Task Decomposition and Service Composition on an Innovative Blockchain-Based Construction Service Trading Platform to Select Construction Services

Abstract

To address the construction industry’s fragmented resources and to facilitate its service-oriented transformation, a new service paradigm of a construction service trading platform (CSTP) enables the sharing and trading of distributed construction services. However, the current platform with centralized management cannot provide an online trading environment with information security and transaction transparency without the involvement of a trusted third party. Existing approaches to selecting services for complex tasks also ignore security and transparency, even though these are critical to the platform. This study selected services for complex tasks securely and transparently, and made three contributions. First, an innovative blockchain-based construction service trading platform (B-CSTP) is proposed, which can provide a secure and transparent trading environment. Second, smart contract–based task decomposition and service composition (TDSC) was established, in which three main functions were designed to implement the service selection approach for the complex task. Third, an Ethereum-based system was established to demonstrate the proposed B-CSTP and smart contracts for TDSC. A survey of construction professionals was established to evaluate the framework of the proposed B-CSTP, and experiments were conducted to evaluate the designed functions of the smart contract for TDSC. The results show that the proposed B-CSTP and the designed function of smart contracts are feasible. The survey reveals that 80% and 70% of survey participants had positive attitudes toward its security and transparency, respectively. Furthermore, the experiment results show that the design functions of smart contracts were effective and reasonable in selecting services. This study contributes to the new service paradigm and the problem of selecting services by combining blockchain and smart contract technology. This study expands the application scenarios for blockchain in CSTP and makes significant advances in using smart contracts for TDSC. Servitization has become one of the main directions for transformation in the construction industry. The new trading paradigm that adopts the electronic trading platform can facilitate value addition of construction services, serving as an application path to achieve servitization. This study contributes to this new trading paradigm by integrating blockchain and smart contract technologies, enabling service selection for complex tasks. The potential practical applications were illustrated from industry, enterprise, and individual perspectives. For the construction industry, a feasible implementation path for technology-enabled transformation to servitization, such as the proposed blockchain-based construction service trading platform, is presented. Enterprises that develop platforms can benefit from applying new technologies, such as introducing blockchain technology to solve security and third-party trust issues. These companies also can conduct new technology-enabled core businesses to enhance their competitiveness, such as the proposed select service function that combines blockchain-enabled smart contract technology. For individuals interested in frontier technologies, the application of blockchain and smart contract technology in this new paradigm provides a source of inspiration. The study has the potential to encourage the application of blockchain technology, facilitate the development of this new trading paradigm, and contribute to servitization transformation of the construction industry.