The Interface between Industrialized and Project Based Construction

Today, digitalization is the single most significant change factor for the construction sector as well as for society in general, which will bring new opportunities for intelligent and sustainable cities, efficient management of available resources and a general reduction of carbon emissions. Digitalization will enable continuous and integrated information exchange between all actors of the construction process. The development of an integrated digital information infrastructure for the construction sector will reach beyond the traditional project process and e.g. include the urban planning processes, where geographical information systems (GIS) are currently used, and the manufacturing processes of industrialized construction where e.g. product data management (PDM) systems constitute the product information platform. This study provides a survey of the interface between industrialized and project based construction from an information and business relation perspective. The purpose and main objectives of the study are to review and map the current information exchange between industrialized and project based construction in order to identify existing and potential areas of digitalization and standardization for improved information flow. The survey finds that industrial suppliers still frequently use company specific product standards, that PDF-, Word- or Excel-files constitute the normally used file format and that recurrent restructuring and re-entering of information from one system to another characterize the information exchange. Further, contractors approach industrialized construction in three distinctive ways, and express a generally growing interest for industrialized construction, which include closer and more long-term business relations with industrial suppliers. Despite the identified problems of information exchange and lack of common standards, the survey concludes that improved business relations provides the most urgent area of development in order to better integrate the industrialized and project based construction.