Automated payment and contract management in the construction industry based on smart contracts and blockchain technology

The BIMcontracts project investigates automated payment and contract management based on smart contracts and blockchain technology combined with digital building information models (BIM). In a consortium of industry and research partners, a reference architecture for automated payment processes in the construction industry will be developed in a three-year project phase.
Specifically, the intention is to realize the partial automation of conventional contract management, with the data relevant for payment transactions being filtered out of the classic (analog) construction contract. These are the specific procedures that can be expressed as if-then relationships in a smart contract and processed further in an automated manner. A prerequisite for the signing of the contract is the availability of digital BIM-based tender documents, which are agreed upon between the contracting parties during the tendering procedure. Each payment-related transaction can be considered as a billing unit. Billing units must be defined digitally so that an automated payment can take place. Once the contractually agreed construction works have been checked and accepted by the client, payments are made through the authorized financial institutions. The linking of digital building models and smart contracts represents a far-reaching innovation. Due to the extensive experience in research projects with a focus on BIM, the development of digital billing containers is the main contribution of the Chair of Computing in Engineering to the BIMcontracts project. The work includes the identification of requirements for billing plans, development of modeling guidelines, and specification of data exchange. Especially the development of technical concepts and procedures for linking billing containers with smart contracts and performance reporting based on open BIM standards.