At Digital Construction Week, as Executive Director of the Digital Buildings Council (DBC) and as a market engagement specialist, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lucas Cusack from Glider – sponsor of DCW’s Digital Operations Stage – for a podcast discussion. Our conversation centered on this pervasive gap and explored crucial solutions like ‘digital soft landings’.
The Core Problem: A Disconnected Lifecycle
Lucas articulated the core issue: “Despite the sort of ongoing advancements in digital technology… there still remains this fundamental disconnect. construction and the operational phases of a project.” This gap manifests as a failure to effectively capture, structure, and transfer information from construction to operations. While documents like COBie and IFC files are exchanged, they often aren’t in a usable format for facility managers, leading to wasted effort and hindering the realization of “smart ready” buildings. As Lucas noted, without proper information transfer, achieving true smart functionality often means you “have to start again.”
Digital Soft Landings: The Integrated Solution
The solution lies in adopting the concept of ‘Digital Soft Landings’. This isn’t just about handing over documents; it’s a continuous process from early design through to operation, embedding operational requirements and knowledge from the outset. It demands the early involvement of operational stakeholders and a consistent, maintained flow of information. The idea of a dedicated ‘Digital Soft Landings Manager’ emerged—a crucial role to oversee this process, representing the asset owner’s operational interests throughout design and construction.
Cultural Shifts and Contractual Evolution
Solving the project-operations gap requires a significant cultural shift. It means moving beyond contractors simply “shutting off at the end of construction and saying, ‘Look, I’ve done what you’ve told me to do. I’m gone.’” The digital transformation is blurring traditional boundaries, with AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) rapidly evolving towards AECO (including Operations). This also blurs the lines between Capital Expenditure (Capex) and Operational Expenditure (Opex), as design and construction decisions have a direct impact on long-term operational costs.
The increasing focus on building performance (energy optimisation, sustainability, ESG) is driving the need for contractors to remain involved beyond practical completion through performance-related contracts. Integrated offerings from large main contractors, combining construction, MEP, and facilities management, are also emerging as a more holistic approach.
The Future: Digital Twins 2.0 and AI
The potential for Agentic AI to revitalise digital twins and enable advanced simulations and optimisations across the building lifecycle was highlighted as a key area of future interest. This represents a leap towards “digital twins 2.0,” breathing new life into a concept that, for some, hasn’t yet lived up to its promise.
In conclusion, our discussion strongly advocated for a more integrated and collaborative approach across the building lifecycle. The ‘digital soft landings’ framework, requiring both technological solutions and a significant cultural and contractual evolution, is presented as a practical means to achieve this.
The full conversation is available on YouTube, and an abridged version on LinkedIn.
You can listen to an abridged version of this vital discussion on LinkedIn and find the full conversation on YouTube.
