Digitalisation of Reinforcing Steel Supply Chain in Construction

Abstract

Trust in safety critical products has been seriously undermined by fake data scandals and major disasters such as Grenfell Tower. The Building Safety Act 2022 introduces the ‘golden thread’ of building information which means that finding the truth of a product’s provenance is never more needed than now – and reinforcing steel is one of the most safety critical structural materials in any project. De-sign and structural engineers also need to understand the environmental impact of their designs and in particular, the upfront ‘embodied’ carbon emissions – measured as its Global Warming Potential (GWP) in CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per tonne of product. This paper outlines how a Cloud-based digital solution was developed to address and solve these urgent issues, bringing simplicity to a complex supply chain while restoring trust where it is missing. The digital platform provides a secure system of product provenance – and traceability – from the design stage, through to the ‘as-built digital twin’ including all data required to meet current and future safety, quality and sustainability regulations. It uses customisable dashboards and a suite of Apps to allow online and hand-held scanners and smartphones to trace what has been manufactured, procured, fabricated and delivered in real-time. It replaces existing manual paper-based processes which are labour intensive and vulnerable to damage or malicious alteration and potentially leave significant gaps in assurance trails. There are further benefits such as productivity improvements by reducing time and cost, accurate as-built CO2e accounting, reducing reinforcing steel wastage, data sharing and integration, visible assured supply chain assurance.