Case studies to determine the effect of applying blockchain technology and building information modeling on the workflow of water infrastructure projects

Water infrastructure projects in China have been facing workflow challenges throughout their lifecycle. Project workflows, including processes, activities, and information flows, are not recorded and formalized completely and executed efficiently. I found that 89% of all the activities have incomplete or wrong information when they start and 46% of these activities incur change orders with cost impacts. Often, participants cannot find the necessary information from upstream activities, which leads to ineffective information transfers to downstream activities, continuing the problems from inefficient and inaccurate information sharing between participants. A possible cause of these problems is that 99% of activities contain paper-based or semi-formal verbal information only. The resulting lack of transparency and traceability of information leads to poor collaboration between engineers and contractors involved in water infrastructure projects. However, successful projects require collaboration to bring the knowledge from the many disciplines together in a timely manner to create and realize high-performance facilities. They also require clear documentation of milestones, decisions, and transactions to create a record of how a project developed and why certain decisions were taken. Therefore, the research objectives of the work presented in this dissertation were to formalize the workflow for water infrastructure projects, including the key information needed and produced and the key participants involved over the project lifecycle, and to research methods to mitigate the workflow inefficiencies in such projects. This dissertation presents three case studies on nineteen water and wastewater treatment plants delivered with the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) approach in northern China. In the first case study, my research documented the processes and corresponding activities and tasks for the investment, design, construction, and operations and maintenance phases of these projects. By comparing six similar water and wastewater treatment plant projects, I found that projects carry out essentially the same 293 tasks, 151 activities, and 31 processes over the four main lifecycle phases. By interviewing 28 managers about the efficiency of these tasks, I found that 83 of these tasks are inefficient, i.e., suffer delays or extra work due to inadequate information flows. Blockchain technology has been shown to enhance information transparency and to provide trustful and auditable information, while Building Information Modeling (BIM) has been shown to have the potential to improve the visualization of facility information and collaboration between participants. To mitigate the identified information inefficiencies, I then conducted a second case study to apply blockchain technology to target workflow transparency and information traceability problems on wastewater treatment plants in northern China. I designed the blockchain platform, then applied it to 44 tasks on 12 projects in the design, construction, and operations and maintenance phases. The findings show that the inefficiency of the 44 tasks is reduced, including a 48.4% reduction in work hours per task, 53.1% cost savings, and a 93% of reduction in Requests for Information (RFIs). Thirdly, to improve workflow performance in the construction phase, I tested the impact of BIM, in particular the application of 4D and 5D BIM) on the execution of 10 tasks in the construction phase on another wastewater treatment plant. The 4D BIM implementation showed a 25.5% improvement in work hours per task, 9.6% cost savings, and a 52% reduction of RFIs. Based on qualitative feedback from interviews, 5D BIM adoption enhanced the visualization and collaboration on cost and construction management by the owner and department managers. The work presented in this dissertation contributes to the establishment of formal workflows with complete information and clear assignments of roles over the lifecycle of water infrastructure projects. In summary, my research demonstrates that the application of blockchain and BIM improves the workflow performance in the main lifecycle phases for water infrastructure projects. It creates a foundation to study similarities and differences of workflows on other infrastructure projects in China and globally and suggests that technical solutions, such as blockchain technology and BIM, alleviate workflow inefficiencies

Advisor: Fischer Martin
Alvarez-Cohen Lisa
Criddle Craig