Li, X; Lu, W; Xue, F; Wu, L; Zhao, R; Lou, J and Xu, J (2022) Blockchain-enabled IoT-BIM platform for supply chain management in modular construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 148(2): 0002229, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Configuring a trustworthy Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled building information modeling (BIM) platform (IBP) is significant for modular construction to ensure transparency, traceability, and immutability throughout its fragmented supply chain management. However, most current IBPs are designed adopting a centralized system architecture, which fails to achieve a decentralized and effective one to ensure a single point of truth in BIM and prevent a single point of failure in IoT networks. To address this challenge, this study introduces permissioned blockchain with IBP and proposes a novel service-oriented system architecture of blockchain-enabled IoT-BIM platform (BIBP) for the data-information-knowledge (DIK)-driven supply chain management in modular construction. First, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is designed with hardware, core technologies, and protocols to offer accurate data from daily practice to blockchain BIM. Blockchain BIM as a service (BaaS) is then developed within the permissioned blockchain to ease the interoperability of the information, semantics, and meaningful inferences. Furthermore, software as a service (SaaS) is configured with decentralized applications to achieve knowledgeable operations or processes with a crash fault-tolerant consensus mechanism. The demonstrative case study in a modular student residence project evaluates the proposed BIBP system prototype with the performance analysis of storage cost, throughput, latency, privacy, and feedback from stakeholders. The results indicate that BIBP has an effective system architecture with acceptable throughput and latency, can save storage costs to achieve a single point of truth in BIM, and avoid a single point of failure for IoT networks with privacy and security-preserving mechanisms.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | blockchain; building information modeling; internet of things; modular construction; supply chain management |
| Index terms: | privacy, system architecture, modular construction, traceability, prototype, hardware, performance analysis, transparency, blockchain, interoperability, internet, platform, case study, semantics, building information modelling |
| Subjects: | building construction, professional ethics, information systems, systems and processes, digital design, professional development, modelling and simulation, data analysis and analytics, supplier oversight, analytical methods, design theory, data collection methods, computing systems, computer hardware |
| Topics: | Supply Chain Management, Digital Applications, Legal Issues, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Construction Technology |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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