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This study aims to investigate the literature related to the use of digital technologies for promoting circular economy (CE) in the construction industry.

A comprehensive approach was adopted, involving bibliometric analysis, text-mining analysis and content analysis to meet three objectives (1) to unveil the evolutionary progress of the field, (2) to identify the key research themes in the field and (3) to identify challenges hindering the implementation of digital technologies for CE.

A total of 365 publications was analysed. The results revealed eight key digital technologies categorised into two main clusters including “digitalisation and advanced technologies” and “sustainable construction technologies”. The former involved technologies, namely machine learning, artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data analytics and object detection and computer vision that were used for (1) forecasting construction and demolition (C&D) waste generation, (2) waste identification and classification and (3) computer vision for waste management. The latter included technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and building information modelling (BIM) that help optimise resource use, enhance transparency and sustainability practices in the industry. Overall, these technologies show great potential for improving waste management and enabling CE in construction.

This research employs a holistic approach to provide a status-quo understanding of the digital technologies that can be utilised to support the implementation of CE in construction. Further, this study underlines the key challenges associated with adopting digital technologies, whilst also offering opportunities for future improvement of the field.

Construction industry (CI) has great prominence for the world economy, and it is expected that, with the use of the innovative technologies and approaches of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), the new industrial paradigm, construction can reach higher levels of productivity. This study aims to develop a model (readiness model) to assess the level of use of I4.0 technologies by the construction sector in Brazil and its most relevant applications.

The methodology used was bibliographic research, design-science research and a survey to validate the model, carried out with 162 companies, considered among the main ones in the sector in Brazil. The literature review revealed 13 technologies of I4.0 applied to construction; hence, the views of industry experts were based on these technologies.

The Digital Advancement Within CoNstruction (DAWN) readiness model was proposed, showing that among the 13 evaluated technologies of I4.0 and their applications, the Brazilian construction companies had a low level of utilization; both high and middle-income companies presented this low level of use; some technologies with a greater number of scientific publications were less used in practice in the Brazilian construction.

The originality and theoretical contribution are to present a readiness model to assess the level of use of I4.0 technologies and their most relevant applications in the CI in countries with an economy similar to Brazil’s, making it possible to measure the level of adoption of these technologies.

Construction 4.0 technology is a novel innovative technology that has been proved to enhance project performance. However, information on the concept's awareness, adoption readiness and challenges in developing economies is still scanty. The purpose of the study is to appraise awareness, adoption readiness and challenges of Construction 4.0 technologies in Nigeria to bring to the fore the state of art of these innovative technologies in the study area.

The study used a convenient sampling technique to select 129 construction professionals (architects, engineers and quantity surveyors) in Osun State, Nigeria, who provided data for the study through a closed-ended structure questionnaire survey. The quantitative data supplied were analysed using frequency, percentile, Cronbach's alpha, mean score (MS) analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The overall awareness level of construction professionals in the study area about Construction 4.0 technologies is at a moderate level (MS = 3.03). The analysis of each component of the Construction 4.0 technologies shows that BIM (MS = 3.69) has the highest level of awareness, while augmented reality (MS = 2.51) has the least awareness level. More results show a significant difference in the opinion of the respondents, a significant difference in the respondents on 36% of the components of Construction 4.0 technologies. The adoption readiness of the Nigerian construction industry (NCI) to Construction 4.0 technologies is at an initial level (MS = 2.86). However, the 3D printing (MS = 3.36) and augmented reality (MS = 2.49) have the highest and lowest adoption readiness ratings, respectively. There is no significant difference in how respondents ranked the NCI adoption readiness on 73% of the components of Construction 4.0 technologies. The main challenges of Construction 4.0 technologies in the study area are lack of standardisation (MS = 4.02), lack of investment in research and development and cost of implementation (MS = 3.87) each. The result shows that there is perfect unanimity in the way respondents ranked the challenges of Construction 4.0.

The study provided information on the status quo of Construction 4.0 technologies in the NCI to enhance improvement in practice and the attendant project delivery.

The study attempted to bring to the fore the state of the art on awareness, adoption readiness and challenges of Construction 4.0 technologies in Nigeria. The study's information will be valuable to improve project delivery.

The momentous contribution of innovative technologies has made a significant impact in several sectors globally. However, the construction industry is undoubtedly lagging when it comes to technology usage. Thus, this study aims to explore the various emerging technologies in the construction industry while noticing stakeholders’ challenges and strategies in its use.

The study used a pragmatism research philosophy together with a quantitative research strategy in determining emerging technologies in the construction industry while noticing stakeholder challenges and strategies. Data were obtained from a total of 80 construction stakeholders through a structured questionnaire survey. The analysis was done with descriptive statistics using mean score ranking and a one-sample t-test.

Each emerging technology challenge was analysed and compared to see how pressing the challenges were as well as the aligned strategies. A key indication of this study is that the familiarity of the various emerging technologies was based on how many occasions one had an encounter with the technology.

The discussion’s findings contribute to a better knowledge to construction stakeholders on the challenges and strategies for rising technology adoption and implementation competencies.

The study reckoned stakeholders’ challenges on the emerging technologies in the construction industry context and recommended strategies to balloon the adoption of these emerging technologies in a developing country setting.

High rate of accidents continue to plague the construction industry. The advancements in safety technologies can ameliorate construction health and safety (H&S). This paper aims to explore the use of emerging technologies as an effective solution for improving safety in construction projects.

Following a detailed literature review, a questionnaire survey was developed encompassing ten technologies for safety management and ten safety enablers using technologies in construction. A total of 133 responses were gathered from Malaysian construction practitioners. The collected quantitative data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses to determine the meaningful relationships between the variables.

Findings revealed that the most effective emerging technologies for safety management are: building information modelling (BIM), wearable safety technologies and robotics and automation (R&A). The leading safety enablers are related to improve hazard identification, reinforce safety planning, enhance safety inspection, enhance safety monitoring and supervision and raise safety awareness.

Safety is immensely essential in transforming the construction industry into a robustly developed industry with high safety and quality standards. The adoption of safety technologies in construction projects can drive the industry towards the path of Construction 4.0.

The construction industry has historically been slow to adopt new technology. This study contributes to advancing the body of knowledge in the area of incorporating emerging technologies to further construction safety science and management in the context of the developing world. By taking cognisance of the pertinent emerging technologies for safety management and the safety enablers involved, construction safety can be enhanced using integrated technological solutions.

With interest in modern construction methods and new technologies on the rise, construction companies globally are increasingly looking at how to embrace new ideas and engage with new approaches to do things better. A significant amount of work has been carried out investigating the use of individual technologies in the construction sector. However, there is no holistic understanding of the new and emerging technologies that have had proven benefits for construction projects. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide a landscape of technologies that have been implemented in the construction industry and the benefits associated with their implementation.

A systematic review approach and PRISMA guidelines were used. A total of 175 articles published between 2001 and 2020 were identified and thoroughly reviewed.

The results show that a total of 26 technologies were identified from the literature, and these can be categorised into five groups in terms of their functionality in construction process, namely: (1) data acquisition, (2) analytics, (3) visualisation, (4) communication and (5) design and construction automation. Digital technologies, especially for data acquisition and visualisation, generally appear to underpin and enable innovation in many aspects of construction. Improvements in work efficiency, health and safety, productivity, quality and sustainability have been cited as being the primary benefits of using these technologies. Of these, building information modelling (BIM) appears to be the single most commonly used technology thus far. With the development of computer technology, BIM has constantly been used in combination with other technologies/tools such as unmanned aerial vehicles/systems (unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/UAS), geographic information systems (GIS), light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and multidimensional modelling to realise a specifically defined benefit.

The findings from this review would help construction practitioners identify the types of technologies that can be implemented in different stages of construction projects to achieve desired outcomes, and thus, make appropriate decisions on technology investment and adoption. This review also suggests that to reap the full potential that these technologies offer, aside from construction companies changing their culture and business models, corresponding changes in the construction sector’s operating systems related to building regulation, education and training, as well as contracting and procurement are required.

This paper undertakes a comprehensive systematic review of studies on technology implementation in the construction sector published between 2001 and 2020. It is the first attempt internationally to provide a holistic picture of technologies that have been studied and implemented in construction projects.

Construction safety is heavily affected by using new technologies in this growing trend of technology adoption. Especially, safety performance is enhanced through the utilization of some effective technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, BIM and wearable devices. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of emerging technologies on construction safety performance and quantify the relationship between those. The proposed components of emerging technologies are BIM, GIS, VR, RFID, AI, ML, eye tracking and serious games and wearable devices, whereas the dimensions of construction safety performance are safety planning, safety training, safety inspection and monitoring, safety audits and reviews and safety leadership.

A structural model was composed consisting of emerging technologies and safety performance indicators. Then, a questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals, and data from 167 projects were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data were analyzed by using software, called SPSS AMOS.

The analysis of the structural model proves that there is a positive and significant relationship between emerging technologies and construction safety performance. Moreover, the factor loadings for each factor were found to be high indicating a good representation of the construct by the components developed. Among the technologies, BIM, robotics and automation, AI and wearable devices were detected to be the most significant technologies in terms of impacting safety performance.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge in that it develops a conceptual framework consisting of specific technologies in terms of emerging technologies, reveals the impact of such technologies on safety performance and proposes several tools and strategies for enabling effective safety management along the project lifecycle. Industry practitioners may benefit from the framework developed by adopting such technologies to enhance their safety performance on construction projects.

Construction 4.0 technology has the capabilities for improving the design, management, operations and decision making of construction projects. Therefore, this study aimed at examining the willingness of construction professionals towards adopting construction 4.0 technologies.

The study adopts a survey design, and construction professionals in South Africa are assessed using a convenience sampling technique through a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was analysed with SPSS while statistical test like; mean score, t-test and principal component analysis was used to present the data.

The findings, from the analysis, revealed that the construction professionals are willing to adopt construction 4.0 technologies for construction project. However, the possibility of fully integrating the technologies into the construction industry is low. This is because the major technologies such as; Internet of things, robotics, human-computer interaction and cyber-physical systems that encourage smart construction site are rated as not important by the construction professionals.

It is believed that the findings emanating from this study will serve as an indicator for investors that are interested in procuring construction 4.0 technologies for the construction industry.

This paper presents a framework for the application of construction 4.0 technologies for the construction industry. It also contributes to the development of digitalising construction industry in South Africa.

In the past, the construction sector faced a low technological development level. Recently, studies have shown that the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies play a significant role in construction project performance. But how prepared are the developing countries’ construction consultants, a focus in Nigeria, in embracing the 4IR technologies in construction administration is yet to receive in-depth research. Thus, this paper aims to examine how Nigerian construction consultants are prepared to embrace 4IR technologies in pre- and post-construction activities.

To evaluate the perceptions of construction consultants, the study conducted a virtual interview. The participants were asked the following key questions: What technologies that are currently linked with the 4IR and used by construction consultants in the industry? What factors may hinder the strategic application of 4IR by the construction consultants? What initiatives may be necessary to overcome the perceived encumbrances faced by the construction consultants? Twelve semi-structured interviews from selected construction consultants were engaged and collated data analysed via a thematic approach.

The paper identifies digital software used by construction consultants that have a link with 4IR technologies. From the ten emerged hindrances, cost of adopting the technologies, unwillingness on the part of stakeholders to adopt, inadequate standards and reference architectures and absence of awareness were ranked high as the factors hindering construction consultants from using 4IR technologies. Initiatives that can overcome the perceived encumbrances are examined in detail.

This study is restricted to construction consultants in Nigeria, and only 12 participants were engaged, but these do not affect the strength of the results. Thus, this study recommends a mixed-methods approach for future research with broader coverage.

The Government should intervene via subsidy regime and overhaul the academic curriculum to reflect the current trend of practices regarding technologies. Also, there should be vigorous enlightenment and pragmatic sensitisation of construction stakeholders and knowledge training of practitioners, among others, were suggested. As part of this paper’s implications, a perception-based model was developed to promote 4IR technologies for construction consultants in the Nigerian construction sector. This model encourages the construction consultants to embrace 4IR technologies for better service delivery, project performance and client satisfaction.

This paper appraised 4IR technologies’ role in the construction sector, focusing on the preparedness of the construction consultants in Nigeria. Also, the study identified the issues and proffer initiatives to improve 4IR usage by construction consultants.

In this study, a critical literature review was utilized in order to provide a clear review of the relevant existing studies. The literature was analyzed using the meta-synthesis technique to evaluate and integrate the findings in a single context.

Digital transformation in construction requires employing a wide range of various technologies. There is significant progress of research in adopting technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, and immersive technologies in the construction industry over the last two decades. The purpose of this research is to assess the current status of employing UAVs and immersive technologies toward digitalizing the construction industry and highlighting the potential applications of these technologies, either individually or in combination and integration with each other.

The key findings are: (1) UAVs in conjunction with 4D building information modeling (BIM) can be used to assess the project progress and compliance checking of geometric design models, (2) immersive technologies can be used to enable controlling construction projects remotely, applying/checking end users’ requirements, construction education and team collaboration.

A detailed discussion around the application of UAVs and immersive technologies is provided. This is expected to support gaining an in-depth understanding of the practical applications of these technologies in the industry.

The review contributes a needed common basis for capturing progress made in UAVs and immersive technologies to date and assessing their impact on construction projects. Moreover, this paper opens a new horizon for novice researchers who will conduct research toward digitalized construction.