Hala Nassereddine

By Ashtarout Ammar, Hala Nassereddine and Gabriel Dadi

The advent and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the world’s focus toward investing in social structure projects that would improve urbanization and enhance equity. This shift compiled with the emergence of innovative technologies namely Digital Twins, allowed for investigating new approaches for designing and delivering infrastructures, thus paving the road toward smarter infrastructures. Smart infrastructures achieved by connecting the physical aspect of the infrastructure with its digital aspect will allow for optimizing the performance of infrastructure systems by digitally enhancing the asset value and leveraging the value of asset data. Digital Twins can be applied to several civil infrastructure projects including the transportation sector. Also, Digital Twins can be implemented for different spatial scales, on a national level, on the level of the city, and for a network of assets. Few case studies described how to transfer a Digital Twin vision to practice; thus, this chapter presents the journey for a holistic Digital Twin for a highway system formed of a network of assets by discussing the Why, How, and What framework. A holistic highway Digital Twin will allow for cross-asset data analysis, conducting predictive and preventive maintenance, and efficient resource allocation based on data-driven decision-making.

Part of the book: Critical Infrastructure

By Makram Bou Hatoum and Hala Nassereddine

Construction organizations have been undergoing major efforts as the industry acknowledges the need to improve and change its traditional business-as-usual model. Inspired by the wave of technological advancement brought forward by the fourth industrial revolution (i.e., Industry 4.0 or its construction counterpart known as Construction 4.0), the need to investigate and successfully exploit technologies has never been more critical for construction researchers and practitioners. One research topic that remains limited pertains to the organizational aspect of successful technology adoption and the impact on the business environment in which the organization operates. To address the gap, the study utilizes the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and synthesizes the existing research corpus to develop a comprehensive list of 23 decision-making factors for construction organizations to evaluate when adopting technologies. The study also offers an overview of existing research on the adoption of Construction 4.0 technologies, proposes 97 potential measures to evaluate the factors, and provides a discussion of the research trends. Accordingly, findings from this study can lay the foundation for decision-making processes and frameworks as technology adoption research grows and change efforts expand across the construction industry.

Part of the book: Industry 4.0 Transformation Towards Industry 5.0 Paradigm - Challenges, Opportunities and Practices [Working title]