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- 2004 (123) (remove)
Information science researchers and developers have spent many years addressing the problem of retrieving the exact information needed and using it for analysis purposes. In informationseeking dialogues, the user, i.e. construction project manager or supplier, often asks questions about specific aspects of the tasks they want to perform. But most of the time it is difficult for the software systems to unambiguously understand their overall intentions. The existence of information tunnels (Tannenbaum 2002) aggravates this phenomenon. This study includes a detailed case study of the material management process in the construction industry. Based on this case study, the structure of a formal user model for information retrieval in construction management is proposed. This prototype user model will be incorporated into the system design for construction information management and retrieval. This information retrieval system is a user-centered product based on the development of a user configurable visitor mechanism for managing and retrieving project information without worrying too much about the underlying data structure of the database system. An executable UML model combined with OODB is used to reduce the ambiguity in the user's intentions and to achieve user satisfaction.
At the start of the conceptual design process, designers start to give tangible form to their thoughts by sketching. This helps with reasoning and communicates ideas to other members of the team. Sketches are gradually worked up into more formal drawings which are then passed to the other stages of the design process. There are however some problems with basing early ideas on sketching. For example, due to their ad-hoc nature, sketches tend only to be diagrammatic representations and so designers cannot be sure that their ideas are feasible and what is being proposed meets the constraints described in the client brief. This can result in designers wasting time working up ideas which prove to be unsuitable. Also the process of constraint checking is complex and time consuming and so designers tend limit their search of possible options and instead choose satisfying rather than good solutions. This paper describes the INTEGRA project which examines the role of sketching in early conceptual design and how this can be linked to other aspects of the process and particularly automated constraint checking using an IT based approach. The focus for the work is the design of framed buildings. A multi-disciplinary approach has been adopted and the work has been undertaken in close collaboration with practising designers and clients.
In the AEC (Architecture / Engineering / Construction) industry a number of individuals and organisations collaborate and work jointly on a construction project. The resulting consortium has large pool of expertise and experience and can be defined as a Virtual Organisation (VO) formed for the duration of the project. VOs are electronically networked organisations where IT and web based communication technology play an important role in coordinating various activities of these organisations. This paper describes the design, development and implementation of a Grid enabled application called the Product Supplier Catalogue Database (PSCD) which supports collaborative working in consortia. As part of the Grid-enabling process, specialised metadata is being developed to enable PSCD to effectively utilise Grid middleware such as Globus and Java CoG toolkits. We also describe our experience whilst designing, developing and deploying the security service of the application using the Globus Security Interface (GSI).
Integrated Engineering Workflow focused on the Structural Engineering in the Industrial Environment
(2004)
The engineering and construction industry has been slow to exploit the full potential of information technology. The industry is highly fragmented, price sensitive, risk-adverse, and profit margins are small. Each project is unique with a small amount of technological innovation opportunities to capitalise on from one project to the next. Technological innovations that have been taking place are just simulating the old traditional paper workflow. Engineering information in digital form is being conveyed using traditional paper representations, which have to be interpreted by humans before the information can be used in other applications, thereby creating ‘islands of information’. It can be seen that poorly implemented IT strategies are duplicating paperwork, rather than reducing or eliminating it (Crowley et al., 2000). This paper will introduce the Integrated Engineering Workflow (IEW) concept to re-organise a structural discipline working on multi-disciplinary projects so as to maximise the advantages offered by new information technology.
The conceptual structure of an application that can support the structural analysis task in a distributed collaboratory is described in (van Rooyen and Olivier 2004). The application described there has a standalone component for executing the finite element method on a local workstation in the absence of network access. This application is comparable to current, local workstation based finite element packages. However, it differs fundamentally from standard packages since the application itself, and its objects, are adapted to support distributed execution of the analysis task. Basic aspects of an object-oriented framework for the development of applications which can be used in similar distributed collaboratories are described in this paper. An important feature of this framework is its application-centred design. This means that an application can contain any number of engineering models, where the models are formed by the collection of objects according to semantic views within the application. This is achieved through very flexible classes Application and Model, which are described in detail. The advantages of the application-centred design approach is demonstrated with reference to the design of steel structures, where the finite element analysis model, member design model and connection design model interact to provide the required functionality.
This paper will present a number of technical aspects for one of the most elaborate instrumentation and data acquisition projects ever undertaken in Canada. Confederation Bridge, the longest bridge built over ice covered seawater has been equipped with the state of the art data acquistition devices and systems as well as data transfer networks. The Bridge has been providing a fixed surface connection between Prince Edward Island and Province of New Brunswick in Canada since its opening in 1997. The Bridge has a rather long design service life of 100 years. Because of its large size and long span length, its design is not covered by any existing codes or standards worldwide. The focus of the paper is to introduce the data acquisition, transfer, processing and management systems. The instrumentation and communications infrastructure and devices will be presented in some details along with the data processing and management systems and techniques. Teams of engineers and researchers use the collected data to verify the analysis and design assumptions and parameters as well as investigate the short-term and long-term behaviour and health of the Bridge. The collected data are also used in furthering research activities in the field of bridge engineering and in elevating our knowledge about behaviour, reliability and durability of such complex structures, their components and materials.
In the field of Civil Engineering, the content of reinforcement concrete design course (RC course) has complicated design procedures and many difficult specifications to recognize, so most of the students regard the RC course a tough course, and teachers very often find the class time insufficient. Also, teachers of the RC course usually spend a lot of time in organizing the examinations for handling tedious calculations and complicated logical reasoning. Furthermore, correcting examination papers with partial scoring takes even more time of the teacher’s. Therefore, the objective of this research is to design and develop a partial scoring assessment system to meet the needs in engineering design courses, such as the RC course. This assessment system can generate test items with variable parameters. It also supports inference diagnosis on the examinee’s misconceptions and gives partial scores in grading the examination. In this research, the example test subject is the analysis of rectangular reinforced concrete beam with single layer steel bars.
The design of mobile IT systems, especially the design of wearable computer systems, is a complex task that requires computer science knowledge, such as that related to hardware configuration and software development, in addition to knowledge of the domain in which the system is intended to be used. Particularly in the AEC sector, it is necessary that the support from mobile information technology fit the work situation at hand. Ideally, the domain expert alone can adjust the wearable computer system to achieve this fit without having to consult IT experts. In this paper, we describe a model that helps in transferring existing design knowledge from non-AEC domains to new projects in the construction area. The base for this is a model and a methodology that describes the usage scenarios of said computer systems in an application-neutral and domain-independent way. Thus, the actual design information and experience will be transferable between different applications and domains.
The presented work focuses on collaboration- experiences gathered with complex design and engineering projects, using the learning platform POLE- Europe. Within the POLE environment student-teams from different universities, disciplines and cultural backgrounds are assigned to real-world projects with clearly defined design - tasks, usually to be accomplished within one semester while working in a virtual environment for most of the time. The concept of POLE and the information and collaboration technology is described.
The construction industry is a project-based business bringing together many different organisations to complete a desired goal. The strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enabled this goal to be completed more effectively. Two issues require addressing, the technology itself and the implementation factors of the technology. Such implementation factors should consider, among other factors, the legal and contractual issues associated with the use of ICT, training requirements and its effects on the organisational culture. To date the legal and contractual issues have not been extensively covered, and it is recognised that the technologies have not been properly covered by any recognised legal and contractual practices. This in turn is threatening to inhibit the growth and prosperity of the use of the technology on construction projects. This paper discusses these legal and contractual issues and describes methods and tools that can be used to enable the growth of technology to be used in a legal and contractually valid environment.