NZ Heavy Engineering Research Association funded Research Programmes

Construction in Aotearoa New Zealand faces a profound limitation: complex decisions are being made using overly simple data inputs. Current processes are linear, siloed, and entrenched, with little interconnection or decision support. Designers lack tools to optimise for manufacturability and fabrication, let alone balance sustainability, constructability, te ao Māori, resilience, and affordability simultaneously. Addressing such challenges requires collecting, connecting, and analysing complex data sets. Complexity science and Construction 4.0 approaches are needed to move beyond these long-standing limitations and transform conventional practice.

To address this, our research must answer key questions:

1. How do we understand the interacting behaviours of this system as more than the sum of its parts?
2. How do we capture and translate complexity into decision support tools rather than reducing it away?
3. Which Industry 4.0 technologies are appropriate? What data protocols are required for integration?
4. How can we integrate Mātauranga Māori into Construction 4.0 practises and tools?

In the extension year, we will deliver a proof-of-concept Construction 4.0 multicriteria decision support and optimisation toolbox for industry practitioners. This will work with REVIT and BIM models, enable elements of design optimisation, and support multivariate prioritisation; building on insights from the first four years of research. The platform will be designed for future refinement and expansion, incorporating broader data inputs over time and evolving with the development of Construction 4.0.

Outputs supporting impact will include industry training, Codes of Practice (e.g. Mātauranga Māori in Construction 4.0), and design support tools. Together, these will provide the foundation for sectoral adoption of Construction 4.0, helping Aotearoa New Zealand transition to a more connected, resilient, and future-focused construction system.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s construction industry reached over $20.5 billion in 2019, making it a major contributor to GDP and employment, as well as developer of critical national infrastructure. However, it is an industry that requires radical transformation and has long been criticised for its low productivity, inefficiencies, and significant contribution in New Zealand’s carbon emissions. This project will deliver the high quality and technically challenging research required to create transformation in terms of productivity, quality, affordability and sustainability in this critical industry through adoption of Industry 4.0 approaches to provide better decision support throughout the supply and value chain. This will be achieved by developing a standardised data management protocol for the sector sitting above three research programs focused on Circular design, (e.g. design lead construction process, Smart construction and Monitoring 4.0. Four research themes (Mātauranga Māori, Healthy sustainability, Computing Technology and Technology Transfer) will underpin these research programs to ensure that they are linked in delivering outcomes of universal relevance to the Sector.