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Description
Cobuilder International Ltd., headquartered in Sofia, is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company with a workforce exceeding 100 employees. Specializing in cloud-based software, the company plays a pivotal role in providing technology solutions for product information exchange within the European construction value chain.
As part of their initiative under the Norway Grants'' "Green Industry Innovations" program, Cobuilder International Ltd. aims to pioneer IT solutions for environmental data management in the building industry. The primary focus is on enhancing environmental efficiency and generating green building profiles. The project hinges on the utilization of structured and standardized machine-readable data to define, specify, manage, and distribute environmentally-friendly construction products.
Notably, the initiative also aims to stimulate the development of additional digital applications, thereby fostering green growth within the construction sector. Collaborating with NCC NORGE AS, a Norwegian partner, the project anticipates the creation of 25 new positions and the successful implementation of a fully operational software solution. This undertaking underscores Cobuilder International Ltd.''s commitment to advancing digital solutions that contribute to environmental sustainability in the construction domain.
Summary of project results
The building industry, one of the biggest business segments in the world, is going through a rapid and deep digital revolution. Information exchange standards have been developed and have opened up very big efficiency and cost-saving potentials. Furthermore, construction industry is still the least digitalized after the agriculture (MGI Industry Digitalization Index, 2015). Public regulators in EU constantly increase the demand for information related to health, safety and environmental impact in the building sector. Suppliers are legally obliged to deliver such information with their goods and builders must possess the information and hand it over to the building’s owner. Manufacturers and suppliers of building materials and components continuously enhance their product information with additional descriptions (e.g. relative to usage, environmental information, performance, construction details). They do this partly to gain competitive advantage, partly to comply with growing legal requirements and partly to meet the builders’ demands for more information for their own use. The EU regulations in the field (CRP - Construction Products Regulation and REACH - Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) have identified a need for further development of support systems and coBuilder responds to these needs by developing data management systems that handle information connected to “everything” that is installed in a building: materials, components, etc. Through coBuilder, information flow is largely automated with correctness and quality ensured by the primary data input source. Legal-, environmental- and technical demands are met.
The projects touched upon the important challenges that the construction sector is facing nowadays. Growing demands on technical performance of building elements, rising environmental standards implemented by EU regulators and overall digitalisation. coBuilder''s market position and revenues are dependent on the development of software solutions that suites the customer’s needs. The implemented project enabled the company to make a significant step forward in the integration of IT tools and automatisation. It contributed to enable the customers to meet the rising environmental demands and standards from public regulators and the market itself.
In the project company developed cloud-based software tools for the construction industry that will enable a much more complex and thorough analysis of various technical, health and environmental information of the building materials in their various forms are aggregation and source of supply. The new tools have been integrated with other existing on the market internal systems and data bases of the involved stakeholders (producers of building materials, suppliers, designers, construction companies, architects, etc.). The main benefit of the project from a broader perspective is that it is not only profitable for the company but it helps also to solve important challenges that the sector is now experiencing. The growing demand for information about construction materials/elements, their technical performance but also environmental indicators are today scattered and handled often in manual way. Construction companies do not have full information on parameters of the final building elements (walls, roofs, facades etc.) and how they interfere with each other. The software developed in the project will enable all actors in the sector to have access to much broader technical specifications of a broad range of products, groups of products and their interactions. It will enable more optimal decisions in the design and construction process and lead to better usage of building elements. The project is also in-line with the expected development of the legal frameworks of the construction sector.
The project achieved several key milestones:
- Defined the scope of a new technology leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to automate the data insertion process from manufacturers into the company’s systems, replacing manual methods and accommodating increasing volumes of green data.
- Developed a system for classifying and grouping construction components and their environmental attributes into systems, aligning with national requirements.
- Created a tool to measure the environmental context of building elements and entire systems across the construction lifecycle.
- Enabled clients to input environmental requirements at the project or organizational level and evaluate building elements'' environmental performance.
- Integrated the company''s systems with external Project Information Management (PIM) solutions, facilitating the exchange of environmental and performance data for building components.
- Developed plug-ins for external software tools to integrate environmental performance data into the Building Information Management process.
Overall, the project standardized machine-readable green data, helping manufacturers highlight the value of eco-friendly construction assets and enhancing competitiveness in the growing green building market.
Summary of bilateral results
NCC Norway AS ( NCC) was the partner in the project and is part of NCC Group that operates in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. NCC is one of the largest players, with a market share of 4 percent. NCC acted as a key representative organization for implementing the project results in their digitalization strategy and align to their research work on sustainable environmental strategy. The partner added value in sharing the knowledge of establishing specific generic construction assemblies as purpose-based grouping of essential components and the key environmental attributes concerning the assets. Standardization of building elements by the use of data templates.