Framework proposal for a BIM - Based Digital Platform for Flexible Design and Optimization of Industrial Buildings for Industry 4.0

The production of the future, respectively industry 4.0, is a highly networked, digitized and thus individualized production, leading to shortened product lifecycles and constantly changing processes. Industrial buildings need to be capable to react to these varying conditions, making the realization of flexible building systems necessary. Inflexible building structures lead to early rescheduling or even demolishing, resulting in increased life cycle costs and material demand. The load-bearing structure is decisive for maximum flexibility as it is the most rigid element with the longest service life. The planning of flexible building structures and the consideration of production in building design requires maximum integration of all stakeholders in early design stage. However, early integration of all stakeholders, processes and tools is rare and difficult due to the lack of interoperability of domain-specific software and sequential planning methodology. This paper presents the ongoing research conducted within the research project BIMFlexi. The goal of BIMFlexi is to make industrial buildings efficiently adaptable to rapidly changing production processes by developing an integrated BIM-based digital platform to enable flexible structural analysis, taking into account changing production processes and support in multi-objective optimization and decision support. In this paper, potentials and limits for integrating processes and discipline specific models of building and production planning are identified and a framework for a “BIM-based digital Platform for Flexible Design and Optimization of Industrial Buildings for Industry 4.0” proposed. The proposed framework couples digital tools such as BIM, parametric modelling, structural analysis and VR within a platform to allow multi-objective optimization and early decision making in real-time.