BIM2TWIN: Optimal Construction Management and Production Control

The construction sector is often described as a low-productivity sector, weak in terms of innovation and slow to adopt digital solutions. However, the adoption of BIM has streamlined the design process by facilitating communication between the players involved and has proven that the deployment of digital solutions may greatly improve productivity. The act of construction brings together professionals from different companies around the same project for a limited period, and as a result the construction process is affected by numerous problems, such as design and planning issues (both human resources and materials), unsuitable working methods or equipment, as well as safety and security issues for workers on site. The concept of the Digital Twin was first mooted in the 1970s. Initially evoked in relation to factory production processes, the notion has evolved and spread to other areas such as engineering, product design, simulation, predictive maintenance, etc. The popularity of the concept has increased considerably in recent years with technological advances such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced 3D modelling. For the construction industry, the adoption of Digital Building Twins (DBT) i the construction site offers the promise to address the inherent complexit of construction activity. A DBT can provide a decision support environment, bringing together an automated system able to capture on-site information and the services able to process, analyse and transform this raw information into knowledge. Accurate and reliable knowledge of the current status facilitates the decision mechanisms in planning production systems that have some resilience to unforeseen events that occur randomly during on-site activities. Applied to the construction sector, a digital twin is a virtual replica of a building or physical infrastructure that already exists or is under construction. This is the context for the BIM2TWIN project, which aimed to research, develop and test a technical solution system that includes a comprehensive set of tools for monitoring the progress of a construction site, focusing on monitoring the construction process, assessing the quality of construction, monitoring the safety and security of workers on site, and optimising the use of equipment. The solution developed in BIM2TWIN also includes a service that takes account of deviations from the planned schedule reported during construction and proposes alternative plans to respond to these deviations as effectively as possible. Thus, this project sought to highlight the potential of the DBT concept for optimising construction processes based on digital monitoring on site and in the supply chain, on artificially intelligent diagnosis of the monitored data, and on simulation and predictive analysis of proposed alternate production plans.