Abstract
The demand for both newly built houses and renovation projects is drastically increasing. The government2 aims to build 100.000 new houses each year, and TNO1F 3 argued that we should renovate 1000 residential buildings each day, making them energy-neutral (or even positive) to
comply with the Paris climate agreements. However, current practices in the AEC industry are found inefficient due to the fragmentation of information between project phases, parties, and projects, resulting in high failure costs, low productivity, low levels of innovation, and poor information sharing. Besides, workforce scarcity has become a real challenge in the AEC industry as well as conforming to strict regulations regarding nuisance and sustainability such as noise and emissions.
One way to deal with these challenges is the industrialisation of the AEC industry, which is achieved through adopting modular housing concepts, digital technologies and integrated supply chains. This can potentially result in substantially enhancing productivity, safety, costs, time, and sustainability performance. However, adopting industrialised construction is not feasible without a Digital Product Platform (DPP). A DPP is defined as a product platform in a digital environment (including a conceptualisation of information, information systems agreements, and libraries) from which a stream of derivative products can be efficiently developed and produced to serve the business processes.
The transition from a project-based approach to a product platform approach requires developing and standardising new or improved processes, information libraries, and data exchange schemes. However, a systematic approach for developing a DPP for modular and industrial
construction is missing. Consequently, the current modular construction processes are plagued by fragmentation as stakeholders use their own software applications and protocols to create and store information, making it challenging to (re)use, share and link this information within projects and across supply chains. This is also the case for the Dutch company, Emergo, which has the mission and ambition to apply their in-house modular concept, called Premodu.
comply with the Paris climate agreements. However, current practices in the AEC industry are found inefficient due to the fragmentation of information between project phases, parties, and projects, resulting in high failure costs, low productivity, low levels of innovation, and poor information sharing. Besides, workforce scarcity has become a real challenge in the AEC industry as well as conforming to strict regulations regarding nuisance and sustainability such as noise and emissions.
One way to deal with these challenges is the industrialisation of the AEC industry, which is achieved through adopting modular housing concepts, digital technologies and integrated supply chains. This can potentially result in substantially enhancing productivity, safety, costs, time, and sustainability performance. However, adopting industrialised construction is not feasible without a Digital Product Platform (DPP). A DPP is defined as a product platform in a digital environment (including a conceptualisation of information, information systems agreements, and libraries) from which a stream of derivative products can be efficiently developed and produced to serve the business processes.
The transition from a project-based approach to a product platform approach requires developing and standardising new or improved processes, information libraries, and data exchange schemes. However, a systematic approach for developing a DPP for modular and industrial
construction is missing. Consequently, the current modular construction processes are plagued by fragmentation as stakeholders use their own software applications and protocols to create and store information, making it challenging to (re)use, share and link this information within projects and across supply chains. This is also the case for the Dutch company, Emergo, which has the mission and ambition to apply their in-house modular concept, called Premodu.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Awarding Institution |
|
| Supervisors/Advisors |
|
| Award date | 1 Sept 2022 |
| Place of Publication | Enschede |
| Publisher | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2022 |