Singapore’s built environment industry is a critical engine of its economy. Beyond constructing the homes, workplaces, and infrastructure that underpin daily life, the sector contributes about 3% to 5% of Singapore’s GDP annually.
Recognising its pivotal role in the nation’s progress, Singapore has launched a Built Environment Industry Transformation Map (BE ITM) to drive strategic adoption of digital technologies through the three key stages of a building’s life cycle — from planning and design, construction, to operations and maintenance. This push aims to boost productivity, foster greater collaboration across the sector, and accelerate decarbonisation efforts, ensuring the built environment remains a dynamic and competitive force for the city-state.
Enabling rapid, data-driven decisions
The Real Estate Analytics Performance Indicator Dashboard (Rapid) is one of the solutions supporting the BE ITM in integrated digital delivery. Developed by the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (Redas) in close collaboration with industry players, Rapid facilitates structured and consistent data-sharing across stakeholders, strengthening transparency and collaboration throughout the project lifecycle. By providing a single source of truth, Rapid empowers developers and their value-chain partners to make data-backed decisions faster and gain deeper project visibility from digital design to asset management.
“What sets Rapid apart is its ability to seamlessly ingest data in varying formats from a wide range of construction management platforms — including Novade, Autodesk Construction Cloud, InterCorp, Fulcrum, Excel-based trackers, SAP and more — [to offer an integrated view of time, cost, quality, and safety indicators],” Chew Peet Mun, co-chair of Redas lead project steering committee tells The Edge Singapore.
He adds that the platform is intentionally designed not to be a one-size-fits-all or plug-and-play solution, given the varied nature and unique needs of construction projects. The Redas team works closely with developers (as data owners) and their value chain partners to define the data architecture: what is needed, how it flows, and how it is captured, stored and analysed. This ensures that dashboards and analytics outputs are relevant, timely and actionable for project teams. Despite the customised setup, implementation is streamlined and typically takes less than 10 man-days.
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To fully unlock Rapid’s value, establishing a robust Common Data Environment (CDE) is critical, typically led by main contractors, who generate the bulk of site-level data. The platform relies on consistent, structured inputs from across construction systems, particularly performance-related data, to generate meaningful insights. With a well-managed CDE, Rapid can seamlessly ingest information and deliver accurate analytics that support data-driven decisions. “Ultimately, successful adoption of Rapid hinges on strong collaboration among developers, contractors, and consultants, as well as a shared commitment to data quality and integration across the value chain,” says Chew.
Data privacy may be a concern when it comes to data sharing. To address that, all information shared through Rapid is ring-fenced and strictly accessible to the subscribing developer, its appointed main contractor, and authorised value chain partners involved in that specific project. The subscribing company also retains full control over user access, with administrative rights to manage and assign permissions across their project teams.
On the data accuracy front, Rapid’s structured onboarding process and built-in validation checks ensure only clean and reliable data is ingested so that trustworthy insights are generated across the project lifecycle.
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Driving adoption
Since its debut in November 2023, more than 20 projects have committed to Rapid to help manage and streamline their developments. These projects span diverse asset classes, including private residential, hotels, mixed-use integrated developments and institutional sites. Notably, the private residential projects represent approximately 35% of the total Gross Floor Area from Building Under Construction residential sites awarded between 2023 and 2024.
Early adopters include Allgreen Properties, CapitaLand Development, CHEC Urban, China Construction (South Pacific), City Developments, Far East Organization, Guocoland, MCL Land, OUE, PM Link, Qingjian Realty, Roxy-Pacific Holdings, SingHaiyi, UOL Group and Wing Tai, among others.
To drive broader adoption of Rapid, Redas will soon add a configurable dashboard option that allows users to tailor the dashboard according to their existing workflows. This flexibility is designed to support varying levels of digital maturity across the built environment sector and ease the transition for end users.
Rapid will also be progressively integrated with other construction software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to create a connected ecosystem. “Rapid’s agnostic nature allows industry players to adopt whichever service that best suits their needs, all while reaping the benefits of Rapid’s built-in intelligent insights,” claims Chew.
Currently, Rapid leverages a range of built-in business logic and rule-based algorithms to deliver timely insights, helping developers flag potential delays, manage costs, and improve project productivity across a project’s lifecycle. Looking ahead, Redas plans to enhance Rapid with predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence (AI). “We are actively exploring partnerships with Institutes of Higher Learning to incorporate research that will enable predictive modelling and intelligent recommendations in upcoming versions of the platform,” says Chew.
Redas, he adds, will continue to expand the dataset across a diverse portfolio of projects to build a robust foundation of “big data” for future AI capabilities to transform Rapid into a more intelligent and adaptive tool for the built environment.
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The need for smart facilities management
Post-construction, asset owners need to take a “medium to long-term view on capital expenditure-heavy investments in smart facilities management” to address climate regulations, says Teo Say Leng, executive director for Digital Technology at Surbana Jurong (SJ).
Set to start in 3Q2025, the Mandatory Energy Improvement regime will require existing energy-intensive buildings in sectors like commercial, healthcare, and education to undergo energy audits and implement efficiency measures. Buildings with a gross floor area exceeding 5,000 sq m must reduce their energy usage intensity by 10% from pre-audit levels. Moreover, all listed companies and large non-listed firms with revenues of at least $1 billion and total assets of $500 million will be required to disclose their climate-related risks from 2027.
Smart facilities management, especially predictive technologies, can also help building owners cut rising operational costs as rising temperatures exacerbate cooling demands in buildings. “Air conditioning and mechanical ventilation systems are already a major contributor to operational costs, accounting for approximately 60% of total energy expenses in many buildings. By implementing energy-efficient solutions such as energy-recovery systems or thermal energy storage, building owners can optimise energy systems to mitigate rising energy costs,” says Teo, adding that optimising chiller plant operations to match changing weather conditions can also reduce energy waste and costs.
Property-tech platforms like SJ’s Podium, notes Teo, can also integrate with other operational platforms to track key metrics, such as energy use, waste, water, indoor air quality and occupancy trends. This helps asset owners track building performance and drive down operational carbon emissions.
Resilient operations, reduced emissions
SJ also offers an integrated operations control centre (IOCC) solution to help operators of large-scale facilities, such as campuses, industrial precincts, and residential townships, monitor and track critical facilities to detect issues early and mitigate disruptions.
The IOCC offers a real-time view into the performance of buildings, monitoring everything from mechanical and electrical systems to water usage, energy consumption, fire safety, indoor air quality, and occupancy levels. By analysing these data points, the IOCC can detect anomalies, such as unusual water flow that signals leaks, and adjust operations on the fly, like fine-tuning heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting based on occupancy to curb energy waste.
The solution also tracks various environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics, such as carbon emissions, energy intensity, and waste generation. Dashboards visualise this data, helping building owners meet sustainability targets and comply with green building standards.
Crucially, the IOCC enables full lifecycle carbon tracking, from embodied emissions during construction to operational impacts over time. It integrates building information modelling (BIM) data with live performance analytics, providing insights from material sourcing and construction to daily usage and eventual decommissioning.
“With the IOCC, users can compare the carbon footprint of multiple buildings, conduct granular analysis at the asset level, or view portfolio-wide sustainability performance. This empowers facility and ESG teams to make targeted interventions and data-driven decarbonisation strategies,” claims Teo.
He also shares that the IOCC leverages a suite of technologies to help enhance asset owners’ situational awareness, automate workflows, and optimise operations.
At the heart of the IOCC is a CDE, such as SJ’s 24K Digital platform, that centralises building data, including BIM models, asset records, operations manuals and the Internet of Things (IoT) data feeds. This ensures that all stakeholders, from contractors to facility managers, are working off the same, up-to-date dataset, which improves collaboration and compliance.
Digital twin technology builds on that foundation by creating a real-time virtual replica of the building. By integrating live data from systems like HVAC, lighting and security, the digital twin offers managers a clear view of operations and system performance. This enables predictive maintenance and scenario planning, helping pre-empt issues before they escalate.
IoT sensors embedded throughout facilities provide a steady stream of real-time data on energy usage, occupancy, air quality and equipment condition. This information feeds directly into the IOCC, enabling remote monitoring and condition-based maintenance that minimises downtime.
AI adds another layer of efficiency, analysing vast amounts of operational data to detect anomalies, optimise energy consumption and forecast equipment failures. This shifts building management from a reactive model to one that is predictive and prescriptive.
Automation complements AI by taking over routine tasks, such as generating alerts, issuing work orders or responding to faults, allowing for faster response times and reducing strain on lean facilities teams.
Cloud infrastructure ties it all together, enabling centralised control and seamless scalability across multiple properties. It allows stakeholders to securely access real-time building data and analytics from anywhere, supporting mobile operations, continuous uptime, and integrated management across geographically dispersed sites.
“Together, these technologies form the digital backbone of the IOCC, enabling seamless integration between real-time operations and the BIM model. This supports a true BIM-facilities management approach, where the digital twin evolves with live building data, the CDE ensures data integrity, and AI and IoT turn information into action. Facility managers gain a unified, intelligent platform to manage the building lifecycle efficiently, bridging the gap between construction and long-term operations,” says Teo.
