Digitalization’s impacts on productivity: a model-based approach and evaluation in Germany’s building construction industry

Abstract

The debate about the digitalization has gained momentum in recent years. While digitalization technologies are globally hailed as drivers of increased productivity, they are not yet used on a grand scale, which begs the question why, because their benefits are clear. We address this question by deriving a model of how digitalization technologies impact on productivity and what barriers affect their use. We focus exemplarily on Germany’s building construction industry in order to estimate the benefits of digitalization, using three case studies of production robots, 3D printing and BIM software. In a second step, we build a model using qualitative interviews based on the Technology Acceptance Model. A first qualitative study defines the level of detail and identifies unknown influencing factors. In a second study, the model was revised by means of qualitative-structured interviews. Finally, we carried out a quantitative evaluation of the model using a questionnaire, evaluating its suitability.