Put out fires in Facility Management through the Digital Twin adoption: outcomes from Italy

The Architecture, Construction, Engeneering and Operation (AECO) industry is benefitting from the digitalisation spread. Several digital technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Twin (DT) are revolutioning the industry’s operations. Especially, the technological innovation of the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase of building life cycle has the potential to optimise the managing of buildings through more efficient, transparent, and sustainable practices. The academic literature, that focuses on the O&M digital innovation, identifies the DT as the main technology to support the digitalisation of facility management (FM) practices in buildings. These potentials, described in terms of improvements in operational time and costs, are not embraced by the market, which seems unready to introduce this innovation. Issues increase in those markets that are not identified as innovator leaders, such as Italy, which is considered a moderate innovator in the European panorame, presenting a very fragmented AECO industry of small-medium enterprises and a scarse innovation boost. With the objective to highlight the market’s willingness to embrace digital innovation, the present study discusses the degree to which digital technologies, and especially DT, are adopted in the Italian market. Thus, after identifing the potential benefits in the academic literature, and report the results of a previous studies on the Italian market perspective in digital innovation, this study discusses digital technologies’ adoption with FM operators. Assessing the real application of digital technologies and DT, the paper reasons about improvements in building performance and operational efficiency introduced by real-time monitoring and predicting building behaviour. The research shows that operators encounter difficulties with data handling and practical application of these technologies. This is also caused by a knowledge gap of the Italian market, which sees few companies that support the adoption of DT.