Reuse inventory app

AI Quick Summary

This project aims to automatize the recording of building elements based on the further development of an app used by Gruner AG. Also, the project aims to create the basis for the integration of AI-supported methods into the app concept. The results will provide industry stakeholders with important impetus for data harmonization to improve reuse practices in the construction sector. The project team will be represented by Gruner and the Bern University of Applied Sciences. We want to make the digitally supported reuse of building elements in the Swiss construction industry scalable!What problem would you like to solve?Today, the transition to promote reuse practices in the building sector is increasingly supported by digital technologies that enable the collection, integration, and analysis of data. However, we face several challenges in digitizing the CE transition, including manual processes to create, integrate, and analyze data, data gaps, lacking data quality, data silos and non-standardized data. In particular, during the digital inventory process of construction elements for reuse, information on these elements must be recorded manually, resulting in incomplete and inconsistent datasets. In addition, the lacking harmonization of existing information in the building industry leads to the creation of new data silos, as cross-organizational application is no longer possible. This creates a vicious circle in which the use of data silos again leads to data gaps, insufficient data quality, etc. We therefore highlight the following three challenges that we would like to solve with the help of the CBI Booster:The process of entering data to create building elements inventories and calculating circular economy and sustainability indicators (e.g., CO2 emissions) for these elements is currently not automatized and therefore very time consuming.The use and maintenance of data is hampered by data gaps, poor data quality and data silos in a vicious circle.The lacking harmonization of the product inventory process with existing standards (such as eBKP) reinforces challenge 2. and ultimately limits the efficient application of digitally supported reuse practices for building elements.Who will benefit from your solution and how?Our solution involves the further development of an existing application currently used by the Swiss engineering and planning company Gruner AG to create a digital inventory of building elements for various sites in Switzerland (e.g. the Roche site in Basel). Based on the standard for geographic information systems (GIS), the existing app allows the manual setting of data points in the building outline to mark the position of construction elements, and to add information and images for each data point to later enable an efficient reuse of each element in a new building life cycle. The planned project aims to improve the current app concept, including an automated assignment process of the collected data to existing component types and the development of a collection process designated to help planners seamlessly implement reuse materials and building components in their designs. Working collaboratively with stakeholders of the construction sector, the project should emerge the must have information required for the digital registration of construction elements, enable the provision of this information to various actors via the app and thus, in the long term, improve the reuse of these elements based on an extensive dataset. In addition, this process will be aligned with existing standards, regulations, and CE frameworks to enable the determination of sustainability indicators and promote industry-wide harmonization of data in the construction sector. To maximize the impact of the planned solution, the product should be developed as an add-on module that can be integrated into existing open source and commercial applications via an API. In addition, the CBI Booster should pave the way for the use of AI-supported methods, e.g. “Scan to 3D Model” via smartphone camera, to further improve the automated inventory process and provide 3D building elements.In summary, the insights gained should provide important impulses not only for industry players, standardization schemes and policy makers in the construction sector, but also for other industries currently facing similar challenges in the digitalization of the CE transition.Who are the existing persons/companies in your team and what is their role?The project team consists of two organizations, including an implementation partner (Gruner AG) and a research partner (Bern University of Applied Sciences).As a leading engineering and planning company, Gruner offers a comprehensive range of (digital) services and supports its customers throughout the entire life cycle of buildings, from strategic planning to reuse. In the implementation of the CBI Booster, Gruner is represented by Ullrich Dickgiesser (Head of Construction Site Safety, Occupational Safety) and Timi Gürcan Sander (Deputy Head of Geomatics), who will contribute their know-how and experience in the digitization of building elements for reuse and bring their existing digital infrastructure (e.g. BIM modelling, laser scanning, GIS, etc.) to the project.The Bern University of Applied Sciences will be represented by Katharina Lindenberg (Head of the Institute for Digital Construction and Wood Industry, Department of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering), who will contribute her knowledge and experience with digital planning methods in the construction sector, and by Ässia Boukhatmi (PhD researcher and research assistant, Department of Engineering and Computer Science), who is involved in several research projects dealing with the development of digital solutions for the transition to the circular economy, with a focus on databases and digital platforms.How does your challenge have a positive impact on the planet (e.g., material reduction, CO2 emission reduction)?While the project aims at promoting reuse practices for building elements by an improved and standardized data management, our challenge will have a positive impact on primary material reduction and an overall more efficient reuse of building elements in a new life cycle. In addition, automatized calculation of the CO2 emissions of every element via the envisioned solution will in the long-term positively impact the usage of less CO2 intensive products, especially when reusing resources in new construction projects which are subject to increasing regulatory requirements.Has your idea been tested before?Bern University of Applied Sciences and Gruner have already collaborated within the scope on an internal teaching material project, for which the data from the Roche site in Basel served as use case for the development of a website that depicts building elements with their most relevant information as reuse material inventory. Furthermore, these data was used for creating 3D models for each element which serves as basis for the parametrical design methodology. The insights gained from this collaboration provides first insights regarding data preparation and analysis and will be incorporated into the implementation of the CBI Booster project.What are you planning on working on throughout the booster (e.g., developing the business model, building an initial prototype, material for prototyping, etc.)? What will you deliver at the end of the booster?The CBI Booster is dedicated to the development of the app concept, including the workflow and use cases that would be required to improve the existing solution. This prototype can be delivered in the form of e.g., a mockup, a clickable dummy or a minimum viable product, mainly for demonstration purposes. In addition, the project partners will work together on an initial concept to enable the realization of the product, including proposals for the required digital infrastructure as well as the commercialization strategy for the later transfer of the solution to other industry representatives and software companies. Another outcome of the project will be a first recommendation framework for standardization schemes and policy makers to define which data is fundamental for the efficient reuse of construction elements and to harmonize this data along different entities to dissolve existing data silos and prevent the emergence of new ones in the future.What are you expecting from the booster (e.g., looking for specific partners, expert support, etc.)?We look forward to the support of the CBI Booster's network of experts. In particular, we would like to receive support from Empa and sia, who are members of the CBI Booster Board and could help us understand the extensive landscape of existing standards and norms in the construction sector and how these standards can be aligned with data reporting to enable reuse practices. In addition, the Circular Hub could be a suitable platform for exchange with other stakeholders involved in the transition to the circular economy, e.g. in the context of a stakeholder workshop dedicated to the joint elaboration of requirements and opportunities for digitizing building elements for reuse. We would also be delighted to exchange ideas with participants in the CBI Booster network who have received funding in recent years and who could share their knowledge on the development of business models and marketing strategies with us.How will you attract the 3rd party funding (10% of the total funding amount)?The 3rd party funding will be provided by the Gruner AG.

Project Idea Metadata

Project Idea Name: Reuse inventory app
Date: 3/14/2024 11:03:18 AM
Administrators:
- Ässia Boukhatmi

Project Idea Description

We want to make the digitally supported reuse of building elements in the Swiss construction industry scalable!

What problem would you like to solve?

Today, the transition to promote reuse practices in the building sector is increasingly supported by digital technologies that enable the collection, integration, and analysis of data. However, we face several challenges in digitizing the CE transition, including manual processes to create, integrate, and analyze data, data gaps, lacking data quality, data silos and non-standardized data. In particular, during the digital inventory process of construction elements for reuse, information on these elements must be recorded manually, resulting in incomplete and inconsistent datasets. In addition, the lacking harmonization of existing information in the building industry leads to the creation of new data silos, as cross-organizational application is no longer possible. This creates a vicious circle in which the use of data silos again leads to data gaps, insufficient data quality, etc. We therefore highlight the following three challenges that we would like to solve with the help of the CBI Booster:

The process of entering data to create building elements inventories and calculating circular economy and sustainability indicators (e.g., CO₂ emissions) for these elements is currently not automatized and therefore very time consuming.
The use and maintenance of data is hampered by data gaps, poor data quality and data silos in a vicious circle.
The lacking harmonization of the product inventory process with existing standards (such as eBKP) reinforces challenge 2. and ultimately limits the efficient application of digitally supported reuse practices for building elements.

Who will benefit from your solution and how?

Our solution involves the further development of an existing application currently used by the Swiss engineering and planning company Gruner AG to create a digital inventory of building elements for various sites in Switzerland (e.g. the Roche site in Basel). Based on the standard for geographic information systems (GIS), the existing app allows the manual setting of data points in the building outline to mark the position of construction elements, and to add information and images for each data point to later enable an efficient reuse of each element in a new building life cycle. The planned project aims to improve the current app concept, including an automated assignment process of the collected data to existing component types and the development of a collection process designated to help planners seamlessly implement reuse materials and building components in their designs. Working collaboratively with stakeholders of the construction sector, the project should emerge the must have information required for the digital registration of construction elements, enable the provision of this information to various actors via the app and thus, in the long term, improve the reuse of these elements based on an extensive dataset. In addition, this process will be aligned with existing standards, regulations, and CE frameworks to enable the determination of sustainability indicators and promote industry-wide harmonization of data in the construction sector. To maximize the impact of the planned solution, the product should be developed as an add-on module that can be integrated into existing open source and commercial applications via an API. In addition, the CBI Booster should pave the way for the use of AI-supported methods, e.g. “Scan to 3D Model” via smartphone camera, to further improve the automated inventory process and provide 3D building elements.

In summary, the insights gained should provide important impulses not only for industry players, standardization schemes and policy makers in the construction sector, but also for other industries currently facing similar challenges in the digitalization of the CE transition.

Who are the existing persons/companies in your team and what is their role?

The project team consists of two organizations, including an implementation partner (Gruner AG) and a research partner (Bern University of Applied Sciences).

As a leading engineering and planning company, Gruner offers a comprehensive range of (digital) services and supports its customers throughout the entire life cycle of buildings, from strategic planning to reuse. In the implementation of the CBI Booster, Gruner is represented by Ullrich Dickgiesser (Head of Construction Site Safety, Occupational Safety) and Timi Gürcan Sander (Deputy Head of Geomatics), who will contribute their know-how and experience in the digitization of building elements for reuse and bring their existing digital infrastructure (e.g. BIM modelling, laser scanning, GIS, etc.) to the project.

The Bern University of Applied Sciences will be represented by Katharina Lindenberg (Head of the Institute for Digital Construction and Wood Industry, Department of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering), who will contribute her knowledge and experience with digital planning methods in the construction sector, and by Ässia Boukhatmi (PhD researcher and research assistant, Department of Engineering and Computer Science), who is involved in several research projects dealing with the development of digital solutions for the transition to the circular economy, with a focus on databases and digital platforms.

How does your challenge have a positive impact on the planet (e.g., material reduction, CO2 emission reduction)?

While the project aims at promoting reuse practices for building elements by an improved and standardized data management, our challenge will have a positive impact on primary material reduction and an overall more efficient reuse of building elements in a new life cycle. In addition, automatized calculation of the CO₂ emissions of every element via the envisioned solution will in the long-term positively impact the usage of less CO₂ intensive products, especially when reusing resources in new construction projects which are subject to increasing regulatory requirements.

Has your idea been tested before?

Bern University of Applied Sciences and Gruner have already collaborated within the scope on an internal teaching material project, for which the data from the Roche site in Basel served as use case for the development of a website that depicts building elements with their most relevant information as reuse material inventory. Furthermore, these data was used for creating 3D models for each element which serves as basis for the parametrical design methodology. The insights gained from this collaboration provides first insights regarding data preparation and analysis and will be incorporated into the implementation of the CBI Booster project.

What are you planning on working on throughout the booster (e.g., developing the business model, building an initial prototype, material for prototyping, etc.)? What will you deliver at the end of the booster?

The CBI Booster is dedicated to the development of the app concept, including the workflow and use cases that would be required to improve the existing solution. This prototype can be delivered in the form of e.g., a mockup, a clickable dummy or a minimum viable product, mainly for demonstration purposes. In addition, the project partners will work together on an initial concept to enable the realization of the product, including proposals for the required digital infrastructure as well as the commercialization strategy for the later transfer of the solution to other industry representatives and software companies. Another outcome of the project will be a first recommendation framework for standardization schemes and policy makers to define which data is fundamental for the efficient reuse of construction elements and to harmonize this data along different entities to dissolve existing data silos and prevent the emergence of new ones in the future.

What are you expecting from the booster (e.g., looking for specific partners, expert support, etc.)?

We look forward to the support of the CBI Booster's network of experts. In particular, we would like to receive support from Empa and sia, who are members of the CBI Booster Board and could help us understand the extensive landscape of existing standards and norms in the construction sector and how these standards can be aligned with data reporting to enable reuse practices. In addition, the Circular Hub could be a suitable platform for exchange with other stakeholders involved in the transition to the circular economy, e.g. in the context of a stakeholder workshop dedicated to the joint elaboration of requirements and opportunities for digitizing building elements for reuse. We would also be delighted to exchange ideas with participants in the CBI Booster network who have received funding in recent years and who could share their knowledge on the development of business models and marketing strategies with us.

How will you attract the 3rd party funding (10% of the total funding amount)?

The 3^rd party funding will be provided by the Gruner AG.