skip to content

Centre for Digital Built Britain completed its five-year mission and closed its doors at the end of September 2022

This website remains as a legacy of the achievements of our five-year foundational journey towards a digital built Britain
 

From Norm to Swarm: development of a balanced scorecard for evaluating automation in construction. ECR project by Dr Isolda Agusti Juan, from The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management, UCL

Dr Isolda Agusti Juan, BRE (formerly UCL)
'From Norm to Swarm: development of a balanced scorecard for evaluating automation in construction'

The adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in construction (e.g. Building Information Modelling (BIM),robotics or 3D printing) offers radically different ways of planning and constructing our built environment, but also transforms supply chain and stakeholders in the construction process.As a result, construction companies expect an increase of productivity, efficiency, quality and safety, as well as a reduction of costs, emissions and waste. Yet, the lack of management tools and standards to evaluate automation and set business strategic improvement drivers is hindering its wider adoption in construction. 

The use of information and automation technologies in construction requires the adaptation of performance measurement systems to evaluate automated construction processes within the sustainability context andsuccessfully handle operational and organisational changes. Among performance measurement systems, a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management system that links performance measurement to business strategy using a set of financial and nonfinancial performance criteria (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). BSCs expand the evaluation beyond traditional criteria such as cost, time and quality to include themes related to safety, equality, environment and legacy, which support the main priorities of stakeholders. 

Isolda Image

Flight Assembled Architecture. Wilmann, J, Augugliaro F, Cadalbert, T, D'Andrea R, Gramazio, F, & Kohler, M (2012). Aerial roboti construction towards a new field of architectural research. International Journal of Archictectural Computing, 10 (3), 439-459.

Consequently, the aim of this project is to:

  • Develop a BSC to support the adoption of automation in construction by delivering a set of indicators that ensure the sustainable development of these innovative processes and technologies in the UK construction industry. 
  • Focus on improving performance indicators such as productivity, resource consumption, and GHG emissions, helping construction organisations achieve their long-term vision and strategy, through the balanced and effective use of automation. 
  • Highlight the relevant data that needs to be transferred throughout the value chain (design-construct-operate-maintain) through the assessment of automation in construction case studies from an industry perspective.

The BSC will be co-created with industry and tested using data generated from simulations and live automated construction processes to encourage faster progress towards a greater adoption of automation. Access to the EPSRC-funded project Aerial Additive Building Manufacturing (http://www.aerial-abm.com/) will provide the principal dataset for this research, supplemented by data provided by industry partners.

FINAL REPORT - JULY 2019

CDBB Week 2019 Poster

Researchers:

ERC: Dr Isolda Agusti Juan
The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management, University College London

PI: Professor Jacqueline Glass
The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management, University College London

CO-I: Dr Niamh Murtagh
The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management, University College London

CO-I: Dr Vijay Pawar
Department of Computer Science, University College London

Subject: