Material passport for modular construction

Digital transformation lagged in the built environment due to the sector’s dependence on legacy systems, inadequate budget, lack of standards, difficulty in realising benefits and inadequate cross-departmental communication due to its fragmented structure. The European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) highlights construction and buildings as key sectors for implementing digital passports to provide comprehensive life cycle information of products, prompting compliance efforts among UK organisations engaged in international trade. This study presents the development of a Material Passport (MP) testbed to demonstrate the traceability of building components and elements. To achieve this, the key stakeholders, user stories, and data requirements were identified through interactions with six industry stakeholders in the UK. The interactive MP testbed was developed using Unity 3DTM and a 3D Building Information Model (BIM) of a modular house provided by a UK-based sustainable building component manufacturer. The testbed allows the company to track the lifecycle of building components, significantly improving their ability to manage their supply chain and promote a circular economy. The unique product ID of each building component embedded in the MP supports the quality control and assurance which will be an important part of having their product certified and tested. In the long term, the physical tagging of the parts using the MP aims to increase productivity and minimise waste by up to 30%.