Digital Asset Management enabling technologies: a bibliometric analysis

Asset Management (AM) is a core function to be implemented for achieving the organisational objectives through balancing risk, opportunities and costs. AM has become more and more relevant, both for producing value through management of the built environment and for supporting the sustainability strategies, ensuring a high-quality built and natural environment to the next generations. Moreover, the Architecture, Engineering Construction and Operations (AECO) sector, mimicking other industries, is shifting from selling products to selling services (Servitization) and this makes AM more and more important. In the last years, following the trend of the digital revolution, a rush to Information Technologies (ICTs) adoption has occurred in AECO, requiring a transition from the AM to the digital AM. Also, this is due to the flourishing standard and literature production on the benefits coming from the adoption of digital system for the management of the built environment. However, still a clear understanding of the potential of the adoption of different ICTs for supporting the core digital AM functions (Risk, Value, Facility management, etc.) has to be defined. This study strives at providing a comprehensive bibliometric analysis in the Scopus database on the use of the most acknowledged disruptive ICTs in different core (digital) AM functions. The bibliometric analysis allows to investigate the literature and to identify the more fruitful semantic fields on which concentrate the next research efforts in studying and developing effective digital AM system for enhanced decision making. The article concludes with a research agenda on information management for improved digital AM.