Is DigiBuild the Silver Bullet to the Golden Thread?

The built environment we live in today continues to grow and expand despite the challenges faced by the industry for ensuring safety, increasing productivity, and sustaining operations for it and the world it occupies. 

This industry has been attracting many eyes for the potential these challenges present, but beside this, investment and opportunity are just secondary to the primary needs the industry aims to achieve - which is safety. The design and construction industry aims to provide safe living conditions for those using and occupying the space as well as providing safety while under construction.

Everything in the industry is planned and executed to ensure this safety, but these goals are not always met. 

In 2017, The Grenfell Tower in London demonstrated that such precautions for safety were not enough to ensure safe operations and living conditions. After a fire broke out in the 24 story structure that killed 72 people, an investigation was launched to ensure such a tragedy never occurred again. 

From this case, the concept of the “Golden Thread” was born and developed to fully capture and communicate any data and design intent to all stakeholders for utilization into the operation of a building. With a new concept being introduced and with the almost mandated feel to it, the industry was not too enthusiastic for its deployment. Many questions arose and have still yet to be answered, such as the idea of mandated data creation and management which carries with it a cost for implementation and training. On top of this, the idea of ownership, and ultimately the responsibility, needs to be addressed. And if anything is clear in the construction industry, it is the aversion to responsibility and risk. 

A joint report was conducted in the United Kingdom by the Chartered Institute of Building and i3PT Certification to formalize the readiness of the UK for implementing such a Golden Thread and the results pointed to an industry hurdle of culture vs consensus. When considering the biggest blocker or hurdle, the report stated “75% said that industry culture is the biggest blocker to delivering a golden thread of information.” The industry feels confident in the concept and the potential for improving the built environment as a whole, but the culture brings about several causes for pause. This culture shift is nothing new on the to-do list of the construction industry, but has yet to find a viable methodology. The issues of “who is going to pay for that” and “I do not want to be held responsible” continue to come up time and time again. 

Data ownership has been on the minds of many in the construction industry. In an article entitled “Who Owns the Data?” the author of the data seems to be the technical owner, but once someone owns the data and it needs to be transferred, does another stakeholder have to purchase the data? The question is so nuanced and muddy that the solution almost leans itself towards a method of joint ownership as seen in the Golden Thread Report, “It has to be collaboratively owned.” So for this golden thread concept to be established, two themes continue to arise, joint ownership as well as a “cradle to grave” maintenance of data. The golden thread is not as valuable without being tracked from creation all the way through a building's lifecycle as well as opening up the access and responsibility of that data to the entire party of responsible entities. 

Many solutions are entering the market to begin handling this data problem, but the idea of true joint ownership can only be achieved by a distributed solution with proper permission and tracking. With all the problems faced by implementing a golden thread solution, a distributed ledger solution aligns perfectly. 

Blockchain technology and smart contracts are the only searchable, auditable, and permissible claims by law.

With a distributed solution bringing together all involved parties on a project, DigiBuild is directly positioned to create a shared ownership platform for a structure’s entire lifecycle of data. 

Could DigiBuild’s solution be the silver bullet to meeting the needs for the potential of a golden thread?

For more information or to join us in our mission to build a healthier construction industry using blockchain click here: https://rep.pub/invest-digibuild