The 8th International Conference on Innovative Production and Construction (IPC 2020) & The 8th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management (ICCEPM 2020) - "Towards Advancement in Technologies and
Processes for Smart Buildings and Construction"

Prof. Burcu Akinci is the Paul Christiano Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Associate Dean for Research for the College of Engineering, Director of the Engineering Research Accelerator and co-director of Pennsylvania Smarter Infrastructure Incubator at Carnegie Mellon University. She earned her BS in Civil Engineering (1991) from Middle East Technical University and her MBA (1993) from Bilkent University at Ankara, Turkey. After that, she earned her MS (1995) and her Ph.D. (2000) in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a specialization in Construction Engineering and Management from Stanford University. Her research interests include the development of approaches to model and reason about information-rich histories of facilities, to streamline construction and facility management processes. She specifically focuses on investigating utilization and integration of building information models with data capture and tracking technologies, such as 3D imaging, embedded sensors and radio-frequency identification systems to capture semantically-rich as-built histories of construction projects and facility operations. Prof. Akinci has one patent, two patent applications, over 60 refereed journal publications, and 80 refereed conference publications. She co-edited a book on CAD/GIS Integration and another book on Embedded Commissioning. She has graduated more than 16 PhD students and 15 MS thesis students and is currently advising/co-advising 4 PhD students.

Dr. Mohamed Al-Hussein is a professor in Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Hole School of Construction Engineering at the University of Alberta. He is also NSERC Industrial Research Chair in the Industrialization of Building Construction and a Director of Nasseri School of Building Science and Engineering; he is a highly sought researcher in the areas of Modular and offsite construction, Lean Manufacturing, construction process optimization, and Building Information Modeling (BIM). Dr. Al-Hussein research has been published in over 200 scientific journal articles and conference proceedings.
From the early dawn of the industrial revolution, efficiency has always been an important motivational element which allowed engineers to invent new processes or improve existing ones by means of new managerial approaches. In this respect, the quest for efficiency in the field of building construction has led to the emergence of modularization which in turn catalyzed the expansion of off-site construction. The latter improved quality, scheduling and enabled better safety standards to be implemented since work is performed within a controlled environment. The above enumerated benefits have created different challenges the most important of which is probably the necessity to rely on better design and drafting for manufacturing (k.a. BIM) and automation or semi-automation. In North America, the culture among construction professionals insofar as: a) BIM is concerned revolves around primitive CAD tools; and b) as automation is concerned is conventional construction under a roof. This presentation aims at examining the North American practice or “culture” considering: 1) Offsite prefabrication and industrialization of construction practice in North America; 2) Technological Innovations in prefabrication of construction: the move from conventional construction under a roof to a true manufacturing; and 3) Prefabricated systems and manufacturing technologies: products and components.

Chimay Anumba is a Professor and Dean of the College of Design, Construction and Planning at The University of Florida. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, FREng (the United Kingdom’s National Academy of Engineering). He holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Leeds, UK; a higher doctorate – D.Sc. (Doctor of Science) - from Loughborough University, UK; and an Honorary Doctorate (Dr.h.c.) from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. He has over 500 scientific publications and his work has received support worth over $150m from a variety of sources. He has also supervised 49 doctoral candidates to completion and mentored over 25 postdoctoral researchers. He is the recipient of the 2018 ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award.
There is considerable interest in the move towards Industry 4.0 and the extent to which the construction industry will adopt the enabling technologies that will enable it to undergo the required transformation. Two related technologies, which have the capacity to play an important role, are Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Digital Twins (DT). These enable the synergistic integration of virtual models and the physical environment and are now being increasingly recognized as vital for improved construction project information management, more efficient project delivery, and enhanced facilities management. A critical aspect of the deployment of CPS and DT in construction is ensuring bi-directional coordination between the physical components and their virtual representations or digital twins. This keynote lecture will draw on examples from research prototypes to highlight the key features and benefits of these technologies and the associated systems, and the steps involved in their development. It will also outline the lessons learned from developing a variety of systems for several aspects of the delivery of a constructed facility such as building component placement, temporary structures monitoring, mobile crane safety and efficiency, and facilities management. Following this, the lecture will explore future directions for CPS and DT in construction. 

Prof. Ioannis Brilakis is a Laing O'Rourke Reader in Construction Engineering and the Director of the Construction Information Technology Laboratory at the Division of Civil Engineering of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He completed his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in 2005. He then worked as an Assistant Professor at the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2005-2008) and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (2008-2012) before moving to Cambridge in 2012 as a Laing O’Rourke Lecturer. He was promoted to University Reader in October 2017. He has also held visiting posts at the Department of Computer Science, Stanford University as a Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Vision (2014) and at the Technical University of Munich as a Visiting Professor, Leverhulme International Fellow (2018-2019), and Hans Fischer Senior Fellow (2019-2021). He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the 2019 ASCE J. James R. Croes Medal, the 2018 ASCE John O. Bickel Award, the 2013 ASCE Collingwood Prize, the 2012 Georgia Tech Outreach Award and the 2009 ASCE Associate Editor Award. Prof. Brilakis is an author of over 190 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, an Associate Editor of the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE Construction Engineering and Management, Elsevier Automation in Construction, and Elsevier Advanced Engineering Informatics Journals, and the chair of the Board of Directors of the European Council on Computing in Construction.
Vertical and horizontal infrastructure is comprised of large assets that need sizable budgets to design, construct and operate/maintain them. Cost reductions throughout their lifecycle can generate significant savings to all involved parties. Such reductions can be derived directly through productivity improvements or indirectly through safety and quality control improvements. Creating and maintaining an up-to-date electronic record of these assets in the form of rich Digital Twins can help generate such improvements. Research is being conducted at the University of Cambridge on inexpensive methods for generating object-oriented infrastructure geometry, detecting and mapping visible defects on the resulting Digital Twin, automatically extracting defect spatial measurements, and sensor and sensor data modelling. The results of these methods are further exploited through their application in design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA), mixed-reality-enabled mobile inspection, and proactive asset protection from accidental damage. Virtualization methods can produce a reliable digital record of infrastructure and enable owners to reliably protect, monitor and maintain the condition of their asset.

Dr. Dongping FANG is a Professor at Tsinghua University, China. He is currently the Dean of School of Civil Engineering and the Executive Director of Institute for Future Cities and Infrastructures. Prof Fang‘s research field is construction safety and urban resilience. He has been sitting on boards and committees of many international and national organizations of government, industry and academics. He has been honored as Visiting Professors in Australia, Sweden and the UK, and invited as keynote speakers for many international conferences such as CIB World Building Congress and Urban Transitions Global Summit.
Urban infrastructures have been challenged by disaster threats. Cities are urged to achieve “urban resilience” which the urban system and all its constituent sub-systems have ability to maintain the necessary functions during disturbance, rapidly recover in the aftermath of the disturbance, and adapt to uncertainties in the future. 
Aiming to address the challenges, this speech presents an idea and research works for enhancing the resilience of infrastructure systems at Tsinghua University. 

Dr. Kincho H. Law is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.  Prof. Law’s research interests focus on computational and information science in engineering.  His research has dealt with various aspects of high performance computing; sensing, monitoring and control of engineering systems; legal and engineering informatics; smart manufacturing; web services, cloud and Internet computing.  He was the recipient of the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award in 2011. Prof. Law was elected Distinguished Member of ASCE in 2017, Fellow of ASME in 2017, Life Member of ASCE in 2018, and Senior Member of IEEE in 2019.
Civil and building Engineering has had a long and successful history in adopting computing technologies, from computer graphics, CAD, engineering analyses, virtual simulations, to project management.  As technologies continue to advance, there are many new opportunities that can take advantage of information science and computing technologies in engineering. Technologies such as building information modeling, enterprise integration, digital twins, computer vision, sensors, Internet and cloud computing, IoT and machine learning, are now being deployed in civil and construction engineering. This presentation will provide an overview of current trends of computing technologies and opportunities in the civil and building industry.  

Prof. Koshy Varghese is a professor in Building Technology and Construction Management Division, at department of Civil Engineering in IIT Madras. Prof. Koshy Varghese received the bachelor degree in Civil Engineering in 1986 at Anna University and received the master degree in Civil Engineering from University of Texas, Austin, USA, in 1987. Prof. Koshy Varghese received his Ph.D. degree in Construction Management from University of Texas, Austin, USA in 1992. His current research interests are in studying impact of automation process efficiency and automation technologies in construction.
In the past decade the number of Indian Cities with operating metro-rail systems has increased from 2 to 10 and in the next decade another 24 cities are expected to implement metros.  The activities required to successfully construct and operate a metro system span from ensuring appropriate stakeholder inputs to usage of technologies and methods to ensure rapid coordination and deployment of resources to meet project objectives.  
The scale of urban construction required for metro-rail has been unprecedented and the complexity and long-term nature of the project has enabled the client organizations to mandate the adoption of technologies to attempt faster project delivery.  From conceptual design to operations, digital technologies ranging from Building Information Models to IoT based systems are being evaluated on the projects to improve project processes.  The talk will discuss the background of metro-projects in India, and the technologies being adopted and outcomes.  

Prof. Guangbin Wang is the Head and Professor of Construction Management and Real Estate Department, and the Director of Center of Innovation and Development in Construction, at Tongji University, China. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University in 2007-2008. Prof. Wang is widely recognized for his impressed research and teaching expertise in Construction Project Management and VDC/BIM. He also has practical knowledge and experience of Information Technology Application in Construction, enriched practical industrial experience in Project Controlling and Project Planning. Prof. Wang is also a registered Professional Consultant and has been involved in the Project Management practice more than 20 years. Prof. Wang holds Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building (FCIOB). He is also an Expert Member of China BIM Standard Committee and Vice Director of the BIM Committee of China Graphics Society & China Construction Education Association.

SangHyun Lee is a Professor and John Tishman Faculty Scholar at the University of Michigan, and leads the Dynamic Project Management Lab (http://dpm.engin.umich.edu). He received both his MSc and PhD from MIT, and his research interests center around anthropocentric construction and infrastructure management to achieve maximum performance from technologies like wearables, robotics, and automation for humans. He has assumed many leadership roles; he was Chair of ASCE Construction Research Council, Chair of ASCE Visualization, Information Modeling and Simulation Committee, and Board of Governor at ASCE Construction Institute among others. He has five editorialships in leading journals like the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. He has received numerous awards such as the ASCE Daniel W. Halpin Award for Scholarship in Construction, the ASCE Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize, FIATECH’s Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award, CII’s Distinguished Professor Award, the CSCE Stephan G. Revay Award, the UM Henry Russel Award (the highest honor the University of Michigan bestows upon junior faculty), the Tom Waters Award. His research has earned nine best paper awards including the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering best paper awards (twice: 2014 and 2018, respectively). He has over 200 peer-reviewed articles, 2 patents, 2 books and 1 start-up company.
Although the construction industry plays a vital role in our economy, it suffers from a high number of accidents, stagnant productivity, and pressing labor issues, including a shortage in skilled labor and an aging workforce. Recent advancements in technologies like automation, robotics, wearables, AI, etc., provides the construction industry with an unprecedented opportunity to address these concerns, but their application within construction is still at an early stage. In this talk, I propose anthropocentric (i.e., human-centric) construction management, an approach taken in the DPM lab that I direct, as a way to address the above issues. This talk introduces the needs and vision of anthropocentric construction management and how it has been realized for preventive jobsite safety and human robot collaboration where wearable biosensors, computer vision, robotics, signal processing and deep learning have been extensively applied, as exemplary projects. The lessons learned from these applications and future directions are also discussed. 

Carl Haas is the Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and he is a University Research Chair at the University of Waterloo, Canada.  His research, teaching and consulting are in the areas of construction engineering and management systems.  He has received several research and teaching awards.  He serves on a number of editorial boards and on professional committees for organizations such as ASCE, NSERC and IAARC.  His research has been supported by numerous companies such as Aecon, PCL, Coreworx, SNC Lavalin, OPG, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) and their member companies, as well as agencies such as TxDOT, MTO, NSERC, NSF, and CRC. He is a member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the ASCE. He was elected to the US National Academy of Construction in 2013. In 2014 he received the CSCE Walter Shanly Award for outstanding contributions to the development and practice of construction engineering in Canada. He received the ASCE Peurifoy Construction Research Award In 2015. In 2017, he received the University of Waterloo Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision. In 2019, he received the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award and the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers’ Alan Russell Award.
Moving toward a circular economy in the built environment is necessary for our sustained well being. Therefore, both construction and deconstruction must become more efficient. It is encouraging that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that compound annual growth rates in productivity have exceeded 5% over the last decade in key construction sectors in the US, including industrial and multi-family residential. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, information technology automation and integration, new materials, management practices, and training probably contributed to this outcome. And, we can argue that they were in turn driven by fundamental research advances. I will present a few examples of how our community and our laboratory in particular are currently contributing to those advances and their implementation. Examples include research in construction automation, augmented reality, infrastructure computer vision, and biomechanical applications in the construction trades. However, as we move the built environment toward a circular economy, renovation, refurbishment, and adaptive reuse market activity is approaching new build activity in importance. These projects typically perform poorly, possibly due to poor definition and planning. Research opportunities will be identified for our community related to the circular economy. For illustration, the focus will be on our current adaptive re-use research, including selective disassembly.  

Timo is Professor for Systems Engineering at the TU Berlin. In his research and practical work he explores new digital possibilities and methods to support and improve the design process of civil engineering systems. He believes that digital methods allow to deliver engineering designs significantly quicker and it much higher quality, but reaching this goal  is only possible under consideration of both technical and social factors.
Timo received his Ph.D. from Stanford University where he was a student at the Center for Integrated Facility Management. He also received a Diploma in Civil Engineering and his Masters of Computational Mechanics from the Technical University Munich. His work has been published for example in Advanced Engineering Informatics, Design Studies, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Building Research and Information, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering and ITCON. Timo is co-editor in chief of Advanced Engineering Informatics, a journal focusing on exploring how advanced computational methods can help to formalize complex engineering knowledge. He is also an assistant specialty editor for the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and deputy editor of Construction, Engineering
In his career, Timo has worked in a variety of different practical and research fields, including design management, Finite Element software development and energy simulation of buildings, and railway and road modelling. In particular, he, for example, worked with Arcadis, Autodesk, Parsons Brinckerhoff  (USA), Turner Construction (USA), Max Boegl (Germany) and Zelan construction (Malaysia) on large construction projects such as the Fulton Street Transit Center project in New York City, the Sutter Medical Health Center in Sacramento,  the Teluk Gong 720MW CCGT Panglima Power Plant in Malaysia, or the Doyle Drive Project in San Francisco.
To tackle the social and natural challenges around our built and natural environment we need to significantly change how we design and engineer projects. Considering pressing needs to adapt to demographic changes, population growth, and global warming, engineers will need to design much faster to a much higher quality. Digital methods and technologies can help, but to leverage their full potential two mind shifts are required: we need to change how we work with data and we need to restructure our design/engineering processes from providing ready solutions to exploring the generic structure of the design problem at hand. During the talk, I will discuss the required mind-shifts using examples from our ongoing research work. The presentation will close with my suggestion for a university curriculum for educating the built and natural environment engineers of the future that we implemented at the TU Berlin.