Lean Practices Using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Digital Twinning for Sustainable Construction

Abstract

There is a need to apply lean approaches in construction projects. Both BIM and IoT are increasingly being used in the construction industry. However, using BIM in conjunction with IoT for sustainability purposes has not received enough attention in construction. In particular, the capability created from the combination of both technologies has not been exploited. There is a growing consensus that the future of construction operation tends to be smart and intelligent, which would be possible by a combination of both information systems and sensors. This investigation aims to find out the recent efforts of utilizing BIM for lean purposes in the last decade by critically reviewing the published literature and identifying dominant clusters of research topics. More specifically, the investigation is further developed by identifying the gaps in the literature to utilize IoT in conjunction with BIM in construction projects to facilitate applying lean techniques in a more efficient way in construction projects. A systematic review method was designed to identify scholarly papers covering both concepts “lean” and “BIM” in construction and possibilities of using IoT. A total of 48 scholarly articles selected from 26 construction journals were carefully reviewed thorough perusal. The key findings were discussed with industry practitioners. The transcriptions were analyzed employing two coding and cluster analysis techniques. The results of the cluster analysis show two main directions, including the recent practice of lean and BIM interactions and issues of lean and BIM adoption. Findings revealed a large synergy between lean and BIM in control interactions and reduction in variations, and surprisingly there are many uncovered areas in this field. The results also show that the capability of IoT is also largely not considered in recent developments. The number of papers covering both lean and BIM is very limited, and there is a large clear gap in understanding synergetic interactions of lean concepts applying in BIM and IoT in specific fields of construction such as sustainable infrastructure projects.

System Dynamics Outlook on BIM and LEAN Interaction in Construction Quantity Surveying

“…BIM and Lean have a great synergy in controlling interactions and reducing variation (Sepasgozar et al 2021 ). Simultaneous usage of these two concepts enables the optimization of the overall time and cost and increment of quality to a remarkable level (Said 2016 ).…”

“…Their combined application has a greater improvement impact on the project than the single application. However, most of the previous research focused on the theory of BIM and LEAN, and there was little practice in the development of BIM-LEAN tools (Sepasgozar 2021 ).…”

Digital twin-driven intelligence disaster prevention and mitigation for infrastructure: advances, challenges, and opportunities

“…It is also an important bridge between a physical space and a virtual space, as well as various other technologies (Negri et al 2017 ). The introduction of DT can effectively improve construction quality, reduce the incidence of errors, and effectively improve the intelligence and informatization of the infrastructure construction process (Sepasgozar et al 2020 ). It also promotes the transformation and upgrading of intelligent construction and helps in the healthy operation and maintenance of construction systems.…”

Prefabricated Building Systems—Design and Construction

“…The quantity surveying activity for cost estimation of a traditional construction project gets enriched into a much broader process involving logistics and procurement. Principles of 'Lean Manufacturing' have been adopted to incorporate logistics management of both in-factory and on-site work in recent research [9,10] and are gradually being adopted by prefab builders, especially the ones that have a degree of automation within their facilities. Concepts from blockchain and cryptocurrency have also been considered in recent research for developing smart procurement methods and smart contracts to add further efficiencies to prefab building processes [11][12][13].…”