EaSiCon: Efficiency and Sustainability in Construction

Last year 73,300 new houses were built in The Netherlands, which is the second-highest production of houses in the past decade. Nevertheless, this pace is insufficient for achieving the national target of constructing one million new houses before 2030. At the same time, new construction projects struggle to get started due to environmental considerations. A ruling of the “Raad van State” late 2022 put an end to the possibility of obtaining construction permits without prior study of Nitrogen emissions. These developments invite the construction sector to accelerate innovations.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a building. The base version is shortly described as "3D BIM”, encompassing architecture, engineering, and construction aspects. Extended BIM versions may also include: required sequencing of physical activities and visualization of the critical path of events (4D BIM), costs (5D BIM), sustainability, energy and maintenance. In parallel, numerous methods have been developed over the years for planning activities on the construction site and for planning logistics processes, such as materials transport. To the best of our knowledge, however, integration of construction site planning and logistics planning with BIM is limited if not absent in most implementations.
We therefore develop a digital twin that serves as virtual real-time representation of the construction process and provides tactical and operational planning of activities. This digital twin (1) integrates seamlessly with BIM, (2) provides real-time insights into the status of a construction project by collecting and processing available data, (3) infers information through Artificial Intelligence where direct data is not available, (4) provides a home base to planning methods in a modular structure, (5) selects and invokes planning methods, (6) verifies feasibility, consistency and compatibility of outcomes from planning methods by scenario simulations, and (7) provides holistic planning advice based on the current status of a construction project.
We have ten work packages that successively bring us to the deployment of this digital twin. The setup aligns with Design Science methodology, providing a firm basis for uniting exploration in practice with scientific rigor. We start with the overarching design of the digital twin, defining functionality, data requirements, integration with BIM, and the modular software architecture. Existing planning methods are inventoried and examined for compatibility. Gaps in current capabilities are identified, and new planning methods developed. A working version of the digital twin is developed, use cases identified, and deployment tested in our Living Lab. Feedback loops are fused into the process. Findings are generalized beyond the setting of this project to enable adoption throughout the sector to maximize valorization.
Our digital twin can serve as the platform that enables the scale-up for wider deployment of various planning methods previously been developed in other Topsector Logistiek and TKI Dinalog projects. Considering the digital twin’s holistic concept, actually realizing in our Living Lab the perceived benefits of existing methods, adding new methods, and creating synergy, we expect major efficiency improvements in materials transport, with a corresponding reduction in Nitrogen emissions of 854 kg per year.
Consortium partners VolkerWessels and Royal HaskoningDHV are committed to realizing a working version of the digital twin, and to continuing development after the project ends. A pilot is scheduled in the earthquake-struck area in the Province of Groningen, where timeliness is essential for inhabitants. International rollout is investigated through collaboration with the German construction logistics company Zeppelin. University of Groningen will contribute to the digital twin's design and performance evaluation, including developing new tooling. All consortium partners, including buildingSMART will work to communicate lessons learned by means of papers, seminars, advisory, and other activities.