Abstract

Construction megaprojects represent major challenges. Their time extension, high budgets, the multiplicity of stakeholders and multidisciplinary teams, together with their social, economic, political, and environmental impact, demand technical innovation and the implementation of trend management tools that seek to maximise the productivity of these projects. However, in a sector characterised by low levels of productivity and digitalisation, this is no easy task. In the context of Construction 4.0, the emergence of digital twins represents the possibility of centralising project success factors, focusing on the design and management of projects based on the monitoring, prediction, automation, and optimisation of processes, synchronising physical and virtual environments. While computer visualisation allows access to and control of the digital twin environments, achieving higher levels of immersion and interaction would increase its benefits and allow aspects not considered to be addressed. Extended reality (XR), understood as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies, is proposed as the new paradigm for human–machine interaction with digital twins. Through them, the technologies of Construction 4.0 are linked to these environments. To this end, considering safety management in construction as an application case, this research integrates safety management processes and actions through XR interaction environments linked to the digital twins of construction. Thus, a process flow is presented with examples to demonstrate the application potential.