A Blockchain and Smart Contract-Based Framework to Increase Traceability of Built Assets

The UK Government’s review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety 2018 identified a series of failings in the construction sector including ambiguous and inconsistent regulations and standards; lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities; lack of enforcement of regulations and standards; poor product testing, labelling and marketing; inconsistent competency across the sector; and failure to address building occupants’ concerns around health and safety. Traceability and the development of a digital record to provide a golden thread of information were two recommendations of the report. To address these recommendations, this paper considered the extent to which the integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM), distributed ledger technology (DLT), the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart contracts in the form of a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) can support enhanced traceability and the population and management of a digital record during the building maintenance phase as part of a solution to provide a platform for the digital record. A framework is proposed to bring these technological systems together creating an ecosystem that encourages digitalisation and provides traceability, better information management and compliance with regulations and standards. Further work will involve testing the framework by simulating a range of maintenance events.