This study aimed at identifying applications of learning curve (LC) modelling at individual, group, and organisational levels in Industry 4.0 (I4.0) environments. For that, a scoping review on four databases was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. Our results indicated that LCs are more prominently adopted in I4.0 to model learning at the individual level using technologies oriented to sensing and communication (e.g. big data, IoT, wireless sensors, cloud computing, remote control, or monitoring). However, the effect of a few processing and actuation technologies, such as augmented/virtual reality, collaborative robots, and machine learning/AI, on learning seems promising. Further, despite the number of studies investigated, few explicitly described the LC model used to represent the impact of I4.0 technologies on learning. Our findings allowed the proposition of five research directions. Literature on both LC and I4.0 is still fragmented, poorly addressing their relationship. As I4.0 is an innovative approach that allows more extensive information exchange and processing, new ways of using I4.0 technologies to expedite data collection, which has always constrained LC practical applications, should be devised to close the gap between I4.0 and learning.

This paper aims at examining how the relationship between research and practice on Operational Excellence (OE) occurs. For that, a qualitative, empirical approach was conducted in which 25 experts (12 academics and 13 practitioners) from both emerging and developed economies were interviewed. Content analysis of the collected data was framed within an ecological view of the knowledge management (KM) activities. Findings indicate that, despite the growing efforts to strengthen their relationship in the past decade, there is still a gap between the knowledge of both academia and industry on OE. Nevertheless, both academics and practitioners seem to be fairly aware of the needed countermeasures to mitigate such gap in the future. Based on the commonalities found among experts' opinions, four propositions for future theory testing and validation were formulated to stress the relationship between OE's research and practice from the ecological perspective of KM activities. With the competitiveness increase, the search for OE is mandatory for any organization that wishes to remain active in its market. Thus, strengthening the collaboration between industry and academia may facilitate the achievement of OE, avoiding the development of isolated and/or outdated initiatives from both researchers and practitioners, being an original contribution of this study.

Purpose Industry 4.0 is exacerbating the need for offsite construction (OSC) adoption, and this rapid transformation is pushing the boundaries of construction skills towards extensive modernisation. The adoption of this modern production strategy by the construction industry would redefine the position of OSC. This study aims to examine whether the existing skills are capable of satisfying the needs of different OSC types. Design/methodology/approach A critical literature review evaluated the impact of transformative technology on OSC skills. An existing industry standard OSC skill classification was used as the basis to develop a master list that recognises emerging and diminishing OSC skills. The master list recognises 67 OSC skills under six skill categories: managers, professionals, technicians and trade workers, clerical and administrative workers, machinery operators and drivers and labourers. The skills data was extracted from a series of 13 case studies using document reviews and semi-structured interviews with project stakeholders. Findings The multiple case study evaluation recognised 13 redundant skills and 16 emerging OSC skills such as architects with building information modelling and design for manufacture and assembly knowledge, architects specialised in design and logistics integration, advanced OSC technical skills, factory operators, OSC estimators, technicians for three dimensional visualisation and computer numeric control operators. Interview findings assessed the current state and future directions for OSC skills development. Findings indicate that the prevailing skills are not adequate to readily relocate construction activities from onsite to offsite. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is one of the first studies that recognises the major differences in skill requirements for non-volumetric and volumetric OSC types.

The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of Off-Site Construction (OSC) operations and systems in the UK in response to persistent performance challenges in the construction industry. However, understanding the real influences of cost modelling for accurate project costing and cost performance remains limited. Consequently, this systematic literature review aims to identify the key parameters associated with effective cost modelling in OSC systems. Using literature in the last 10 years (i.e. 2011-2021) and keyword search terms, the review covers OSC aspects such as cost modelling and models, life cycle costing, cost analysis and taking off. Knowledge gaps are identified within literature and practice in cost modelling despite a backdrop of a proliferation of OSC systems and concomitant literature. Emergent findings uncover thematic clusters in analysed literature with the role of design, 88%, costs, 69% and modelling, 74% dominating the literature reviewed. Moreover, key influences to cost modelling in OSC (e.g. abnormal costs, factory-based preliminaries, and contractor's overheads) do not feature prominently in any published research. This paper provides a cross-sectional snapshot of contemporary developments in the field and highlights the need for new research to support integrated cost modelling to support current OSC practice.

Due to the impacts of industrialisation on the planet's environmental systems, industrial practice has had to evolve.Sustainable development goals have been set by the United Nations to limit industrial impacts on the environment.At the core of the development goals are the efficient use of materials and the reduction of waste.Two common production philosophies are becoming prevalent within the literature as a solution to consumption and waste within the construction industry, Lean and the Circular Economy (CE).Both provide aspects of green supply chain management that are required to meet the goals set by governments.There are clear synergies between the two philosophies though there are few investigations into their likeness within the literature.This paper aims to further investigate the synergies between Lean and the CE within the construction industry to develop the extant body of knowledge.The findings of the research identified that the majority of interactions between the concepts were positive although not entirely explored in construction.The core similarities surround waste reduction whereas the key differences are Lean's human management and the CE's closed-loop value retention.Therefore, it is suggested that a complimentary mixed Circu-Lean philosophy will be the future of production and construction.

User requirement management is essential to improve value generation in construction projects.Requirements management is also vital in the context of social housing upgrading/retrofit projects, as such projects generally involve a poor consideration of user needs.Design science research is adopted to propose a process model to support the identification of user needs in the social housing upgrade context.Data was gathered through an empirical study carried out in an upgrading project in the UK.The model includes the use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) based tools.The model can help elicit users' needs and values through a participatory approach and the early inclusion of stakeholders in design decision-making.The process model contributes to an improved approach to managing user requirements, which will promote better value generation through retrofit projects.

Social Housing Retrofit offers positive social, financial and health improvements for low-income populations. However, the stakeholders in such projects might have conflicting needs and interests, thus hampering the retrofitting process. Living labs can play a vital role in supporting mediation amongst stakeholders and thus help alleviate such challenges. Living Labs (LLs) are user-centred initiatives for the development of innovative solutions in real-life contexts through a collaborative process. User involvement is vital in the LLs’ innovation process. This paper describes the setup of a Social Housing Retrofit LL from a methodological perspective. Existing literature reporting LLs often lacks clarity on its description of the LLs underlying methodological approach. The main contribution of the paper is to depict the living lab as a method based on the social housing retrofit context. The proposed solution i.e., the LL methodological approach, is described at a detailed level, including its main activities, and expected outcomes. The approach can bring together residents and other stakeholders, leveraging knowledge sharing, collaboration, and co-creation through their involvement in the retrofit process. The solution is evaluated in contrast to existing literature, and it should be implemented in the future throughout the development of an ongoing research project U-VITAL.

Automation has been long explored to improve regulatory compliance during building design. Despite substantial research efforts on developing means to enable this process, there has been limited success in practical implementations. Designers' inputs are often undervalued in such developments, leading to solutions that are not effectively incorporated into the design process. This issue is even more difficult in healthcare projects due to their complexity and convoluted regulatory frameworks. In this paper, we describe how designers perceive the use of automation to support regulatory compliance in healthcare projects, through the analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews. We found that regulatory documents have a large influence on design and their compliance often consists of an unformalised process in practice. Furthermore, we identified that subjectivity is perceived in requirements as needed due to the creativity involved in design, whereas automation can be understood as liberating in this context depending on how it is used. Improvement needs focussing on the revision of the regulatory framework as well as on software development have been highlighted by participants during the interviews, which led to the proposition of recommendations to help achieve their benefits in practice.

Requirements' elicitation is a critical step in construction projects as it affects design development, construction, and ultimately, impacts on value generation.In social housing retrofit projects it becomes especially relevant due to the improvement character underlying such initiatives, which offers an opportunity to better address residents' needs, but also to consider the effects of disruption and cost implications.Despite different tools and processes being widely acknowledged by existing literature, their practical application in this type of project is often shallow and do not effectively support the definition of requirements that meet users' and other stakeholders' needs.This paper reports on preliminary findings from an ongoing research project focused on the use of living labs during the retrofit of 8 social housing dwellings in West Yorkshire, UK.It aims to better understand how different tools (i.e., Virtual Reality immersive cave, virtual walkthroughs, and value cards) are useful in the context of generating value within living labs.Key findings relate to the description of how tools were used in this context, as well as the participants' assessment of their benefits and limitations.

Living Labs (LLs) are social and dynamic environments that allow the development of innovative solutions through intense collaboration and co-creation. In social housing (SH), retrofit initiatives usually consist of top-down approaches, with residents often playing a secondary role in such projects. The use of LLs in SH projects can improve retrofit outcomes through the development of adequate and fit for purpose solutions, co-created with stakeholders. Whereas existing research on LLs reports successful developments in several areas, research findings are often fragmented. They lack an in-depth discussion on the benefits and limitations, as well as how different stakeholders engage in the LLs. This paper aims to discuss stakeholders’ perceptions in the early stages of a SH retrofit LL in the UK, focused on improving the energy efficiency of 8 dwellings. We conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in the LL (e.g. residents, retrofit coordinator, architects, among others). Findings highlight difficulties associated with the LL initiation, partially due to communication problems and lack of alignment, but also because of intrinsic behavioural, institutional, and technical issues related to construction projects. Results suggest that collaboration is needed in LLs not only to co-create solutions but also to develop the LL itself.

Construction project management is known for being fragmented and disconnected between the stages of design, supply and construction.Lean construction has a variety of well known production planning and control methods that may be used to integrate and improve the information flow between these stages.These methods and techniques include location-based tools and the Last Planner System (LPS).However, the combined use of location-based tools with the LPS to allow an entire project, including the design, supply and construction, to be pull planned, has not been described in the literature.This paper presents results of one study in which location-based planning tools were deployed to pull the project planning from construction to design.The study is part of a doctoral thesis which used the design science research as a mode to produce new knowledge.The main contribution of the paper is the model to develop a location-based project management including the use of the LPS in construction, supply and design.The model enables project managers to have a holistic view of the project plan, and structure it as a pull flow from construction to design, reducing work-in-progress and batch sizes between stages, and improving the information flow among project stakeholders.

Healthcare building projects are severely constrained by their associated regulatory frameworks. In this context, regulatory requirements define a basic outline upon which design is developed, as well as aid designers towards compliance to minimum standards. Automation has been explored by existing research focusing mostly on compliance checking (i.e., quality control). There has been limited developments within this domain related to quality assurance. This paper aims to highlight what are key needed improvements to enable the use of automation to promote quality assurance for regulatory compliance in healthcare building projects. For this purpose, an ongoing revision of a British healthcare design guidance document (HBN 11-01) was analysed according to a requirements’ taxonomy. Key areas of improvement needs were highlighted based on a series of interviews. Our main findings relate to identifying that despite the guidance character of regulatory documents in the UK, they are rarely used for this purpose, revealing the focus on quality control. In this context, the regulatory framework could be repositioned as a catalyst towards automated design quality assurance as long as (i) the regulatory documents are developed and revised to fit automated design processes; and (ii) there are compatible software developments to streamline design processes through automation.

This paper reports initial research findings exploring the assessment of regulatory requirements in the healthcare design process, using different levels of automation – code checking. The methodological approach is Design Science Research, with an empirical study undertaken in close collaboration with an institution responsible for Primary Healthcare buildings in the UK. The main findings include understanding that the design of healthcare projects is intrinsically subjective, which is also reflected by the way regulations for healthcare buildings are developed. Thus, automated approaches for design assessment will only be suitable for the healthcare context if such approaches enable the consideration of requirements subjectivity. In fact, this consists of a change in the way subjectivity is considered in code checking research, which has traditionally been seen as problematic for the design assessment process, due to individual biases and potential misunderstandings. This research proposes that subjectivity in design assessment should be understood in terms of how its negative effects could be alleviated, but at the same time understanding it supports creativity and the uniqueness of human reasoning during the healthcare design process.

Regulatory frameworks associated to building design are usually complex, representing extensive sets of requirements. For healthcare projects in the UK, this includes statutory and guidance documents. Existing research indicates that they contain subjective requirements, which challenge the practical adoption of automated compliance checking, leading to limited outcomes. This paper aims to propose recommendations for the adoption of automated compliance checking in the design of healthcare buildings. Design Science Research was used to gain a detailed understanding of how information from existing regulatory requirements affects automation, through an empirical study in the design of a primary healthcare facility. In this study, a previously proposed taxonomy was implemented and refined, resulting in the identification of different types of subjective requirements. Based on empirical data emerging from the research, a set of recommendations was proposed focusing on the revision of regulatory documents, as well as to aid designers implementing automated compliance in practice.

Integration between Design and Construction is a common topic discussed in the literature in construction. The impacts of construction industry fragmentation are quite well known: poor design quality, lack of standards and constructability, suboptimal design solutions, high number of change orders, high rate of rework in design and construction, low value delivered for clients, design and construction delays and higher project costs. In the case of construction projects in which the design stage overlaps the construction stage, the industry fragmentation increases the projects’ risks and in some cases it nullifies the gains in cost and time which come about when using the strategy of overlapping. Although researchers tried to address the problem of industry fragmentation by implementing new tools and methods to integrate project stakeholders, for example, using Building Information Modelling (BIM), Integrated Concurrent Engineering, Big-Room, and so on, the literature is still lacking in concepts and theories about how to integrate planning and controlling of both Design and Construction stages. such batch and work package, order create a common ground among Design, Construction and Costs simulations using BIM and line of balance. The case study a retrofit Antrim Ireland) improve the energy efficiency of solid wall houses, at the same time the disruption project entitled S-IMPLER (Solid Wall Innovative Insulation and Monitoring Processes using Lean Energy Efficient Retrofit) funded by the Innovate UK, which aims to develop a retrofit solution for social housing built with solid walls to achieve 60% reduction in monitored energy costs, with less disruption for end users, keeping quality and safety at high levels. The use of these concepts allowed the creation of different scenarios for design solutions and production system organization which were presented in a What-if Matrix. The costs changed as a consequence of the crossing scenarios. Adding to it, the definition of production batch and work package was essential to develop the BIM models (3D, 4D and 5D), as well as the line of balance used to plan the retrofit works and measure the end users disruption. The research findings show that the common definition of production batch and work packages between Design and Construction stages used in the retrofit study worked as a boundary object in the development of BIM models and scenarios simulations. These concepts created the basis for the integration between design and construction, especially, in projects using BIM. The results are not limited to the context of retrofit and further research is currently undertaken by the researchers to examine its validity and applicability in different settings. This presents partial results of an ongoing doctoral research about planning and controlling integration for design and construction in projects where there is overlap between these phases. Specifically, the paper shows the first results of a project entitled S-IMPLER (Solid Wall Innovative Insulation and Monitoring Processes using Lean Energy Efficient Retrofit).

This paper proposes a new conceptual approach to address the gap in the understanding of benefits realization, which is an increasingly central element in the delivery of successful projects in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) design. The paper focuses on the link between uncertainty in front-end design (FED) and the delivery of project benefits as understood in the broader benefits realization theory. The paper builds on the nature of uncertainty and use of Dempster-Shafer theoretic and quality function deployment to model the various interdependences among design attributes. A social housing case study of Brazil's Mia Casa, Mia Vida Program demonstrated the application of the modeling approach. Optimal belief and plausibility structures in design decision-making were observed to increase with increasing consideration of more use models. These findings demonstrate that modeling uncertainty in FED can contribute to improved design decision-making. The paper's novel contribution is introducing uncertainty modeling to support design decision-making to overcome insufficiencies in the inherently rational design decision-making that often is unable to discern complexities in dynamic project contexts.

The complexity of construction processes often means interaction between various stakeholders, activities and tasks in order to deliver the expected outcomes. The intensity and dynamics of front-end design (FED) mean decision techniques and methods are important in supporting projects benefits delivery more importantly those based on utility of decision making. This paper explores a new utilitarian decision-making approach based on a systematic literature review of FED decision making. It presents the state of the art in design decision making concepts and analysis of tools over the last 10 years (2009–2019). From a total of 111 peer-reviewed journal papers, fifteen decision-making techniques are identified as dominant in design decision making, broadly grouped in four major categories as explanatory/rational, Multi Criteria Decision Making techniques (MCDM), Hybrid and Visual methods. The review finds that the most applied of the MCDM is Quality Function Deployment (QFD); while among the rational/explanatory techniques is set-based design (SBD). While there is limited application of Multi Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) in decision making, the paper finds that the robust consistency and structured approach better captures the intricate dynamics of FED; including modelling of the subjectivity, interdependences and uncertainty in design discourse.

The recent notable emergence of a body of research in requirements management on one hand and benefits realisation has contributed to addressing a growing need for improved performance in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) projects. However, front end design (FED) as one of the vital processes in the project life cycle and delivery has attracted limited research to date within this understanding. This paper aims to map current evidence on requirements management in facilitating benefits realisation from an FED perspective. This is to bring about an updated and unified position on requirements management for its impact on design decision making. A systematic review of the literature covering the last ten years (2008–2018) aims first to build understanding and support identification of these emergent conceptual positions and secondly underscore essential requirements and their categorisations that impact on design discourse in FED. One hundred sixty-one peer-reviewed journal papers in the areas of benefits realisation and/or requirements management and/or FED based are identified on a pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Thirty-six requirements are identified as important in influencing use case changes important in design decision making broadly grouped into nine major categories. Following analysis, this research finds little evidence supporting an integrated requirements management practice and understanding to support design decision making. The research further finds bias in current research discourse towards four requirements categories (technical, economics, governance and environment); and 14 requirements, dominated by three strategic values, collaboration and project governance, with over 80% share of literature. The least 14 requirements such as “flow of spaces, social status/aspiration, mobility and integrated design” among others only account for less than 10% of literature. The authors argue for new research to bridge this gap, highlight the essential role of requirements management and broaden understanding to improve benefits realisation, particularly for FED processes.