Integration of Industry 4.0 Related Technologies in Construction Industry: A Framework of Cyber-Physical System

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is reshaping the construction industry and bringing it into an intelligent construction era. Emerging technologies, such as the Building Information Modelling, Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, have penetrated into all stages of the building life cycle and play a significant role. However, the major issue of intelligent construction is integrating multiple technologies to create more potential opportunities rather than their fragmented application. Considering the various special characteristics of the construction industry and the high heterogeneity of these technologies, their integration in the construction industry is challenging and requires in-depth investigations. This paper summarizes the Industry 4.0-related technologies involved in the construction industry based on an analysis of the characteristics of the industry. Further, this study presents a framework of a cyber-physical system to integrate these technologies and improve the overall capabilities of construction organization and management. A case study of the Xiong'an citizen service center is introduced to verify the technological feasibility and preliminary implementation effect of the proposed framework. As forward-looking research, the significance of this paper may also to inspire more efforts in this field.