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Dr. Hala Nassereddine

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
Interests: Construction 4.0; digital twins; organizational change; people–process–technology frameworks

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A construction project can be analogized as a nexus from which various stakeholders connect from planning to decommissioning and form information exchange networks to realize the project. A construction project is built on reams of data generated from various sources throughout the project lifecycle. Thus, it would not be an overstatement to say that a critical element of the future of construction companies and industry is data. With the advancement and emergence of a new generation of information technologies, data and data-driven decisions is becoming a commonly used phrase.

This Special Issue of Buildings on “Unearthing the Value of Data in the AEC Industry” goes beyond theory and offers insights into recent research breakthroughs on practical solutions, in order to turn data into action in the AEC industry. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Data integration and hand-off between project phases and among stakeholders;
Data standards;
Data-driven decision-making strategies;
Ontology-based information modeling frameworks and applications;
Data lifecycle management;
Data governance;
Digital twins solutions;
Digital thread solutions.

Dr. Hala Nassereddine
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

data integration
data lifecycle management
data governance
digital twins
digital thread
decision making
ontology
data standards

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 2541 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on Labor Productivity Improvement Based on Situational Awareness and Improved Value Stream Mapping

by Lixuan Jiang, Hongying Shen and Jinhua Zhang

Buildings 2024, 14(5), 1253; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14051253 - 29 Apr 2024

Viewed by 437

Abstract

This study addresses the issue of poor construction labor productivity, exploring the process and methodology for increasing construction workers’ participation in labor productivity improvement, as well as a situational awareness (SA) development approach for construction workers based on lean construction (LC). A framework for enhancing labor productivity through SA has been developed. A case study approach is utilized to describe the LC improvement process, which includes enhancing construction workers’ SA for waste minimization and process optimization and engaging them in LC with improved value stream mapping (VSM). The labor productivity measurement approach, combined with VSM, is used to evaluate the labor productivity improvement with labor productivity improvement rate, resource efficiency, and flow efficiency. The results demonstrate that the labor productivity of the case project has increased by 24.07%, with 11.54% contributing resource efficiency and 88.46% contributing flow efficiency, indicating a greater increase in flow efficiency. This study fills a research gap in terms of the combination of construction workers’ SA enhancement and the involvement of LC practices to boost labor productivity. Furthermore, this study proposes an SA development approach based on LC at three levels: waste perception, VSM implementation, and labor productivity improvement assessment. This provides new perspectives for leveraging construction workers’ SA to increase labor productivity. The improved VSM approach and labor productivity measurements provide an operationalization of workers’ participation in continuous improvement. This research is of great practical relevance for augmenting the competencies of construction laborers and inspiring them to engage in labor productivity enhancement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unearthing the Value of Data in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry)

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24 pages, 3280 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adapting to an OpenBIM Building Permit Process: A Case Study Using the Example of the City of Vienna

by Harald Urban, Simon Fischer and Christian Schranz

Buildings 2024, 14(4), 1135; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14041135 - 17 Apr 2024

Viewed by 528

Abstract

The adoption of building information modelling (BIM) enables data-driven decision-making for many participants in the construction process. Building authorities are stakeholders that have not yet benefited from data integration using BIM. In many cases, parts of their processes have already improved through digitisation initiatives. Now they are on the threshold of a major digital transformation enabled by the integration of BIM into their processes. This study examines a building permit process based entirely on BIM, developed at the Vienna Building Authority in Austria. In a series of workshops with all important stakeholders, the current building permit process was captured in detail and transferred to a data-driven, BIM-based process. The study shows that the complete capture and digitisation of the building approval process not only enables the automation of traditional processes such as code compliance checks and neighbourhood hearings but also supports the introduction of innovative sub-processes such as a pre-check of BIM models and augmented reality-based hearings with neighbours (in a pilot phase). The results suggest that the developed process not only significantly increases the efficiency and transparency of building permit procedures, but also represents a decisive step towards integrating the authority into the BIM process of a building. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unearthing the Value of Data in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry)

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