and classifying the pattern of the research themes. SLRs are used to comprehensively locate and synthesize related research, using organized, transparent, and replicable procedures at each step in the process [77]. Another method of review used in the summarized papers was Longitudinal Literature Review (LLR). LLR is the science of tracing changes by repeatedly measuring the same phenomenon under the same circumstances over a long period of time [78]. This procedure is often used in standard SLR, but is differentiated by the extensive length of the observation period to identify the changing trend and determine how the trend influences the surroundings. This targeted review of these specific types of papers is able to help other researchers to overview what is currently happening to the construction industry due to the dramatic change due to the Industry 4.0 era. The suggestions for future research and the overview of the benefits and challenges of the research topic were rigorously documented using the evidence from the implementation in other industries.

Original research (primary sources) of the targeted papers was limited. Only seven original papers were found, all of which used quantitative research on specific research topics that were not related to each other: augmented reality [58], facility management [53], structural monitoring [43], data management [48], design management [52], and real-time project management [49]. All selected papers discussed experiments and the result obtained. The articles included detailed descriptions of the methods used to produce the results for future verification or knowledge transfer by other researchers.

To obtain an in-depth understanding of the theories underpinning Industry 4.0 for construction, qualitative research is needed as it focuses on “why” rather than the “what” to examine the natural phenomena of the research topic. However, the selected papers contained no qualitative original research, as the research topic is still in its infancy. Qualitative research papers are able to dive deeper into the problem of the research topic by reporting the phenomena from multiple perspectives, identifying many factors involved in the situation, and generally sketch the bigger picture that emerges. This limitation provides an opportunity to further explore this research topic qualitatively as the phenomena is immature due to a lack of theory and a limited number of available studies.

Maskuriy, R., Selamat, A., Ali, K. N., Maresova, P., & Krejcar, O. (2019). Industry 4.0 for the construction industry—how ready is the industry?. Applied Sciences, 9(14), 2819.