As the construction industry increasingly adopts digital technologies, recent studies emphasize digital twins as essential tools for managing construction projects and automating workflows. Although research has advanced the technical aspects of digital twins, there is a notable gap in examining human performance factors, particularly situation awareness – a cognitive process crucial for recognizing, comprehending, and anticipating changes in the work environment. With greater reliance on automation, neglecting this critical capability can lead to severe oversights, particularly during disruptions. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative study grounded in a theoretical framework to explore the situation awareness requirements under different disruption scenarios in two contrasting construction contexts: offsite production and onsite assembly. First, drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews and non-participant field observations, we employ goal-directed task analysis to reveal the distinct information needs in each context. Second, through a comprehensive content analysis of the interview narratives, we identify the dynamics of gaining and maintaining situation awareness and provide digital twin design recommendations. Findings indicate that managers must shift from a macro-level overview to a micro-level detail in offsite production, requiring digital twin displays with adaptable granularity. In contrast, onsite assembly demands an intensely iterative approach to situational awareness, which calls for comprehensive real-time digital twin displays that support quick back-and-forth assessments. This study contributes by formalizing experts’ background knowledge, which can serve as a valuable basis for creating context-sensitive digital twin systems that better support human decision-making in offsite construction contexts and beyond.

The field of construction informatics is fragmented and lacks clarity in understanding the interconnection of different data management strategies. This makes it challenging to address industry-specific data management issues. Using a critical interpretive synthesis, this study reviews and integrates both present and emerging data management approaches in construction informatics. The review is meant to be comprehensive, encompassing technologies and concepts such as Open Schema, Information Container, Common Data Environments, Linked Data, as well as cutting-edge Web3 technologies such as blockchain and decentralized data protocols. The different approaches are identified and classified into five categories and mapped into a two-dimensional framework that considers data storage and data processing modes. The systematic categorization provides a simple, but comprehensive understanding of data management strategies in construction informatics. Moreover, the framework allows to identify the state of the art and trends of data management approaches, providing guidance for future research perspectives, especially in the intersection with Web3 technologies.

Construction management courses are increasingly teaching digital technologies and automation. The default method to teach construction scheduling remains the critical path method, which suffers from lack of automation, lack of dynamic change processes, and wrong assumptions about resource and spatial availability. New methods to automate construction scheduling, sometimes referred to as generative construction scheduling, have been developed but are seldom taught in construction management courses. This paper describes the design of a new curriculum to teach one new approach to construction scheduling called the Tri-Constraint Method. The proposed five-lesson, flipped-classroom curriculum is designed to illustrate limitations of the critical path method, explain the theoretical and computational foundations of a generative scheduling algorithm, and provide practical experience through implementation with state-of-the-art software. To measure the impact of the curriculum on student learning, the paper conducts a descriptive statistical analysis, a paired t-test, and an examination of qualitative feedback. Students who entered the course with either low or high prior knowledge of construction scheduling showed significant improvement in their understanding of the key concepts and the algorithmic approach behind the generative construction scheduling. Overall, this paper demonstrates how curriculum design in engineering informatics can combine theoretical understanding and practical implementation to understand generative construction scheduling. The dissemination of this and similar teaching curricula can ensure that future engineering practitioners avoid “black box” implementations of automation software in their future careers.

Blockchain and other forms of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) provide an opportunity to integrate digital information, management, and contracts to increase trust and collaboration within the construction industry. DLT enables direct peer-to-peer transactions of value across a distributed network by providing an immutable and transparent record of these transactions. Furthermore, there is potential for business process optimization and automation on the transaction level through the use of smart contracts, which are code protocols deployed on supported DLT systems. However, DLT research in the construction industry remains at a theoretical level; there have been few implementation case studies to date. One potential reason for this is a knowledge gap between use-case ideas and the DLT technical system implementation. This paper aims to reduce this gap by (1) reviewing and categorizing proposed DLT use cases in construction literature, (2) providing an overview of DLT and its design options, (3) proposing an integrated framework to match DLT design options with desired characteristics of a use case, and (4) analysing the use cases using the new framework. Together, the use case categories and proposed decision framework can guide future implementers toward more connected and structured thinking between the technological properties of DLT and use cases in construction.