Exploring a Digital Twin Framework for lean management of constraints in construction: A literature review

Abstract

Construction constraints are conditions or circumstances that impede the standard progress of production tasks in construction projects towards achieving specific production objectives. Construction constraints are highly dynamic and span different domains. Failing to manage constraints on time could result in out of sequence work and suboptimal productivity. As the construction sector embraces digital technologies, an emerging concept, Digital Twin, has been recognised as a potential solution to solve the endemic problems in construction process management. Digital Twin as a virtual model for cyber-physical bi-directional data-driven management and control of the physical counterpart has emerged over the past decade in the manufacturing industry. However, the implementation of Digital Twin in the construction sector is still in its infancy. Hence, there is an opportunity to adopt Digital Twin to enhance the current implementation of constraint management. This paper presents a literature review of constraint management-related studies, aiming to determine the potential constituents of the Digital Twin framework from a dual technological/lean-based perspective. A total of 55 papers published so far were selected using Scopus. The result shows the potential constituents can include: (1) Information technologies, (2) Swarm Intelligence and Genetic Algorithm, (3) Semantic Web, and (4) Lean-based methods. Our study provides valuable insight concerning which technologies could be used to support the development of DT in the construction sector. These findings can serve as a guideline for future researchers in the construction industry to develop their own DT.