A Process-Driven Digital Ecosystem for the Circular Reuse of Cast-in-Place Concrete Elements

Reusing cast-in-place (CIP) concrete elements could enhance the sustainability of the construction industry by enabling circularity, preserving embodied value, and reducing primary resource consumption, construction and demolition waste, and emissions from new concrete production. However, the implementation of such reuse is hindered by project-specific geometries, monolithic connections, and complex coordination requirements. Existing process representations address individual aspects of reuse, but an integrated process framework for coordinating assessment, dismantling, logistics, and reuse across multiple actors and projects is still lacking. To address this gap, this study develops a concept for a process-driven digital ecosystem supporting the circular reuse of CIP concrete elements within the Collaborative Research Centre 1683. Literature-based process representations are analysed, translated into Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), and synthesised into domain-specific process models. The resulting models formalise the reuse chain, clarify actor responsibilities and information flows, and support the identification of technical, temporal, and spatial dependencies. Building on this formalisation, a conceptual digital ecosystem is derived that links information on reusable elements with process logic and reuse-related decision-making. The concept centres on a construction kit (CK) as a standardisation layer and an element data store (EDS) as the information basis for traceability, coordination, and matching. The results provide a structured foundation for digitally supported sustainability-oriented circular construction and for future ontology integration, process simulation, and decision-support applications.