Investigation of the Costs and Benefits of Digital Twins in Construction
Publication: Computing in Civil Engineering 2023
ABSTRACT
New digital technologies instigated by Industry 4.0 are driving digital transformation across various industries. One of the most recent concepts attracting attention in the research and industrial community is digital twins (DT). Remarkable advancements as a result of DT adoption have been seen in manufacturing and automotive industries; however, much less adoption has been seen in the construction industry due to challenges such as industry key players’ technology-averse attitudes and a lack of evidence of the costs and benefits of DT adoption. This paper presents an exploratory investigation into the cost and benefits of DT implementation in the construction industry from the perspective of early adopters. Interviews with these adopters revealed that beyond the initial software and hardware cost, there are significant costs related to staff training, implementation time, and employer/employee adoption resistance. We propose a set of considerations and guidance for researchers and industry practitioners interested in DT implementation.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Abdullah, F. (2004). Construction industry and economic development: the Malaysian scene. 138. https://books.google.com/books/about/Construction_Industry_and_Economic_Devel.html?id=tOq1AAAAIAAJ.
Akanmu, A. A., Anumba, C. J., and Ogunseiju, O. O. (2021). Towards next generation cyber-physical systems and digital twins for construction. Journal of Information Technology in Construction, 26, 505–525. https://doi.org/10.36680/j.itcon.2021.027.
Ariansyah, D., et al. (2020). Digital Twin Development: A Step by Step Guideline. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3806372.
Dixit, S., Mandal, S. N., Sawhney, A., and Singh, S. (2017). Relationship between skill development and productivity in construction sector: A literature review. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 8(8), 649–665.
European Construction Sector. (2021). European Construction Sector Observatory Country profile Denmark.
Grieves, M. (2014). Digital Twin: Manufacturing Excellence through Virtual Factory Replication.
Khajavi, S. H., Motlagh, N. H., Jaribion, A., Werner, L. C., and Holmstrom, J. (2019). Digital Twin: Vision, benefits, boundaries, and creation for buildings. IEEE Access, 7, 147406–147419. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2946515.
Lengthorn, P. (2020). Cost to build a Digital Twin. https://www.consultengsurvivor.com/cost-to-build-a-digital-twin.
Leviäkangas, P., Mok Paik, S., and Moon, S. (2017). Keeping up with the pace of digitization: The case of the Australian construction industry. Technology in Society, 50, 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TECHSOC.2017.04.003.
Liu, Z., Meyendorf, N., and Mrad, N. (2018). The role of data fusion in predictive maintenance using digital twin. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1949(1), 020023. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5031520.
Maresco, D. (2022). How To Measure Digital Twin Cost Plus A Look At ROI. Spaceiq.Com. https://spaceiq.com/blog/how-to-measure-digital-twin-cost/.
McMahon, C. (2022). The ROI of Digital Twin for Industrial Companies | PTC. https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/corporate/roi-of-digital-twin-for-industrial-companies.
Onatayo, D. (2023). A Scientometric Review of BIM in Facility Management Research. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202303.0095.v1.
Tao, F., Zhang, H., Liu, A., and Nee, A. Y. C. (2019). Digital Twin in Industry: State-of-the-Art. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 15(4), 2405–2415. https://doi.org/10.1109/TII.2018.2873186.
West, T. D., and Blackburn, M. (2017). Is Digital Thread/Digital Twin Affordable? A Systemic Assessment of the Cost of DoD’s Latest Manhattan Project. Procedia Computer Science, 114, 47–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2017.09.003.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Computing in Civil Engineering 2023
Pages: 544 - 552
History
Published online: Jan 25, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Architectural engineering
- Benefit cost ratios
- Building information modeling
- Building management
- Business management
- Computer programming
- Computer software
- Computing in civil engineering
- Construction costs
- Construction engineering
- Construction industry
- Construction management
- Financial management
- Industries
- Manufacturing
- Organizations
- Practice and Profession
- Project management
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.