Case Studies

Drawing upon the CBC’s expertise, we are publishing a series of white papers and case studies. Our series of white papers is exploring the potential impact of blockchain in alleviating major challenges in the construction industry centring around - for example - cash flow, procurement, BIM and IoT. Meanwhile, our Case Studies explore the effectiveness of blockchain applications in the construction industry and built environment generally.

CBC Case Studies

1. Integrating Ethereum with Autodesk Forge

For this case study, a demonstrator solution was developed to integrate Autodesk Forge (Autodesk Forge, 2019) with the Ethereum Blockchain (Ethereum Foundation, 2018). The solution successfully demonstrated that comments made against a 3D model in a web browser could be recorded and timestamped as transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. The same approach could be extended to integrate the Ethereum blockchain into other commonly used design software, for example AutoCAD, Revit, and Bentley Building Suite. Using the blockchain as a single-source-of-truth ledger, recording changes made by different design software could help to resolve some of the design coordination issues and disputes commonly found in construction projects.

2. Improving Provenance Transparency with IOTA

This case study focuses on a project deployed by CBC Member Blocks and Mortar Limited in the retail industry. The findings and lessons are easily applicable to the construction industry. They are particularly relevant given that supply chain visibility has been highlighted by the World Economic Forum as a key factor in firms’ resilience during the COVID-19 economic crisis (Liao and Fan, 2020). 

The project was deployed for a retail e-commerce startup called Revolution of Forms (Revolution of Forms, 2020). The project successfully deployed a provenance tracking application built on IOTA public Tangle for recording product selling on the Revolution of Forms website. The benefits, outcomes and further recommendations (sections 4 and 5) could also apply to distributed ledger systems for tracking provenance of equipment or materials for construction projects.

CBC Partner Case Studies

We will shortly be publishing a number of featured case studies published by our Partner organisations.