Towards a Digital Process Platform for Future Construction Sites

Abstract

When it comes to digitalization, construction sites are still at the beginning of an ongoing transformation process. Two major causes are the complexity of construction site environments and the lack of interoperability between the different actors, such as machines and site suppliers that are involved in the construction project. This has direct implications on the efficiency, quality, and production time of construction projects. Thus, there is a strong need to fill this digitalization gap by considering the latest advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as edge and cloud computing. In this paper, we suggest a data-driven approach for construction sites, in which we extract data from machines, send it to a central data storage with scalable computational resources and analyze it to improve the existing construction processes. For that, we studied requirements of selected construction site processes and designed a communication architecture that scales with the complex characteristics of real-world applications. Additionally, we propose a digital process platform that supports a wide range of users with their different roles on construction sites and builds the foundation for further research, implementation, and evaluation of according construction site innovations. With the proposed platform framework, we extend the construction site towards an integrated Cyber-Physical System (CPS) and contribute to the standardization of communication infrastructures within the construction sector by merging different solutions from the area of information and communication technologies.