Digital twins for smart building at the facility management stage: a systematic review of enablers, applications and challenges

Abstract

PurposeDespite the opportunities of digital twins (DTs) for smart buildings, limited research has been conducted regarding the facility management stage, and this is explained by the high complexity of accurately representing and modelling the physics behind the DTs process. This study thus organises and consolidates the fragmented literature on DTs implementation for smart buildings at the facility management stage by exploring the enablers, applications and challenges and examining the interrelationships amongst them.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review approach is adopted to analyse and synthesise the existing literature relating to the subject topic.FindingsThe study revealed six main categories of enablers of DTs for smart building at the facility management stage, namely perception technologies, network technologies, storage technologies, application technologies, knowledge-building and design processes. Three substantial categories of DTs application for smart buildings were revealed at the facility management stage: efficient operation and service monitoring, efficient building energy management and effective smart building maintenance. Subsequently, the top four major challenges were identified as being “lack of a systematic and comprehensive reference model”, “real-time data integration”, “the complexity and uncertainty nature of real-time data” and “real-time data visualisation”. An integrative framework is finally proposed by examining the interactive relationship amongst the enablers, the applications and the challenges.Practical implicationsThe findings could guide facility managers/engineers to fairly understand the enablers, applications and challenges when DTs are being implemented to improve smart building performance and achieve user satisfaction at the facility management stage.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the knowledge body on DTs by extending the scope of the existing studies to identify the enablers and applications of DTs for smart buildings at the facility management stage and the specific challenges.