The European construction employs 18 million people and represents 9% of EU GDP. However, half a billion of EU inhabitants live, work and travel in the built environment shaped by construction industry and create 100% of the GDP in it. Well built, used and maintained built environment (including buildings, infrastructures and linked services) is therefore crucial to address the societal challenges of the EU. This sector is therefore moving into the centre of attention of policymaking, innovation and research. Nevertheless, the construction sector is lagging behind in digitalisation, even behind agriculture.
Governments, owners and users are dealing with climate change, resource efficiency, aging populations, social sensitivities, urbanisation, migration, ageing infrastructures, as well as constrained budgets and spatial interventions as key aspects of their policy and projects. Construction is a driver for economic growth and a tool for anti-cyclic policies in the times of crisis – as the Juncker plan well demonstrated. It is home to 3 million companies, most of which are SMEs. An innovative, competitive and growing construction sector is crucial for tackling these challenges. DigiPLACE is about charting the modernization path of European construction industry under the headline of Construction 4.0.
Achieving the vison of Construction 4.0 and the resulting Built Environment 4.0 will require a technological evolution and massive drive of innovation, both in technology, in value chain organization and in innovation patterns. The value chains of the future will be integrated and digitised. The key to achieving modernization of construction is the modernization of the business environment and of the innovation environment. The most important concept for achieving this are platforms. Platforms have proved to be extremely successful in modernizing many consumer-oriented businesses – both the business as well as the innovation aspect. For the digital native businesses and technologies this transition has been quite natural. Not so for traditional industries.
The highest-level objective of the DigiPLACE project is to create a reference architecture framework for the digital industrial platform for the construction sector based on a shared consensus.
