The concept of digital twins is proposed as a new technology-led advancement to support the processes of the design, construction, and operation of built assets. Commonalities between the emerging definitions of digital twins describe them as digital or cyber environments that are bidirectionally-linked to their physical or real-life replica to enable simulation and data-centric decision making. Studies have started to investigate their role in the digitalization of asset delivery, including the management of built assets at different levels within the building and infrastructure sectors. However, questions persist regarding their actual applications and implementation challenges, including their integration with other digital technologies (i.e., building information modeling, virtual and augmented reality, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing). Within the built environment context, this study seeks to analyze the definitions and characteristics of a digital twin, its interactions with other digital technologies used in built asset delivery and operation, and its applications and challenges. To achieve this aim, the research utilizes a thorough literature review and semi-structured interviews with ten industry experts. The literature review explores the merits and the relevance of digital twins relative to existing digital technologies and highlights potential applications and challenges for their implementation. The data from the semi-structured interviews are classified into five themes: definitions and enablers of digital twins, applications and benefits, implementation challenges, existing practical applications, and future development. The findings provide a point of departure for future research aimed at clarifying the relationship between digital twins and other digital technologies and their key implementation challenges.

Purpose The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the global economy and, thus, the global construction industry. This paper aims to study the impact of COVID-19 on construction project performance in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative and exploratory approach to investigate the impact of COVID-19 and its policies on project performance in the UAE construction industry in critical areas of the project management body of knowledge (e.g. schedule, cost, resources and contracts). Semi-structured interview questions were asked from ten construction professional to obtain valuable insights into the pandemic’s effects on the UAE construction industry and the effectiveness of policies implemented to rectify the damage and identify the industry’s new normal. Findings The findings indicate that the construction industry faced several challenges such as schedule delays, disrupted cashflows, delayed permits, approvals and inspections, travel restrictions, serious health and safety concerns, material and equipment shortages, among others which hindered the timely delivery of construction projects. It also indicates that efforts made by the government institutions and the construction industry of the UAE such as economic support programs, digitization of processes, fee and fine waivers, health facilities, among other statutory relaxations proved effective in supporting the construction industry against the adverse effects of the pandemic. Research limitations/implications The research findings are limited to the literature review and ten semi-structured interviews seeking an expert’s opinion from industry professionals working in the UAE construction industry. The research team did not get access to project documents, contracts and project progress reports which may be required to validate the interview findings, and to perform an in-depth analysis quantifying the impact of COVID 19 on construction projects performance, which is a limitation of this research. Practical implications The implication is that, owing to the imposed lockdowns and strict precautionary measures to curb the rapid spread of the pandemic, smooth execution of the construction project across the country was affected. The government institutions and stakeholders of the construction projects introduced and implemented various techniques and solutions which effectively handled the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry of the UAE. Originality/value This study has identified the challenges faced by the construction industry of the UAE in the context of the management of project schedule, project cost, construction contracts, health and safety of construction employees and other related aspects of the construction projects. This study also identified the techniques and solutions adopted by various public and private institutions of the country and their implications on construction projects. Therefore, this study provides guidelines for policymakers and future research studies alike.

The construction industry is prone to major safety hazards owing to the complex and onsite nature of construction projects. Hence, construction researchers have been pursuing concepts, methods, and tools using advancing technologies to improve construction safety management. Subsequently, the rapid digitization of construction work practices is providing opportunities to improve construction safety. Research has revealed that construction safety management practices can benefit from the applications of virtual design construction technologies (VDC), such as building information modeling (BIM), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), geographic information systems (GIS), and gaming technology. This study comprehensively reviews 191 research articles, published between 2010 and 2019, focusing on providing an overview of the implementation and application of VDC technologies for improving construction safety. The objective of this review is to critically collect and analyze applications of VDC technologies and present a holistic view of the features and functions of VDC technologies that can impact jobsite safety improvement in the construction industry. The review showed that VDC technologies can substantially improve construction safety. Emerging digital technologies, such as BIM, VR, AR, GIS, and gaming technologies can transform the traditional document-oriented safety procedures into digitalized safety practices allowing safety managers to visualize and analysis construction sites virtually to devise proactive safety measures and effective safety trainings. This study also highlights challenges such as research gaps regarding these digital tools that are currently impeding their widespread use in construction safety.

With the advancement of digital design practices in the global construction industry, different aspects related to the project lifecycle are extracting their benefits, including making improvements in safety. The objective of this paper is to ascertain the awareness of these technologies, their potential, and any barriers related to the use of different virtual design construction (VDC) tools, such as building information modeling, virtual reality, augmented reality, and geographic information systems, to improve job-site safety in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The paper presents an overview of the GCC construction industry and highlights current safety management practices and problems in the region. The potential of VDC tools for improving job-site safety is discussed and presented. The study has used a questionnaire survey to identify the drivers and barriers of using VDC tools in improving job-site safety management in the GCC region. The results indicated that “designing emergency and evacuation plans” and “fall-hazard prevention strategies” are the two best safety applications of these tools if used proactively. Similarly, “lack of knowledge about return on investment for VDC tools” was considered as the predominant barrier, preventing stakeholders from using these technologies to improve construction safety. These results will help the GCC construction industry to build a strategy for the digitalization of proactive constructability analysis techniques for improving job-site safety. Overall, due to the multilingual dynamics of this region, it is recommended that VDC tools should become more prevalent so that the transfer of safety information and hazard prevention becomes easier, mitigating safety risks.

Effective safety management is a key aspect of managing construction projects. Current safety management practices are heavily document-oriented that rely on historical data to identify potential hazards at a construction job site. Such document-bound safety practices are prone to interpretative and communication errors in multilingual construction environments, such as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Applications of Building Information Models (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) are claimed to improve hazards identification and communication in comparison to 2-D static drawings by simulating job-site conditions and safety implications and thus can interactively educate the job-site crew to enhance their understanding of the on-site conditions and safety requirements. This paper presents findings of a case study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of 4-Dimensional (4-D) BIM and VR in simulating job-site safety instructions for a multilingual construction crew at a project in the UAE. 4-D BIM-enabled VR simulations, in lieu of the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHAD) code of practice, were developed and tested through risk assessment and safety training exercises for the job-site crew. The results showed a significant improvement in the job-site crew’s ability to recognize a hazard, understand safety protocols, and incorporate proactive risk response in mitigating the hazards. This study concludes that 4-D BIM-enabled VR visualization can improve information flow and knowledge exchange in a multilingual environment where jobsite crew do not speak a common language and cannot understand written safety instructions, manuals, and documents in any common language due to linguistic diversity. The findings of this study are useful in communicating safety instructions, and safety training, in the UAE, as well as in international projects.

The progress monitoring (PM) of construction projects is an essential aspect of project control that enables the stakeholders to make timely decisions to ensure successful project delivery, but ongoing practices are largely manual and document-centric. However, the integration of technologically advanced tools into construction practices has shown the potential to automate construction PM (CPM) using real-time data collection, analysis, and visualization for effective and timely decision making. In this study, we assess the level of automation achieved through various methods that enable automated computer vision (CV)-based CPM. A detailed literature review is presented, discussing the complete process of CV-based CPM based on the research conducted between 2011 and 2021. The CV-based CPM process comprises four sub-processes: data acquisition, information retrieval, progress estimation, and output visualization. Most techniques encompassing these sub-processes require human intervention to perform the desired tasks, and the inter-connectivity among them is absent. We conclude that CV-based CPM research is centric on resolving technical feasibility studies using image-based processing of site data, which are still experimental and lack connectivity to its applications for construction management. This review highlighted the most efficient techniques involved in the CV-based CPM and accentuated the need for the inter-connectivity between sub-processes for an effective alternative to traditional practices.

The construction industry in Pakistan is experiencing a surge in public sector projects due to major investments in infrastructure projects. Project delays and cost overrun are common features in public sector construction projects in Pakistan. Therefore, an understanding of the causes of time and cost overrun in public projects is essential. This paper investigates delay and cost overrun factors within the context of public sector projects in Pakistan. This study identifies 48 potential factors from existing literature and semi-structured interviews were used to refine the identified factors into ten categories. A questionnaire survey was used to establish a hierarchy of factors using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the major causes of time overruns in public projects were (1) legal issues, such as court stay orders, land acquisition, relocation of public facilities; (2) technical errors leading to low-quality drawings, rework, and errors at bidding stage; and (3) Poor project management. The findings of this research contribute to understanding the causes of project delays in public sector projects in Pakistan.

The application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has demonstrated enormous potential to deliver consistency in the construction collaboration process. BIM can define an explicit configuration for digitized information exchange, however the technology to collaborate on models has not yet delivered the industry requirements for BIM collaboration. This research project is intended to provide a fresh review of industry requirements for BIM collaboration and will analyse how these requirements can be supported using a model server as a collaboration platform. This paper presents a review of existing collaboration platforms, with a particular focus to evaluate the research and development efforts on model servers as a collaboration platform. This paper also reports on the findings of three focus group sessions with industry practitioners to identify any problems in the available collaboration systems. The focus group findings identify a number of issues in current collaboration environments which help to understand the main domains of user requirements for BIM collaboration. These requirement domains will be further analysed to identify functional and technical specifications for a model server enabled collaboration platform.