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Rapid advancements in blockchain technology transform various sectors, attracting the attention of industrialists, practitioners, policymakers and academics, and profoundly affect construction businesses through smart contracts and crypto-economics. This paper explores the blockchain innovation ecosystem in construction.

Through a qualitative study of 23 diverse interviewees, the study explores how open or closed the blockchain innovation ecosystem in construction is and who its emerging orchestrators are.

The data showed that construction aims towards an open innovation blockchain ecosystem, although there are elements of hybridisation and closedness, each system pointing out to different orchestrators.

The study has implications for governments and large companies in construction, showing that open innovation initiatives need to be encouraged by policymakers through rules, regulations and government-sponsored demonstrator projects.

The data showed that there is lack of readiness for business model change to support open innovation blockchain ecosystems in construction.

This is the first study applying the open innovation theory in the construction industry and sheds light into the phenomenon of blockchain, suggesting routes for further democratisation of the technology for policymakers and practitioners.

Blockchain technology is booming in many industries. Its application in supply chain management is also gradually increasing. Supply chain management (SCM) has long been committed to reducing costs and increasing efficiency and is trying to optimise resources and reduce the sector's fragmentation. Trust has always been an important factor in managing supply chain relationships, and it also affects the efficiency of supply chain operations. To this end, this study aims to examine how trust is affected by the introduction of blockchain technology in construction supply chain management.

This study is based on semi-structured interviews and publicly available information from experts in blockchain and construction supply chain management. Through content analysis, the data are analysed thematically to explore how various types of trust, such as system-based, cognition-based and relation-based, are affected by blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology provides solutions for data tracking, contracting and transferring resources in supply chain management. These applications help enhance the various sources of trust in SCM and provide supply chain partners with protection mechanisms to avoid the risks and costs of opportunistic behaviour in collaboration, shifting trust from relational to system-based and cognition-based.

This study focuses only on inter-organisational rather than interpersonal trust and empirical data from experts whose knowledge and cognition could be subjective.

Leveraging the potential of digitalisation to manage trust requires that leaders and managers actively try to improve contractual arrangements, information sharing and being open to new innovative technologies like blockchain.

From a relational view of supply chain management, the extent to which blockchain technology can develop and spread depends on the readiness of the social capital to accept decentralised governance structures.

This study builds upon an original data set and discusses features and applications of blockchain technology, explores the sources and dimensions of trust in supply chain management and explains the impact of blockchain technology on trust.

This research investigates the distinct characteristics of blockchain technology to safeguard against the deterioration of handover information quality in the post-construction phase. The significance of effective management of handover information is highlighted by global building failures, such as the Grenfell Tower fire in London, UK. Despite existing technological interventions, there remains a paucity of understanding regarding the factors contributing to the decline in the quality of handover information during the post-construction phase.

This study employed a multi-case studies approach across five higher education institutions. It involved conducting semi-structured interviews with 52 asset management professionals, uncovering the underlying reasons for the decline in handover information quality. Building on these insights, the study performed a mapping exercise to align these identified factors with blockchain technology features and information quality dimensions, aiming to evaluate blockchain’s potential in managing quality handover information.

The study findings suggest that blockchain technology offers advantages but has limitations in addressing all the identified quality issues of managing handover information. Due to the lack of an automated process and file-based information exchange, updating handover information still requires an error-prone manual process, leading to potential information loss. Additionally, no solutions are available for encoding drawings for updates and validation.

This study proposes a framework integrating blockchain to enhance the information management process and improve handover information quality.

This position paper urges a drive towards clarity in the key definitions, terminologies and habits of speech associated with digital engineering and building information modelling (BIM). The ultimate goal of the paper is to facilitate the move towards arriving at an ideal definition for both concepts.

This paper takes the “explanation building” review approach in providing prescriptive guidelines to researchers and industry practitioners. The aim of the review is to draw upon existing studies to identify, describe and find application of principles in a real-world context.

The paper highlights the definitional challenges surrounding digital engineering and BIM in Australia, to evoke a debate on BIM and digital engineering boundaries, how and why these two concepts may be linked, and how they relate to emerging concepts.

This is the first scholarly attempt to clarify the definition of digital engineering and address the confusion between the concepts of BIM and digital engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to present a modified model for collaboration in BIM-based construction networks (BbCNs). Though BIM is increasingly adopted and implemented across the construction industry, the problems associated with the lack of collaboration among teams in BbCNs remain a major hindrance to reaping the full potential of BIM. Previous studies have been conceptual in nature. This paper, therefore, attempts to modify and validate existing conceptual models that describe collaboration in BbCNs.

To modify the conceptual model for collaboration in BbCNs, qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with BIM experts in the industry were collected and analysed using qualitative methods including the use of NVivo software.

The proposed model includes influential factors and their sub-factors to collaboration in BbCNs, as well as considering their indicators. Findings reveal that several overlooked concepts, particularly unfavourable BIM contractual arrangements, act as the root causes of the unwillingness of team members in BbCNs to engage in collaborative efforts.

The study's findings must be viewed in light of several limitations. First, the interviewees in this study were based in Australia hence their perceptions of BIM collaboration are reflective of the sociotechnical setting of BIM-enabled projects in this country. Also, the findings are based on the perception of experts in the field, rather than analysis of performance measures or quantitative assessment of associations among collaboration outcomes and various factors. This, however, provides the field with fertile grounds for future research.

The study benefits researchers by shifting the collaboration discourse in BIM-enabled projects from technology-related issues to the people and contractual-related domains. Moreover, the developed qualitative model provides industry professionals with a point of reference to improve collaboration on BIM-enabled projects.

The study benefits researchers by shifting the collaboration discourse in BIM-enabled projects from technology-related issues to the people and contractual-related domains. Moreover, the developed qualitative model provides industry professionals with a point of reference to improve collaboration on BIM-enabled projects.

Arguments provided in this study highlight the necessity of considering the contractual arrangement of BIM-related projects and foster the willingness of team members to collaborate. This can be addressed using clear and comprehensive BIM execution plans and clearly explaining the role of BIM managers in the process.

Integrating building information modelling (BIM) into facility management (FM) has generated fervent debate within the extant literature given an increasing realisation amongst practitioners that the majority of BIM benefits reside within the whole lifecycle management. Converting a building’s in-use data and information into tangible business knowledge to augment FM performance is crucial for business growth and prosperity. Yet curiously, scant academic attention has been paid in investigating the data and information hand-over process through BIM required by FM. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap.

The research approach adopted draws upon pertinent BIM in the FM literature and a qualitative discourse accrued via focus group meetings of Australian FM experts.

The study’s findings are presented as a data and information typology matrix that captures the associations among different forms of data ownership, FM service delivery categories and data and information typologies for using BIM in FM.

The analysis results will prove invaluable for policy-makers, researchers and practitioners by providing a relevant data and information typology and capturing the complex associations in the process of integrating BIM into FM.

This study contributes to the field by providing a better understanding of different forms of data and information, required by members of a FM team. The original insight shared here is the necessity to consider a distinctive array of interests and the potential for using different forms of data and information when integrating BIM into FM.

Information management workflow in building information modelling (BIM)-based collaboration is based on using a common data environment (CDE). The basic premise of a CDE is exposing all relevant data as a single source of truth and facilitating continuous collaboration between stakeholders. A multitude of tools can be used as a CDE, however, it is not clear how the tools are used or if they fulfil the users’ needs. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate current practices of using CDEs for information management during the whole built asset’s life cycle, through a state-of-the-art literature review and an empirical study.

Literature data is collected according to the PRISMA 2020 guideline for reporting systematic reviews. This paper includes 46 documents in the review and conduct a bibliometric and thematic analysis to identify the main challenges of digital information management. To understand the current practice and the views of the stakeholders using CDEs in their work, this paper used an empirical approach including semi-structured interviews with 15 BIM experts.

The results indicate that one of the major challenges of CDE adoption is project complexity and using multiple CDEs simultaneously leading to data accountability, transparency and reliability issues. To tackle those challenges, the use of novel technologies in CDE development such as blockchain could be further investigated.

The research explores the major challenges in the practical implementation of CDEs for information management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on this topic combining a systematic literature review and fieldwork.

Digital twin (DT) and building information modeling (BIM) are interconnected in some ways. However, there has been some misconception about how DT differs from BIM. As a result, industry professionals reject DT even in BIM-based construction projects due to reluctance to innovate. Furthermore, researchers have repeatedly developed tools and techniques with the same goals using DT and BIM to assist practitioners in construction projects. Therefore, this study aims to assist industry professionals and researchers in understanding the relationship between DT and BIM and synthesize existing works on DT and BIM.

A systematic review was conducted on published articles related to DT and BIM. A total record of 54 journal articles were identified and analyzed.

The analysis of the selected journal articles revealed four types of relationships between DT and BIM: BIM is a subset of DT, DT is a subset of BIM, BIM is DT, and no relationship between BIM and DT. The existing research on DT and BIM in construction projects targets improvements in five areas: planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance, and decommissioning. In addition, several areas have emerged, such as developing geo-referencing approaches for infrastructure projects, applying the proposed methodology to other construction geometries and creating 3D visualization using color schemes.

This study contributed to the existing body of knowledge by overviewing existing research related to DT and BIM in construction projects. Also, it reveals research gaps in the body of knowledge to point out directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to integrate the construction Supply Chain (SC) through the application of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). It features a renovation case as a proof-of-concept.

After analyzing the relevant gaps in the literature, the research followed a modeling approach. The proposed model merged product-, process- and organizational models in a graph-based model to represent and analyze a BIM-based SCM project.

Presently, the information flows of the construction SC are vague. BIM is an aspiring integrator of information flows for construction. The proposed model for SC integration with BIM, offers an approach to identify the project complexities in relation to organizational structures, roles and interactions and integrate the industry.

Currently BIM-enabled SCM is not very widely applied in the industry. However, the authors report the increasing interest of most construction stakeholders to engage in the application of the two, after acknowledging the benefits from the individual approaches. Since this combination is quite rare, the research uses a retrospective real-world case study of a SC project with an imaginary application of BIM.

Thus far, there is no formal model to represent the interactions of the SC actors along with BIM. The unique combination of a product and a process model, i.e. BIM, with an organizational model aims at integrating the information flows of the SC. The proposed model aims at analyzing and supporting the BIM-enabled SCM in Architecture Engineering and Construction.

This paper aims to explore the potential of blockchain technology (BT) to support the operational excellence in perishable food supply chain (PFSC) during outbreaks, by doing use-case analysis.

A systematic literature review is performed to determine the dimensions of operational excellence in the food supply chain (FSC), then a single use-case analysis is conducted to explore the potential of blockchain in order to achieve operational excellence for PFSC during the pandemics by applying context, interventions, mechanism and outcomes (CIMO) logic.

The findings of this study reveal that blockchain capabilities such as immutability and transparency, visibility, traceability, integration and interoperability, disintermediation and decentralisation, smart contracts and consensus mechanism provide better sustainable operational excellence outcomes for PFSCs to be more responsive, flexible, efficient and collaborative to cope with the impacts of COVID-19.

This research employs only one real case with multiple PFSC participants. Statistical generalisation is not possible at this stage of the research. However, the findings are not restricted to this single use-case.

This study provides a research direction to explore the potential of BT to achieve operational excellence in the PFSC during outbreaks and generates prescriptive knowledge for better managerial decision-making across the PFSC during outbreaks.

This research conducts semi-structured interviews with different participants in one blockchain ecosystem to understand multiple participants' perspectives of operational excellence within PFSC.