Blockchain-enabled cyber-physical smart modular integrated construction

Abstract

Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) has been one of the most innovative solutions to address the ever-growing housing demands in megacities such as Hong Kong. MiC offers a range of benefits including cost-effectiveness, high productivity, and high sustainability for construction industry. Multiple stakeholders in MiC project, such as project client, module manufacturer, logistics company, and building contractor, normally use their own proprietary and centralized Enterprise Information System (EIS). However, stakeholders are facing challenges to share information throughout MiC projects. “Islands of Information” issue is commonly existing and creates information fragmentation and discontinuity. As an emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT), blockchain provides unified standards and protocols for information sharing based on decentralized P2P framework with enhanced transparency and security. Aiming to address the information fragmentation and discontinuity in MiC project, this paper proposes a blockchain-enabled cyber-physical smart MiC platform to facilitate cross-enterprise information sharing among multiple stakeholders based on User-Centered Design (UCD) method. A practical roadmap is presented for the design, development, deployment, and application of MiC blockchain with new opportunities and guidelines. Initial investigations based on an industrial collaborated company are analyzed and the blockchain-enabled cyber-physical MiC workflow is designed. The user-centered blockchain explorers with high-fidelity digital twins are illustrated. Some preliminary results are found that MiC blockchain not only facilitates cyber-physical construction progress traceability, and real-time KPI visualization & evaluation, but also improves the information reliability, immutability, and transparency in MiC projects.