Miraj, P; Wang, T; Koutamanis, A and Chan, P (2025) Organising digital twin in the built environment: A systematic review and research directions on the missing links of use and user perspectives of digital twin in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector. Construction Management and Economics, 43(6), pp. 465-481. ISSN 0144-6193
Abstract
There has been growing interest in the adoption of advanced digital technologies in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, as shown by the increasing number of review studies on the adoption of Digital Twin (DT) in the sector. While previous reviews on DT in the AEC sector have emphasised the technical opportunities and challenges, reviews that take a specific organisational and management focus on the use of DT are lacking. In this systematic review, we close this gap by analysing 102 papers from three main scientific databases (Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science), which emphasise organisational and management aspects of using DT in the AEC sector across the project and asset lifecycle phases. The findings indicate that, whereas there is still a stronger focus on finding optimisations for various performance concerns (e.g. project efficiency, health and safety and maintenance performance), there is increasing awareness and interest in using DT to encourage collaboration and (end-)user participation. Despite this recognition, our review also identified a number of critical knowledge gaps on the use and user perspectives of DT, which includes how powerful computational tools can be developed into user-friendly interfaces to reduce complexity and increase accessibility to all stakeholders in the decision-making process, and how participatory design frameworks can be combined with structured feedback systems and standardised data access protocols in order to stimulate communication, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision making.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | built environment; construction; digital twin; systematic literature review; user |
| Index terms: | science, accessibility, collaboration, continuous improvement, digital technology, decision-making, lifecycle, user perspective, efficiency, health and safety, database, decision-making process, digital twin, systematic literature review, built environment, complexity, user participation, participatory design |
| Subjects: | project delivery, inclusive design, performance measurement, specialized education, participation process, design methods, decision analysis, health safety and environment, digital engineering, data management, systems engineering, management, user focus, research evaluation and metrics, performance management, infrastructure and transport systems, computing systems |
| Topics: | Project Management, Research Practice, Education, Organizational Design, Health and Safety, Stakeholder Management, Engineering Principles, Quality Management, Digital Applications, Design Practice, Urban Studies, Risk Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here