Abstract
Large infrastructure construction projects like roads, tunnels or railways have a significant impact on sustainability. A specific characteristic of such construction projects, also called linear infrastructure construction projects, is that the construction site moves continuously as the construction progresses. Traditionally, the prefabrication of components is organized in a centralized way with negative impacts on economic and ecological sustainability aspects. Thus, in previous research within the project SMF4INFRA, we designed a Smart Mobile Factory (SMF) and compared it with the traditional prefabrication process showing the potential to reduce environmental impacts. The SMF had been designed in a modular and flexible way, allowing also a high repeatability of the assembly as well as disassembly according to different locations. Considering these specific characteristics, inline quality control within the prefabrication process to guarantee also stable processes becomes of fundamental importance. Therefore, in this research we propose a Digital Twin (DT) based quality control approach, specifically conceptualized for SMF. The approach had been designed by using as case study the Field Lab of EuroTube Foundation in Switzerland. It had been validated by means of a Discrete Event Simulation model, showing that the DT-based interventions have potential to improve productivity as well as sustainability aspects. In future research activities, specific sensing as well as actuating technologies will be implemented in the prefabrication process of the FieldLab, as a basis for the DT implementation.