Professor, George Brown College, Toronto, Canada

Series: Construction Materials and Engineering
BISAC: COM039000; BUS070160

This study examines the benefits, challenges and the manifest and latent concepts of digital twins (DT). It also explores emerging DT platforms/tools, deployment frameworks and capacity building issues to inform construction practitioners. These contributions are tailored to fill part of the extant knowledge gaps in the literature. The study applies a mix of literature-based study methods to examine the topic. Hybrid methods including exploratory knowledge scanning, keywords searches of databases, forward and backward searches and continuous iterative searches are applied to search for relevant materials and they are analyzed to distill fresh knowledge on the examined concepts.

The study distills 7 basic reasoning tools and 8 lenses that underpin the first and second order definitions of digital twins to deepen understanding of digital twins. The research gives detailed analytical insights of the opportunities, benefits and challenges in the use of digital twins in the construction industry. The study also provides an annotated guide of a sample of extant digital twin technologies that can be deployed to enhance value delivery. The research offers directed insights that can inform future research on the topic and provides integrated frameworks to support deployment and capacity building in the use of digital twins for value delivery in practice. Additionally, the information in this research can guide practitioners to make informed decisions on the value and challenges in adopting digital twin technologies to support construction value delivery. The potential opportunities from the use of digital twins can be significant. Yet, as it is an emerging technology, there are a number of challenges associated with its use. But research, technological advances, and accumulated lessons from practice can strengthen its use for value delivery transformation over time.