EaSiCon: Efficiency and Sustainability in Construction

Although tens of thousands of new homes are being built every year in the Netherlands, the pace is still below the speed needed to achieve the national target of one million homes by 2030. In addition, construction projects are increasingly being delayed by environmental and regulatory requirements, such as stricter NOx-emission standards. These challenges call for innovative solutions that not only speed up the construction process, but also make it more sustainable and reliable.

The EaSiCon project is developing a digital twin: a digital representation of a construction project that provides real-time insight into all activities on the construction site. This innovative tool supports tactical and operational planning by combining and analyzing data from various sources, making bottlenecks visible at an early stage and enabling better-informed decisions. Existing planning methods for construction site activities and logistics processes are integrated with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and supplemented with new techniques where necessary. The digital system is being tested in a practical environment, including a pilot in the earthquake zone in Groningen, to validate its effectiveness and applicability before it is rolled out more widely.

The EaSiCon project is expected to deliver several new insights and benefits. Construction companies will gain better insight into the progress of projects and will therefore be able to plan their work more efficiently. This will lead to faster construction, fewer delays, and a significant reduction in transport of materials, which will also reduce NOx-emissions. In the long term, this approach can contribute to the realization of thousands of additional homes and more sustainable construction processes. In addition, knowledge will be generated that can be applied more broadly: the insights gained from this project can be used in other construction projects and regions.