As explained in our Focus Areas section, a significant gap remains between construction and operations due to their increasing digitalisation. This gap is driving many of our planned working group initiatives.

Our discussions aimed at digitally bridging the project-operations gap also focus on enhancing professional understanding through knowledge sharing, which will likely lead to several additional interrelated initiatives. Furthermore, these discussions encourage us to actively seek partnerships with other relevant trade bodies and initiatives.

This is why we have partnered on the Digital Operations Stage this year at Digital Construction Week, sponsored by Gilder Technology. Several of our members will be speaking and participating in sessions on Day 1 (June 4th) as part of our collaboration, which we have outlined below:

10:30 – 11:15: Plugging the Gap Between Digital Construction and Operations

Moderated by rugby World Cup legend Matt Dawson MBE RWC, featuring:

– Nohman Awan, Digital Construction Lead at Balfour Beatty plc Beatty
– Justin Kirby, Executive Officer at the Digital Buildings Council
– Claire Callan, Smart Place, Technical Director at WSP
– Hugo Corrie, Senior Consultant at Turner & Townsend
– Sam Pickering, Executive Director at The Instant Group

11:30 – 12:00: Bridging the Construction to Operations Gap with Digital Soft Landings

Moderated by Lucas Cusack at Glider Technology, featuring:

– Alan Williamson, FCIOB, FCIBSE, CEnv, Senior Services Manager at Multiplex
– Edward Riby, Real Estate Director at JLL
– Natalie Green, FM Innovations Director at Sodexo
– Andrew Victory, Global Digital Transformation Leader at Arcadis

12:00 – 12:45: BIM to Smart

Moderated by Rachel Heaton at GS1 UK, featuring:

– James Franklin, Digital Twin Project Director at Kier Group
– John Clarke, Operations Director at One Sightsolutions LTD
– Sam Norledge, Head of Smart Buildings at LMG (lmgiq.com)
– Veronica Friuli, Principal Consultant at Turner & Townsend

3:30 – 14:00: RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay 2.0

Moderated by Justin Kirby with participants including:

– James Franklin, Digital Twin Project Director at Kier Construction
– John Adams, Head of Product at Glider Technology
– Aleksandra Dasala MIET Dasala, Smart Buildings Consultant at Nu Xform
– Daniel Watson, UK Director at Hereworks

15:30- 16:00: Agentic AI for Operational Resilience: Turning Smart Buildings into Self-Optimizing Assets

Presented by Dan Drogman, CEO of founding member Smart Spaces®

The RIBA Smart Buildings Overlay 2.0 session will serve as a soft launch for the review of the Smart Buildings Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work, in collaboration with the original co-authors. We encourage you to attend and learn how you can get involved.

In the meantime, you might be interested in the podcast conversation facilitated by Digital Construction Week, featuring our Executive Office member Justin Kirby and Lucas Cussack from Glider. They discuss the upcoming Digital Operations stage at Digital Construction Week.

During the conversation, they focus on the “project operations gap,” which highlights the disconnect between the construction and operational phases of buildings and the challenges this creates for building users and facility staff. Justin and Lucas also explore potential solutions, including the concept of digital soft landings and the evolving role of contractors in bridging this gap. They emphasise the importance of structured information transfer and discuss the potential of digital twins and AI to enhance building performance and operational efficiency.

Ultimately, they look forward to fostering conversations at the event that connect BIM with smart buildings and encourage greater collaboration between construction and operational professionals.

We have included an AI summary of their conversation below and you can listen to an abridged version on LinkedIn:

Briefing Document: Bridging the Project-Operations Gap in Digital Buildings

This briefing document summarises the key themes and ideas discussed in the Digital Construction Week podcast conversation between Justin Kirby of the Digital Buildings Council and Lucas Cusack of Glider. The discussion centres on the disconnect between the construction and operational phases of a project, its implications for smart buildings and digital twins, and potential solutions, including the concept of ‘digital soft landings’. The upcoming Digital Construction Week event is highlighted as a platform to address these issues.

Main Themes and Key Ideas:

• The Project-Operations Gap (or Disconnect): This is identified as a fundamental issue in the building industry, where advancements in digital technology have not fully bridged the divide between the design/construction phase and the operational life of a building. This gap leads to frustration for building users and facility staff who have limited input during design but are responsible for operating the building.
• Quote: “despite the sort of ongoing advancements in digital technology and you know and how that’s increasingly blurring lines between what used to be silos, there still remains this fundamental disconnect. construction and the operational phases of a project.”
• Quote: “This issue I think you know we’ve discussed it quite a few times as you know becoming known as the project operations gap”
• Lack of Structured Information Transfer: A significant contributor to the gap is the failure to effectively capture, structure, and transfer information from the construction phase to operations. While documents like COBie and IFC files are exchanged, they are often not in a usable format for facility managers or integrated into their systems.
• Quote: “the thing that was just abundantly absent was good structured information that was like captured and in construction for the purpose of operation and successfully transferred.”
• Quote: “A lot of asset owners now are receiving COBie files, IFC, etc. from their employees information requirements or asset information requirements. Um, but they’re receiving them and I don’t think they’re putting to good use.”
• Impact on Smart Buildings and Digital Twins: The lack of good, maintained data hinders the realisation of the full potential of smart buildings and digital twins. Projects often aim for ‘smart ready’ or ‘digital twin ready’ buildings, but without proper information transfer and ongoing maintenance, achieving true smart functionality requires starting over in the operational phase.
• Quote: “everyone wants a smart building or a digital twin nowadays… they want a digital twin ready or a smart ready building… if you actually want to deliver a smart ready building or a digital twin ready building… you have to start again because you’ve not actually transferred the information from from construction to operation successfully”
• Quote: “you’re not going to get your LLMs or your large language models without having this good information that’s captured correctly in construction transferred and not just transferred but maintained as well.”
• The ‘Digital Soft Landings’ Concept: This is proposed as a crucial approach to address the project-operations gap. It involves a continuous process from early design through to operation, ensuring operational requirements and knowledge are embedded from the outset. A key element is the involvement of operational stakeholders and the consistent transfer and maintenance of information.
• Quote: “a like a like a phase that sort of like follows construction where the contractor stays on like maybe in their scope like clients can procure like a different scope in contractors now where where there’s a 2-year value realization period that follows PC or handover”
• Quote: “bring in the knowledge and requirements um operation uh as early as possible in the construction phase so that we’ve got their interests here.”
• The Role of a ‘Digital Soft Landings Manager’: The idea of a dedicated role to oversee this process is suggested. This individual would represent the asset owner’s operational interests during design and construction, ensuring information is procured and transferred correctly and that technology integrations are aligned with operational needs.
• Quote: “a constant role person like a digital soft landings manager could be there. They’ve got their their interest at heart or you know that’s it’s like that’s their priority because in construction and design their priority is to build the building.”
• Cultural Shift and Contractual Evolution: Solving the gap requires both a cultural shift within the industry (moving beyond contractors simply walking away at practical completion) and potentially the evolution of contractual arrangements to incentivise continued involvement and focus on operational performance.
• Quote: “as a as a as a community and a culture, we need to just get people doing things because it’s the right thing to do, right? Um and and to not just shut off at the end of construction and say, ‘Look, I’ve done what you’ve told me to do. I’m gone.'”
• Quote: “contractually how that might be about things are evolving or what people you know what might be discussed at the show about what’s coming down the line”
• Blurring of AEC/AECO and Capex/Opex: The digital transformation is blurring the traditional boundaries between Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC), evolving towards AECO (including Operations). This also leads to a blurring of Capital Expenditure (Capex) and Operational Expenditure (Opex), as design and construction decisions have a direct impact on long-term operational costs and performance.
• Quote: “what has been called AEC industries is rapidly becoming AECO.”
• Quote: “it would blur those lines between capex capex and opex where you do have like that transition period”
• Performance-Related Contracts: The increasing focus on building performance (energy optimisation, sustainability, ESG) is driving the need for contractors to remain involved beyond practical completion to ensure the building meets defined performance targets.
• Quote: “some of that seems to be sort of driven by performance related contracts and you know and that performance being linked to energy optimization or sustainability commitments or ESG commitments. I mean the neighbors rating is a good example”
• Integrated Offerings from Contractors: Large main contractors are starting to offer more joined-up services, combining construction, MEP, and facilities management capabilities to provide a more holistic approach across the building lifecycle.
• Quote: “you’re starting to see much more joined up kind of offerings… in divisions in some of those big main contractors which were previously quite separated and not that joined up.”
• Digital Construction Week as a Platform: The upcoming Digital Construction Week event, particularly the Digital Operations Theater, is seen as a vital platform for showcasing solutions, fostering discussions, and educating the industry about the importance of bridging the gap and the potential of digital operations. It aims to attract asset managers and operators to the event to demonstrate the value of well-structured information from construction.
• Quote: “it’s going to be really good opportunity for us to talk about what that is about. You know, what might be discussed at the event”
• Quote: “we’re trying to really attract asset managers and operators to digital construction week because a building is under construction forever right there for for the moment you get the from from your main contractor, you’ve got like a smaller supply chain coming in doing works, fit outs and stuff forever.”
• Future of Digital Twins (2.0) and AI: The potential of Agentic AI to revitalise digital twins and enable advanced simulations and optimisations across the building lifecycle is highlighted as a key area of interest for the future.
• Quote: “how it might breathe new life into digital twins because I think for some they feel that they haven’t lived up to the promise of what was being offered. And so, you know, I’ve heard this term now digital twins 2.0.”

In conclusion, the discussion strongly advocates for a more integrated and collaborative approach across the building lifecycle to ensure that the value of digital technologies is fully realised in the operational phase. The ‘digital soft landings’ framework is presented as a practical means to achieve this, requiring both technological solutions and a significant cultural and contractual evolution within the industry. The upcoming Digital Construction Week is highlighted as a crucial event for driving these conversations and showcasing relevant advancements.


For the full programme of Digital Construction Week, please follow this link:
https://lnkd.in/dUArCx6B

Admission is free, so we encourage you to register using the link below to hear from our members and learn more about our initiatives:
https://lnkd.in/eyhR2FcMIn

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