Use of the Digital Situation Picture to Decrease Waste in the Design and Construction Process

Abstract

Decreasing waste is a critical part of Lean Construction; however, waste is difficult to be observed both in the production and design processes. This chapter presents an overview of new digital technologies that enable continuous measuring and decreasing waste during design and construction. While several technologies, such as reality capture, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the automatic sensing of design status, are already being deployed, the integration of different data streams to form a ‘digital twin’ during the design and construction process remains in the early stages. This chapter follows a Lean-based approach to review the research and technologies regarding continuous waste reduction. Recent studies have proposed automated systems by analysing log files and using building information modelling (BIM). Construction companies also implement pieces of the required solution during the production phase. Despite the existing partial solutions, much effort is needed to make continuous waste reduction aninseparable part of the production phase. In addition, this chapter resents reviews of various ethical issues related to situational awareness technology as well as pathways for future research. The chapter concludes with ideas on how to move from research to wider-scale project implementations.