Elsevier

Computers in Industry

Volume 121, October 2020, 103264
Computers in Industry

Peeking into the void: Digital twins for construction site logistics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2020.103264Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Leveraging the digital twin concept for non-high-tech industries as a new information source for the redesign of core business processes.

  • We identify diverse opportunities for generating informational, automational and transformational business value from a seemingly small technological innovation.

  • To cope with the complexity of the new integrated process we design and implement a decision support system to leverage the transformational benefits of smart silos and support planners in their operational and strategical decision making.

Abstract

Construction is one of the least-digitized industries in the economy. To rein in the rising costs of building activities, digital transformation is one of the pillars that industry leaders rely on. A case in point are logistics processes which are characterized by very limited visibility and inefficient organization. To progress beyond this current state of the art, we conceptualize the idea of a lightweight digital twin for non-high-tech industries. In collaboration with a leading supplier of building materials, we explore the opportunities offered by digital silo twin capabilities. Focusing on fill level monitoring we identify diverse opportunities for generating informational, automational and transformational business value. Leveraging new information sources for the redesign of core business processes drastically increases the complexity of operational decision-making. To tap into these opportunities, we design and implement a decision support system for silo dispatch and replenishment activity.

Introduction

Significant improvements in information and communication technologies (ICT) including cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), as well as artificial intelligence (AI), have already disrupted many sectors (Drucker, 2017). Drawing on these technological innovations the digital twin concept – a digital representation of a physical object of interest – has recently emerged as a particularly attractive use case across various industries (Cimino et al., 2019). The investment in digital twins is expected to be offset by increased productivity through predictive analytics (Lee et al., 2013) or the provision of value-added services (Tao et al., 2018). However, oftentimes these goals cannot be achieved by mere data collection but necessitate the adoption of data-driven decision-making (Davenport and Harris, 2007, Brynjolfsson et al., 2011).

Such solutions already create significant business value (Cimino et al., 2019, Cearley et al., 2016, Boschert and Rosen, 2016). Current applications share the fact that they are typically deployed in technology-oriented industries where companies are used to operate on the front-line of innovation. In contrast, “low-tech” industries are much less frequently leveraging the potentials of digital transformation. At the same time, these industries are of great importance to any developed economy (Hirsch-Kreinsen et al., 2006).

A case in point is the construction industry which is frequently listed among the least digital industries (Leviäkangas et al., 2017). Yet, digital transformation is expected to significantly reshape this industry in the years to come (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2016). Currently, many players in construction are pushing forward digital representations of buildings to facilitate easier management, maintenance and upgrading (Song et al., 2012, Khajavi et al., 2019). However, construction site processes remain distinctly non-digital characterized by unclear responsibilities, printed plans and opaque inventories. In such environments efficient planning procedures are difficult to implement.

In collaboration with a leading supplier of building materials, we explore the opportunities for construction site logistics offered by establishing digital twins for bulk silos. We are interested in the potential business value of continuous silo fill level monitoring and tracking. This seemingly small technological innovation offers several opportunities for improving current and introducing new business processes.

This paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, the supply process is described, followed by the shortcomings of the status quo. Section 3 will elaborate on the related work. Then in Section 4 the business value opportunities of this nascent information system are presented. In Section 5 the process transformation is presented, followed by Section 6, where the decision support system (DSS) used to tap into these transformational benefits and its results are discussed. The final section concludes and provides an outlook for future research.

Section snippets

Problem description

Bulk materials constitute the largest element of the construction supply chain (Lundesjö, 2015a). The storage of these materials needs to be cost-effective, safe, and systems should be easy to integrate into operational processes. Bulk silos have established themselves to be particularly suitable for mobile bulk storage applications in construction and agriculture. This is also the case for the industrial partner we collaborated with in this research.

Related work

The advances in information and communication technologies lead to the integration of more and more functions into supply chains. Consequently, supply chains and logistics systems become more comprehensive in the practical and theoretical world. Being concerned with digital innovation for construction site logistics, we investigate three research strands: Trends in the construction industry, digital twin strategies as well as vehicle and inventory routing problems.

Digital supply chain

Having outlined the status quo, we next want to explore how the company's business operations may benefit from expanding the digital representation of their silos. Currently, the company tracks for each of its silos the type (size, dispenser system), the material currently filled in, and the position (based on order status). To achieve a complete digital representation—a proper digital twin of the silo—one needs to be able to access the silo's current fill level. Clearly, the integration of

Process transformation

Utilizing the available data allows us to break up the existing silo supply and replenishment processes described in Section 2. In contrast to the old plant–site–plant movement patterns, the additional available information allows to move silos directly between construction sites, see Fig. 2.

Results

Due to the large number of decision variables and constraints, the complexity of the new integrated process may easily overwhelm a human decision-maker. We seek to design a suitable DSS to leverage the transformational benefits of smart silos and support planners in their operational and strategical decision making. Subsequently, we exploit the prototype DSS to perform extensive simulations.

Conclusion and outlook

Our research does not simply explore the potentials of digital twins within a low-tech industry, it also sheds light on how that value is provided through intelligent decision support. With the limitation that our findings rest on a single case company. By transforming “dumb” silos into smart data processing units a new logistics system can be established which can directly reduce costs. Also, every kilometer saved has a positive effect on the development of CO2 emissions (Léonardi and

CRediT author statement

Greif, Toni: Writing—Original Draft, Software, Visualization, Writing – Review & Editing, Conceptualization, Validation.

Stein, Nikolai: Writing–Reviewing and Editing, Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation.

Flath, Christoph M.: Writing–Reviewing and Editing, Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation.

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