Rethinking Infrastructure: Professor Jennifer Whyte | Imperial College London

Innovation in civil infrastructure: towards digital maturity

The third event in The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management's 2017-18 keynote lecture series welcomes Professor Jennifer Whyte, Laing O'Rourke/Royal Academy of Engineering Professor of Systems Integration at Imperial College London.

The design, operation and maintenance of infrastructure is being transformed through the use of digital data. There is a need for innovation in major infrastructure clients and projects to visualize and understand complex product systems; identify risk and build in resilience; and support collaborative working. How can construction managers and engineers use next generation tools?

This talk will draw on examples from research in areas such as systems integration, configuration management, visualization and the hand-over of digital asset information from project delivery teams to long-term owners and operators.

The lecture will begin at 18.30 and will be followed by a networking reception from 19.30.

About our speaker

Prof Whyte's research focus is on systems integration in civil infrastructure. The vision is of developing next-generation tools for and approaches for systems integration, where infrastructure projects are organizationally complex and deliver both physical assets and digital asset information. This research supports the transformation to an advanced manufacturing industry with digital engineering capabilities, with decision-support tools for engineers and managers working on complex engineering projects.

Jennifer works closely with Laing O'Rourke and leads research within the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. This involves research with major infrastructure clients and projects to visualize and understand complex product systems; identify risk and build in resilience and support collaborative working. The work builds on a trajectory of EPSRC-funded research, including the Design Innovation Research Centre (2010-2015), which had a focus on new modes of design in the digital economy and was funded through a Challenging Engineering grant.