Federating Cloud Systems for Collaborative Construction and Engineering

Abstract

The construction industry has undergone a transformation in the use of data to drive its processes and outcomes, especially with the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM). In particular, project collaboration in the construction industry can involve multiple stakeholders (architects, engineers, consultants) that exchange data at different project stages. Therefore, the use of Cloud computing in construction projects has continued to increase, primarily due to the ease of access, availability and scalability in data storage and analysis available through such platforms. Federation of cloud systems can provide greater flexibility in choosing a Cloud provider, enabling different members of the construction project to select a provider based on their cost to benefit requirements. When multiple construction disciplines collaborate online, the risk associated with project failure increases as the capability of a provider to deliver on the project cannot be assessed apriori. In such uncontrolled industrial environments, ''trust'' can be an efficacious mechanism for more informed decision making adaptive to the evolving nature of such multiorganisation dynamic collaborations in construction. This paper presents a trust based Cooperation Value Estimation (CoVE) approach to enable and sustain collaboration among disciplines in construction projects mainly focusing on data privacy, security and performance. The proposed approach is demonstrated with data and processes from a real highway bridge construction project describing the entire selection process of a cloud provider. The selection process uses the audit and assessment process of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and real world performance data from the construction industry workloads. Other application domains can also make use of this proposed approach by adapting it to their respective specifications. Experimental evaluation has shown that the proposed approach ensures on-time completion of projects and enhanced collaboration performance.

Realizing the Need for Digital Transformation of Stakeholder Management: A Systematic Review in the Construction Industry

“…Web ontology (or the semantic web) can be used to support heterogeneous data transfer and integration through web services; thus, to facilitate the collaboration and information exchange of supply chain stakeholders, an ICT system based on ontologies was developed, assisting stakeholders in using their own machines storing data but using a common platform, which improves data integrity [50]. A different approach focusing on quantifying data privacy, security, and performance was developed to test the adequacy of each web-based system linked in a federation of computational infrastructure from multiple stakeholders (e.g., architects, engineers), and this improved the on-time completion of projects and enhanced collaboration performance [51] Stakeholder Circle Tool and Darzin Software-ICT Tools for Stakeholder Management…”

“…There is room to further explore how to make web apps cheaper and more available for widespread usage. Additionally, the authors of [30,51] admit that newly developed frameworks and models (e.g., the client briefing framework or federated cloud evaluation) are better suited for large scale projects and multiple stakeholder contexts, leaving room to explore web apps for normal scaled projects. For stakeholder circle apps, there is room for improvements in terms of adding visualization of stakeholder networks [12] and also the question of whether the stakeholder management process should be somehow merged with risk management [97].…”

Leveraging BIM and Blockchain for Digital Twins

“…EVALUATION The evaluation was performed with data and models from the Clouds4Coordination (C4C) project [62] involving multidisciplinary collaboration for a highway construction project. The framework was developed using a cloud computing infrastructure [63] to support a real-world UK highway development project involving the construction of a new bridge.…”

Edge-cloud resource federation for sustainable cities

“…The dynamic integration of private/ public cloud systems with Internet of Things (IoT) devices can more efficiently accommodate different sets of task requests, as providers can cooperate by forming a resource federation, to enable resource sharing while addressing specific provider objectives. A federation in this context refers to integrating capacity across a number of different resources based on variation in demand [24]. To manage and create such resource federations, various game theoretic models can be adopted to provide more efficient use of resources [8].…”