Literature Review of Digital Twins Applications in Construction Workforce Safety
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well-written and interesting to read. Following are the suggestions from the reviewer:
1) The abstract should be rewritten to focus on the results of the review.
2) Tables/Figures should be used to improve data visualization.
Author Response
Point 1: The abstract should be rewritten to focus on the results of the review. Response 1: The abstract has been revised to focuse on the results of the review. Please refer to the revision. Point 2: Tables/Figures should be used to improve data visualisation. Response 2: In the main body, I added three figures (Figure 1, 2 and 4) to make the content more intuitive. Please refer to the revised manuscript.Reviewer 2 Report
The paper aims to review digital twin applications but most of parts are about safety and sensing technology, which have been address tons of existing studies. They do not need to be published again in a separate paper.
In addition Chapter 5 shows 4 items about the challenges of adopting digital twin for construction safety. But its literature review should be improved to provide insightful information and trending data.
Author Response
Point 1: The paper aims to review digital twin applications but most of parts are about safety and sensing technology, which have been address tons of existing studies. They do not need to be published again in a separate paper. Response 1: The term "digital twins" refers to a concept applied to improve construction management. Digital twins lie in sensor technology and visualisation technology. The concept of digital twins guides some researchers studying these technologies, but they rarely mention it in their papers. While describing their findings, this article highlights their contribution to digital twins. Besides, construction safety is one of the application directions of digital twin concept in construction management. The article also systematically describes how the concept of digital twins addresses safety issues. In this revision, I emphasised the relationships among digital twins, sensor technology, visualisation technology, and construction safety. In the technology-related sections, digital twins are mentioned from time to time, and the importance of technology to achieve the digital twins is highlighted. Point 2: In addition Chapter 5 shows 4 items about the challenges of adopting digital twin for construction safety. But its literature review should be improved to provide insightful information and trending data. Response 2: Chapter 6 discusses the previous literature review. The challenges are summarised from comparing the construction safety issues (Chapter 2) against the state-of-the-art measures (Chapter 4 & 5). In this revision, I have strengthened the connection between the previous chapters and Chapter 6, and added new content in Chapter 6 to justify how digital twins can be used to solve the safety problems through ad-hoc technologies. Overall, insightful information and trending data have been provided to introduce the challenges.Reviewer 3 Report
The article presents an extensive literature review on digital applications in Construction Workforce Safety.
Some comments on the Title:
- I would propose that the title begins by 'Literature Review of...' (instead of only 'Review of...') which would better represent the content of the paper
- The term Digital Twin seems to be used to attract more readers (as it is very popular now), but in the text the link of all the discussed technologies to this concept are not explicit. Also, a real complete Digital Twin for use for Construction Workers Safety does not seem to exist yet. I would recommend reconsidering the use of this term in the title. It can stay as a topic for future research and development.
The methodology used for the literature review is not presented. Is it a Systematic Literature Review?
Technologies like BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and UWB (Ultra Wide Band) are not mentioned.
Some other remarks:
- line 85 - the abbreviations VR and MR are not introduced (this is done in line 296 only)
- line 93 - What is the evidence for that?
- line 164 - What does 'manually' mean here?
- line 490 - the titles of 5.3 is not consistent with the following nested titles (5.3.1. and 5.3.2.)
- everywhere - the quality of the English should be reviewed
Author Response
Point 1: I would propose that the title begins by 'Literature Review of...' (instead of only 'Review of...') which would better represent the content of the paper Response 1: This has been revised. Point 2: The term Digital Twin seems to be used to attract more readers (as it is very popular now), but in the text the link of all the discussed technologies to this concept are not explicit. Also, a real complete Digital Twin for use for Construction Workers Safety does not seem to exist yet. I would recommend reconsidering the use of this term in the title. It can stay as a topic for future research and development. Response 2: I agree with you that a real complete digital twin for construction workers safety does not seem to exist yet. Having said that, technologies related to digital twins (sensor technology and visualisation technology) have been contributing to the construction safety area. The application of these technologies has the potential to form a digital twin system. Considering the concept of digital twins is the basis of this article, I decided to keep ‘digital twins’ as the wording in the title and strengthen the discussion of the relationship between technology and digital twins. In this revision, I emphasised the relationships among digital twins, sensor technology, visualisation technology, and construction safety. In the technology-related sections, digital twins are elaborated and the importance of the technology to achieve the concept is highlighted. Section 6 has been complemented to elaborate on how digital twins can address safety problems. Point 3: The methodology used for the literature review is not presented. Is it a Systematic Literature Review? Response 3: I added a section (section 3) to describe my methodology. It is a content-analysis based review. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 4: Technologies like BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and UWB (Ultra Wide Band) are not mentioned. Response 4: I added some content related to technologies such as like BLE and UWB. Since the purpose of related sections is to describe the contribution of these technologies to digital twins, more effort has been devoted to the principles and applications of the technologies rather than to the introduction of the technologies. Point 5: line 85 - the abbreviations VR and MR are not introduced (this is done in line 296 only); Response 5: This has been revised. Point 6: line 93 - What is the evidence for that? Response 6: References have been added here. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 7: line 164 - What does 'manually' mean here? Response 7: "Manually" refers to the manual recording to achieve the BBS. It is redundant and has been removed. Point 8: line 490 - the titles of 5.3 is not consistent with the following nested titles (5.3.1. and 5.3.2.) Response 8: The title of 5.3 has been removed. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 9: everywhere - the quality of the English should be reviewed Response 9: The English has been proofread by the authors as well as the journal English editing service.Reviewer 4 Report
This paper focuses on the application of a new technology (Digital twins) to address the existential issue of safety in construction. The paper has a strong pioneering potential to facilitate increasing number of studies on the application of digital twins to construction safety
However, reviewer thinks the paper lacks strategy which makes it difficult to see the theoretical contributions. The practical contributions are clear but it only confines to the paper to a positional one, rather than a research paper.
Firstly, the lack of methodology makes the paper difficult to replicate. This is a problem. For instance, authors identify and describe three safety factors, namely construction environment safety, behaviour safety, and safety awareness in section 2. Also, authors describe sensor technology in section 3 and visualisation technology in section 4. Authors graciously linked these topics to construction safety. What is unclear to reviewer is how sections 3 & 4 emphasise on digital twins. If sections 3 & 4 are about digital twins, it should be mentioned. The bigger issue for the reviewer is this. If sections 3 & 4 are about digital twins, it should be made clear how the ideas in these sections address the main safety problems in section 2. Reviewer believes this is the BIG contribution that this paper can offer. How can digital twins (using ideas from sections 3 &4) help to solve the safety problems in section 2? There is need for strategy, using a table or diagrams or something visible, to show this. Currently, not even a paragraph length statement to introduce the link between these sections. Reviewer does not agree that section 5 is the main contribution of this study, although it is acceptable to cap this paper by identifying some challenges.
Grammar, sentence construction issues
Line 18, advert or advent?
Line 38, phrase unclear: “As a project progresses, temporary facilities install and remove frequently”
Line 69, missing conjunction: “the bridge connects the physical world and a digital world.”
Line 82, singular or plural: “carries”
Line 85: VR and MR acronyms should be defined in the first instance
Lines 153-154: grammar construction unclear, “which results in that the conventional one-size-fits-all safety training is inefficient.”
Lines 173-174: sentence unclear, “For example, a worker works around damaged guardrails and a work refuses to equip personal protective equipment (PPE) when working at height. ”
Line 193: rise or raise
Author Response
Point 1: Firstly, the lack of methodology makes the paper difficult to replicate. Response 1: I added a section (section 3) to describe the methodology of the review. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 2: This is a problem. For instance, authors identify and describe three safety factors, namely construction environment safety, behaviour safety, and safety awareness in section 2. Also, authors describe sensor technology in section 3 and visualisation technology in section 4. Authors graciously linked these topics to construction safety. What is unclear to reviewer is how sections 3 & 4 emphasise on digital twins. If sections 3 & 4 are about digital twins, it should be mentioned. Response 2: This has been revised. In section 4 & 5 (The original section 3 & 4), digital twins are mentioned from time to time, and the importance of technology to achieve the concept of digital twins is highlighted. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 3: The bigger issue for the reviewer is this. If sections 3 & 4 are about digital twins, it should be made clear how the ideas in these sections address the main safety problems in section 2. Reviewer believes this is the BIG contribution that this paper can offer. How can digital twins (using ideas from sections 3 &4) help to solve the safety problems in section 2? There is need for strategy, using a table or diagrams or something visible, to show this. Currently, not even a paragraph length statement to introduce the link between these sections. Reviewer does not agree that section 5 is the main contribution of this study, although it is acceptable to cap this paper by identifying some challenges. Response 3: In section 6 (The original section 5), I added contents on how digital twins solve safety problems through these technologies based on digital twins. Besides, a figure is also used to show the contents. Please refer to the revised manuscript. Point 4: Line 18, advert or advent? Response 4: It should be “advent”. This has been revised. Point 5: Line 38, phrase unclear: “As a project progresses, temporary facilities install and remove frequently”. Line 69, missing conjunction: “the bridge connects the physical world and a digital world.” Line 82, singular or plural: “carries”. Response 5: The paragraphs have been rewritten. Point 6: Line 85: VR and MR acronyms should be defined in the first instance. Response 6: This has been revised. Point 7: Lines 153-154: grammar construction unclear, “which results in that the conventional one-size-fits-all safety training is inefficient.”. Response 7: The sentence has been rewritten. Point 8: Lines 173-174: sentence unclear, “For example, a worker works around damaged guardrails and a work refuses to equip personal protective equipment (PPE) when working at height. ”. Response 8: The sentence has been rewritten. Point 9: Line 193: rise or raise. Response 9: It should be “raise”. This has been revised.Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Lines 65-67: Although numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of the DT methodology, a comprehensive, systematic, and evidence-based review is lacking all individual articles that investigated the effectiveness of using DT in the workforce safety space. Reviewer thinks authors should point out the findings in some of the numerous studies to provide first justification that there is need to investigate the effectiveness of using DT in the workforce safety place
Figure 2: Can the authors include the numbers of papers and how they were progressively reduced to 89 articles? Also, how were the keywords combined using the Boolean operators in the methodology section? Can you present a table showing the number of papers for each sections and subsections between section 4 and section 5.3? This increases the transparency of analysis and the replicability of research
Section 4: is supposed to be the findings? Authors should lead readers on by preceding the findings section with some introduction. For instance, the content analysis did not help to quantify and show the papers analysed to obtain the findings in each section. If this was done, and perhaps presented in a Table, readers would see the flow and be able to follow the logic. Since it was not done, authors should take the pain to provide preceding explanations about the findings.
Figure 4: how does it fit into the existing body of knowledge? Can the authors use literature references to digest the section 6.1 particularly?
Author Response
Point 1: Lines 65-67: Although numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of the DT methodology, a comprehensive, systematic, and evidence-based review is lacking all individual articles that investigated the effectiveness of using DT in the workforce safety space. Reviewer thinks authors should point out the findings in some of the numerous studies to provide first justification that there is need to investigate the effectiveness of using DT in the workforce safety place
Response 1: This has been revised. Please refer to the lines 66-70 in the revised manuscript.
Point 2: Figure 2: Can the authors include the numbers of papers and how they were progressively reduced to 89 articles? Also, how were the keywords combined using the Boolean operators in the methodology section?
Response 2: Figure 2 has been revised, and the content added to describe the details (Lines 183-203). Besides, Figure 3 is added to present how the keywords were combined.
Point 3: Can you present a table showing the number of papers for each sections and subsections between section 4 and section 5.3? This increases the transparency of analysis and the replicability of research
Response 3: Section 4 is newly added to present the demographics of the reviewed articles, including the numbers of articles published in different years, journals, and clusters.
Point 4: Section 4: is supposed to be the findings? Authors should lead readers on by preceding the findings section with some introduction. For instance, the content analysis did not help to quantify and show the papers analysed to obtain the findings in each section. If this was done, and perhaps presented in a Table, readers would see the flow and be able to follow the logic. Since it was not done, authors should take the pain to provide preceding explanations about the findings.
Response 4: This has been revised. Please refer to Section 4.
Point 5: Figure 4: how does it fit into the existing body of knowledge?
Response 5: This has been revised. Please refer to the lines between 440-447.
Point 6: Can the authors use literature references to digest the section 6.1 particularly?
Response 6: A number of new references have been added to digest Section 7.1 (originally Sections 6.1). Please refer to the lines 456, 458-461, 464-466, 468-469, 473-476.
