Digital Fabrication (DFAB) is a systemic innovation with low adoption rates in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) projects. Managing requirements of a new design process is one major challenge for the increased DFAB adoption. For other types of innovations, practices such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) improve design management by integrating process, information and organisation in construction projects. In theory, BIM and ECI could improve design management and increase the adoption of DFAB. However, the relationship between DFAB, BIM and ECI has not yet been studied thoroughly. There is a need to understand new paradigms of DFAB design management in regard to process integration, information integration and organisational integration. This study undertakes a comparative study of four DFAB adoptions in AEC projects with varying levels of BIM and ECI implementation. The design processes of DFAB are traced using swimlane process diagrams. From this, relationships between DFAB, BIM, and ECI are derived using a quadripartite interrelationship diagram. This work illustrates the proposed relationships in DFAB adoption in design using a fishbone diagram. This work concludes with potential future research in design management for digital fabrication, including five takeaways for practitioners to adopt and manage DFAB in the design process of construction projects.

The adoption of digital fabrication - fabrication based on digital design - in the early design phase in projects requires a thorough understanding of the liability factors to design the contract. This paper addresses this issue using a two-stage research approach. First, a case study research maps the process from digital design to digital fabrication in an existing project that adopted digital fabrication using the design-bid-build model. Second, a three-round Delphi survey of 14 stakeholders of that project identifies and ranks 163 liability factors under eight categories: actors, resources, conditions, attributes, processes, artifacts, values, and risks. The resources of management capability and building information modeling (BIM) expertise rank as the two most important liability factors. Building on these findings, the paper presents a conceptual framework for contract design and discusses how the existing project delivery models - design-bid-build, construction management, design-build, and integrated project delivery (IPD) - can consider the liability factors in contracts.

Digital fabrication is growing in adoption within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Because digital fabrication often requires a systematic rethinking of the design process, research emphasizes new understanding is needed for digital systems across multiple areas, including technical development, technological systems, organizational contexts, contractual provisions, and business models. Despite the importance of a system view, the current body of knowledge does not yet provide a consistent identification nor a comprehensive evaluation of factors and their complex interdependencies with one another. To fill this knowledge gap, this work categorizes and identifies the industry needs and perceived benefits under five areas. Next, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey, which received effective responses from 114 industry stakeholders. The authors analyzed the responses using Rao-Scott chi-squared tests of independence to identify 70 pairs of correlated categories. This work further investigates the variables' correlations using heat map visualization. Two variable-correlation mappings are presented as follows: (1) a multiaspect mapping of 292 variable correlations under 10 categories of the industry needs of fabrication information and aspects in design modeling, review, and documentation; and (2) a single-aspect mapping of 26 correlations regarding the industry needs for various benefits of digital systems to adopt digital fabrication. Thereby, this work proposes seven strategy propositions to achieve the benefits of digital systems when adopting digital fabrication in design. The consistent identification of the needs and their interdependencies constitute an integral part of knowledge in construction management.

As use of digital fabrication increases in architecture, engineering and construction, the industry seeks appropriate management and processes to enable the adoption during the design/planning phase. Many enablers have been identified across various studies; however, a comprehensive synthesis defining the enablers of design for digital fabrication does not yet exist. This work conducts a systematic literature review of 59 journal articles published in the past decade and identifies 140 enablers under eight categories: actors, resources, conditions, attributes, processes, artefacts, values and risks. The enablers’ frequency network is illustrated using an adjacency matrix. Through the lens of actor-network theory, the work creates a relational ontology to demonstrate the linkages between different enablers. Three examples are presented using onion diagrams: circular construction focus, business model focus and digital twin in industrialisation focus. Finally, this work discusses the intersection of relational ontology with process modelling to design future digital fabrication work routines.

Digital fabrication (DFAB) for construction automation is emerging in the industry. However, DFAB requires better integration of fabrication-related information and organisation into the design process. Discrete processes in traditional delivery models such as Design-Bid-Build can hinder DFAB implementation when stakeholders find it hard to manage project costs. Target Value Design (TVD) has been proposed as possible approach to manage the DFAB design process, but management of DFAB using TVD is still new in the industry. Meanwhile, existing educational games have been successful at teaching players the basic principles of TVD principles. However, these games do not explicitly consider how players should select from advanced fabrication processes. They also have not yet been adopted for online play. This work presents an overview of an online TVD for DFAB game that can 1) help players understand basic TVD principles and 2) explicitly considers fabrication processes and resulting production times as an additional project value. The paper presents the results of a validation case played by 36 construction professionals, researchers and students in December 2020. Overall, this work contributes to the body of knowledge in learning and teaching TVD, online lean games, and technology adoption.

The use of robotics in construction improves safety and productivity in construction sites. However, there are limitations for construction managers to monitor robotic construction processes. This is due to the lack of well-developed human-robot collaboration interfaces. Digital Twin (DT) and Mixed Reality (MR) are two emerging technologies that can help to address these limitations by enhancing human-robot interaction, for on-site construction processes. However, DT in MR for human-robot interactions in robotic construction processes has not yet been widely studied in research or in practice. This work explores effective human-robot collaboration for automated construction processes using on-site real-time DT of robotic process in a MR construction environment. First, a DT prototype of a robotic construction process establishes a two-way communication between the physical and virtual models of the robot arm. Next, real-time process data is collected from the robot and sent to the visualisation and database platforms. This work describes the workflow in order to send the real-time data to the MR headset for direct visual feedback and direct interaction with the robot arm. The prototype is validated using a case study demonstration of a robotic masonry construction process. By demonstrating this proof of concept for real-time DT of robotic construction processes in MR, this work contributes to construction management for digital fabrication through human-robot collaboration. This work concludes with potential future research directions including data access and manipulation for digital processes in construction sites.

Digital Fabrication is an emerging systemic innovation in the architecture, engineering and construction sector. However, the design process for digital fabrication lacks an integrated management process or digital collaboration platform. One reason may be a lack of industry stakeholder needs for such processes and platforms. To explore and facilitate such solution in the current practice, more information about the socio-technical industry requirements on such solution and its implementation to support and manage the BIM-based design process of digital fabrication is needed. To fill this gap, this work conducts an industry-needs analysis through content analysis and an online survey of 144 project stakeholders. Based on the results, this work identifies the most needed fabrication-related information, tools and roles at different design stages and the requirements of platform-based management, which include a common virtual environment for collaboration and a common data environment for data management. Moreover, this work shows that fabrication-related information and new roles are required by project stakeholders since the early design stage. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual management framework for BIM-platform-based integration for design for digital fabrication in construction projects and identifying potential future research directions on the topic.