Toward Digital Twins

Digital transformation in the built environment has not delivered what it promised. This book argues that the failure is structural rather than technical. The sector’s information layer was never governed independently of the proprietary platforms that hold it, and no amount of new technology can close that gap.

Drawing on a systematic literature review, 20 expert interviews, and a survey of 102 practitioners, the book develops the AEC Organisational–Big BIM Data Strategic Alignment Model. It defines four domains including organisational strategy, organisational infrastructure and processes, big BIM data strategy, and big BIM data infrastructure and processes, and shows that alignment operates across three domains at a time, rather than between any two in isolation. Of the four pathways tested, the strongest evidence supports building data capability first. A case analysis of Autodesk, based on audited filings,then shows why alignment alone is insufficient: platform concentration establishes terms that individual firms, particularly smaller ones, do not control.

Written for executives, policymakers, and researchers, the book reframes the digital twin as an organisational capability to be developed and governed, rather than a technology to be purchased.