Archival Study of Blockchain Applications in the Construction Industry From Literature Published in 2019 and 2020

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate proposed blockchain applications in the construction industry from contemporary literature. Methodology: Archival studies will be used to obtain academic content from secondary sources. An explorative strategy will be adopted with no preconception or biases on the preferred route of execution. Blockchain is a fast-evolving technology with a high rate of yearly progression; therefore, this paper refines the search to recently published material in 2019 and 2020. Data is collected in two stages, firstly, categories of research are extrapolated from secondary literature and recorded into a table, and afterwards, the corresponding proposed application of blockchain is documented and reviewed. Findings: An adequate breadth and variety of categories are substantiated from archival literature, which effectively contributes to the extraction of proposed blockchain applications for construction. The data collection extracts 19 categories from the explorative study, in which 19 proposed solutions (one per category) is presented. All of the advisory content for the proposed solutions were obtained from a deliberated selection of 21 academic study papers. Limitations: The study is limited to one proposed application per category, totalling 19 proposed solutions; however, assessing various approaches per category could not be researched comparatively due to voluminous information. Thus, recommendations incorporate a holistic case study of one subject category which incorporates a multitude of various proposed applications. Originality: This paper contributes to new knowledge through extrapolating proposed blockchain applications from academic literature in 2019 and 2020

Development of a New Business Model to Measure Organizational and Project-Level SDG Impact—Case Study of a Water Utility Company

Achievement of the United Nations’ 2030 Global Goals for Sustainability is of paramount importance. However, for engineers and project managers to take meaningful action, they need the practical tools, processes and leadership to turn grand rhetoric into viable engineering solutions. Linking infrastructure project sustainability performance to sustainable development goals (SDG) targets is problematic. This article builds on the previous development of an innovative infrastructure business model, called the “Infrastructure SDG Impact-Value Chain” (IVC) to link local-level project delivery with global-level SDG impacts. It uses a case study of a water utility company to demonstrate how the IVC business model can integrate the “triple bottom line” to ensure the balanced definition of success across economic, environmental and social thematic areas. The results led to a proposed methodology for business leaders to align stakeholders on a common definition of project success during the design phase. The study includes the selection of longer-term outcomes and strategic SDG impacts, which, it is suggested, are improved definitions of project success. Although the findings that are from a single case study cannot automatically be extended to the entire water industry, the study’s methodology has potential to be used to evaluate multiple projects across different sectors. The practical application is significant since it offers the flexibility to be used at both project and portfolio levels, thereby linking tactical delivery to organisational SDG impacts and leading to improved investment decisions with increased likelihood of success in achieving the SDG 2030 targets

Assessing the Impact of Infrastructure Projects on Global Sustainable Development Goals

While sustainability of civil infrastructure is critical to professionals, project owners, regulators, funding agencies and the public, little is done to link individual project sustainability to the United Nation’s 17 global sustainable development goals for 2030. This paper provides some answers but also exposes many questions that need resolution by the infrastructure sector. Using empirical evidence, the authors have identified a ‘golden thread’ between best-practice sustainability-reporting frameworks at project level with those at organisational level. In doing so, they find there is sufficient linkage to embed sustainable-development-goal impact targets into the design stage of an infrastructure project. This would provide a more robust investment appraisal at the project design phase, helping to define project success more widely across the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental outcomes and associated impact

Exploratory literature review of blockchain in the construction industry

First academic publications on blockchain in construction instantiated in 2017, with three documents. Over the course of several years, new literature emerged at an average annual growth rate of 184%, surmounting to 121 documents at time of writing this article in early 2021. All 121 publications were reviewed to investigate the expansion and progression of the topic. A mixed methods approach was implemented to assess the existing environment through a literature review and scientometric analysis. Altogether, 33 application categories of blockchain in construction were identified and organised into seven subject areas, these include (1) procurement and supply chain, (2) design and construction, (3) operations and life cycle, (4) smart cities, (5) intelligent systems, (6) energy and carbon footprint, and (7) decentralised organisations. Limitations included using only one scientific database (Scopus), this was due to format inconsistencies when downloading and merging various bibliographic data sets for use in visual mapping software

Engineering a digital future

This is the inaugural address of Tim Broyd, who became the 152nd president of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 1 November 2016. Innovation and technological advances have been at the heart of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) for years, and they are the themes on which my career has been based. This address allows me to set out my thoughts on a subject about which I am passionate: the key challenges and opportunities that face society, and how the civil engineering profession, supported by ICE, must change to be up to task of tackling them. I will set out how digital engineering can transform people’s lives, and how this agenda can help civil engineers to deliver, on time, at reduced cost and with a quality and precision that changes the way they operate and manage truly smart infrastructure

Assessing the impact of infrastructure projects on global sustainable development goals

While the sustainability of civil infrastructure is critical to professionals, project owners, regulators, funding agencies and the public, little is done to link individual project sustainability to the UN’s 17 global sustainable development goals for 2030. This paper not only provides some answers, but also exposes many questions that need resolution by the infrastructure sector. Using empirical evidence, the authors have identified a ‘golden thread’ between best-practice sustainability-reporting frameworks at the project level and those at the organisational level. In doing so, they have found that there is sufficient linkage to embed sustainable-development-goal impact targets into the design stage of an infrastructure project. This would provide a more robust investment appraisal at the project design phase, helping define project success more widely across the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental outcomes and associated impact

Digital twin and its implementations in the civil engineering sector

Digital Twin (DT) concept has recently emerged in civil engineering; however, some problems still need to be addressed. First, DT can be easily confused with Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Second, the constituents of DT applications in this sector are not well-defined. Also, what the DT can bring to the civil engineering industry is still ambiguous. To address these problems, we reviewed 468 articles related to DT, BIM and CPS, proposed a DT definition and its constituents in civil engineering and compared DT with BIM and CPS. Then we reviewed 134 papers related to DT in the civil engineering sector out of 468 papers in detail. We extracted DT research clusters based on the co-occurrence analysis of paper keywords' and the relevant DT constituents. This research helps establish the state-of-the-art of DT in the civil engineering sector and suggests future DT development

What are the strategies to manage megaproject supply chains? A systematic literature review and research agenda

This systematic literature review explores strategies to manage complex supply chains in megaprojects, connecting project management and operations management literatures. A total of 2,106 titles and abstracts were analyzed and 94 papers were fully reviewed, identifying six categories of strategies: inter-firm collaboration and coordination, governance, procurement, projects as networks, production and logistics, and risk management. We present the multi-level Megaproject Supply Chain (MSC) framework, unpacking the complex inter-organizational structure of megaprojects in five levels and units of analysis to guide future research. The MSC framework identifies the micro, meso and macro levels of megaprojects and introduces two additional hybrid levels to identify inter-organizational relationships: the meso‑micro and meso‑macro. We suggest four avenues to advance supply chain management in megaprojects through multi-level explorations: (i) Supply Chain Structure: Permanent vs Temporary, (ii) Strategic Procurement and Commercial, (iii) Supply Chain Design: Standardization vs Customization, (iv) Supply Chain Governance: Collaboration and Coordination

Modelling dependency networks to inform data structures in BIM and smart cities

The pervasive deployment of "smart city" and "smart building" projects in cities world-wide is driving innovation on many fronts including; technology, telematics, engineering and entrepreneurship. This paper focuses on the technical and engineering perspectives of BIM and smart cities, by extending building and urban morphology studies as to respond to the challenges posed by Big Data, and smart infrastructure. The proposed framework incorporates theoretical and modelling descriptions to verify how network-based models can act as the backbone skeletal representation of both building and urban complexity, and yet relate to environmental performance and smart infrastructure. The paper provides some empirical basis to support data information models through building dependency networks as to represent the relationships between different existing and smart infrastructure components. These dependency networks are thought to inform decisions on how to represent building and urban data sets in response to different social and environmental performance requirements, feeding that into void and solid descriptions of data maturity models. It is concluded that network-based models are fundamental to comprehend and represent the complexity of cities and inform urban design and public policy practices, in the design and operation phases of infrastructure projects