No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Towards a Web of Construction Knowledge and Services
Abstract
Location and time independent interaction and collaboration among the multidisciplinary competencies within a construction project is crucial to the success of the construction projects. Existing information and communication technologies (ICTs) have done much to address these interaction issues and provide an appropriate collaboration infrastructure when face-to-face meetings are impossible, expensive difficult or simply inconvenient. However these systems still do not adequately meet the requirements of site-based team members and busy mobile project team members. Emerging technologies such as 3G wireless devices and the Semantic Web have the potential to overcome the current shortcomings of ICTs in terms of supporting mobile project team members. This paper reviews these technologies and describes the potential for the future application of 3G wireless and Semantic Web technologies within the construction sector, particularly in the creation of a Web of Construction Knowledge and Services. It concludes (from a global perspective) that the use of Semantic Web technologies will in future offer considerable benefits in terms of project management, knowledge management, supply chain management, integration of distributed applications and services and improved efficiency of construction project delivery.
... Many different kinds of information systems are interpreting data and transforming it into some kind of information (Dave and Koskela, 2009). As discussed by many researchers, knowledge management (KM) cannot be implement using technology alone even though technology has an important role to play (Anumba et al., 2003; Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Ruikar et al., 2007). They have mentioned that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been implemented to support KM. ...
... A person needs to investigate what kind of knowledge work will be used as different solutions for different types for an organization prior to implement any kind of KM (Ruikar et al., 2007). In the knowledge management context, collaboration work is the most difficult to address, which is very iterative and improvisational and also is mostly done by workers who are experts in their roles and who may have a certain degree of experience or education behind them (Anumba et al., 2003; Davenport, 2005). Hence, organizations need to put workers in more knowledge available to them to improve this type of knowledge work. ...
This research investigates the feasibility of web technology as a means of collaborative method to integrate rural buildings with their surroundings. The conceptual design of a GIS enabled web-based application this paper proposes supports public participations to the current business processes' limitations and increases the efficiency of these processes by means of web-based technologies. The prototype is dealing with a multi-criteria spatial decision-making borrowed from a geographical information system (GIS), a design criteria to predict and measure users' perceived impression as the tool of environmental assessment, and an interoperable knowledge map as sharing, documenting, and reusing practical information. The approach employs three-tier architecture in a server/client system programmed by active server pages (ASP), and consists of Map Server and MySQL relational database. ASP is a server-side script to create dynamic web pages that are able to retrieve and display database data and modify data records. The application developed ASP can be deployed on any web browsers, since it is server-side application. Map Server presents a quality output of GIS data including raster and vector graphics, labeling/annotation, multiple data layer support, and spatial analysis functionality between layers. MySQL is a multi-user structured query language (SQL) database management system (DBMS), which code and data will be held on a centrally located server where it could be accessed from any broadband-connected computer. Using the proposed prototype for integrating rural buildings with their landscapes, the ideas and theories discussed in this paper clarifies the contribution of the interface and helps to create a coherent and practical application that is transparent and collaborative. 2 INTRODUCTION Some landscapes are still preserved to have a close relationship and harmonious balance with natural resources, farming, and human settlement carefully sited and oriented (Di Facio, 1989). However, the changes of the past few decades as agriculture and tourism have experienced an important transformation have proliferated in many other cases an abrupt and a discordant in the relation between man-made constructions and their landscapes (Montero et al., 2005). It is important that these new buildings should be designed and sited respecting their environmental emplacement (Tandy, 1979). For that reason, the professionals such as designers and developers should keep integration and functionality in mind and also consider traditional construction styles and materials and modern constructional needs to new buildings (Bell, 1995). Thus, human appreciation is another important criterion to preserve and improve the relationship of buildings and landscape (Brunson and Reiter, 1996) and collaborative process is an application to solve problems while making decision due to multiple stakeholders involve to the integration process (Renger et al., 2008).
... In addition, organizations must be aware of the most effective learning methods and the benefits they provide, depending on the information they have created. Once the obstacles to the generation of information have been eliminated, its transport and storage must be secured (C J Anumba et al., 2004). ...
The purpose of this study was to determine the current status of knowledge management in the construction industry; the references analyzed formulate theoretical links between the variables listed above, therefore this article organizes the material. The methodology employed is founded on a systematic literature review, a bibliometric search of the variables, and an analytical-synthetic procedure based on the classification of articles. The outcome is the formulation of the current state of the art, which schematizes the variables individually and their interrelation. This work contributes to the literature of knowledge management and project management by presenting these findings. To improve the performance of knowledge transfer and, consequently, the performance of projects, this study is also of importance to corporations and public bodies that manage projects in the construction industry.
... Such social platforms have the potential of capturing both the tacit and explicit knowledge that is generated every day in projects and sharing them among different stakeholders, ultimately resulting in cross-project learning. Past research suggests that a community model or a personalization strategy is better than a database approach [7,8,9,10]. Panahi et al. [11] argue that the use of social web tools can be regarded as complementary to facilitate tacit knowledge capture and sharing. ...
Knowledge is one of an organization's most important assets, hence organizations should strive to capture and reuse the knowledge of their workers in order to have continuous improvements. The construction industry is often associated with low levels of productivity, one of the reasons for which is due to poor knowledge management since mistakes made in one project are often repeated again in future projects. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a technology that has caused a paradigm shift in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. Social media platforms are another recent invention that have diverse applications in every field. The main objective of this paper is to assess the usefulness of a BIM-based social platform for knowledge management, in particular tacit knowledge, in the construction industry. A case study demonstrating the use of such a platform, called Green 2.0, has been presented in this paper. The case study, relating to the construction of high performance, low cost housing, provides a proof of concept and shows that such platforms can provide an informal and engaging method for project-related discussions, in addition to providing advantageous visualizations to project stakeholders.
... Thus, many organizations started making significant investments in KMS [21] [22]. Despite the large amount of money spent for KMS implementation, this does not guarantee of its accomplishment [23] [24][25] [26]. Not a few and many of them had wasted organizational efforts as well as their resources [27]. ...
Today, many organizations have implemented knowledge management system (KMS) to facilitate activities in achieving their business objective and goal. Despite of the benefits that have been given by the system, its adoption and frequent use remain challenges. As acknowledged that KMS adoption is a complicated and context dependent, it is merit to investigate in understanding the phenomenon in a real setting. The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of KMS adoption and diffusion in organization with the aim to provide recommendations which helping to increase adoption and utilization. The generated grounded results offer not only the identified factors and processes that could possibly lead to adoption but also those that make its diffusion and finally become part of daily practice.
... Recently, many organizations started their knowledge management (KM) by making significant investments in knowledge management system (KMS) [1] [2]. Despite, the large amount of money spent, the KMS alone does not promise its success [3] [4][5] [6]. As a result, the organizational efforts as well as their resources have been wasted [7]. ...
This study documents the adoption and diffusion of a knowledge management system (KMS), known as AXIS. With 15% active users at present, the organization faces a gap which knowledge management specialists are trying to bridge. The grounded theory based study found 12 variables as a result, which can prove useful in stimulating employees adopting KMS to go online and share. In addition, the identification of employees according to the innovation adopter spectrum will help company X reach its KMS goals.
... In future, the Semantic Web will provide intelligent access to heterogeneous distributed information, enabling software products to mediate between user needs and information sources available (Fensel and Busler, 2002). Semantic Web technologies offer considerable benefits in terms of project management, content and document management, knowledge management, supply chain management, integration of distributed applications and services and improved efficiency of construction project delivery (Anumba et al., 2003). Semantic Web-based rules, are starting to be applied in large scale distributed systems in the built environment (aecXML Cerovsek et al., 2002; eConstruct, 2003; Cheng et al., 2003). ...
Current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimising damage and returning the building to its normal function. Also effective disaster management demands decentralized, dynamic, flexible, short term and across domain resource sharing, which is not well supported by existing distributing computing infrastructres. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for emergency management in the built environment, using Semantic Grid as an integrating platform for different technologies. The framework supports a distributed network of specialists in built environment, including structural engineers, building technologists, decision analysts etc. It brings together the necessary technology threads, including the Semantic Web (to provide a framework for shared definitions of terms, resources and relationships), Web Services (to provide dynamic discovery and integration) and Grid Computing (for enhanced computational power, high speed access, collaboration and security control) to support rapid formation of virtual teams for disaster management. The proposed framework also make an extensive use of modelling and simulation (both numerical and using visualisations), data mining (to find resources in legacy data sets) and visualisation. It also include a variety of hardware instruments with access to real time data. Furthermore the whole framework is centred on collaborative working by the virtual team. Although focus of this paper is on disaster management, many aspects of the discussed Grid and Visualisation technologies will be useful for any other forms of collaboration. Conclusions are drawn about the possible future impact on the built environment.
... From the view point of applications in real-time supply chain coordination, the Semantic Web technologies offer considerable benefits in terms of project management, content and document management, knowledge management, supply chain management and integration of distributed applications and services [65]. The Semantic Web-based rules are starting to be applied in large scale distributed systems for real-time supply chain coordination. ...
Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) integrates artificial intelligence and wireless technology into the World Wide Web in order to make it more powerful and more tuned to the real needs of the user. In this paper, first we discuss this next generation of the Web in detail and propose a practicable development process for it. Most of the important concerns regarding the IWW and implementation of applications based on its services are addressed here. After providing a comprehensible illustration of the IWW, the concept of Mobile Real-time Supply Chain Coordination is introduced. Next we demonstrate how the Intelligent Wireless Web services and capabilities may be used to make the achievement of mobile real-time coordination in supply chains feasible. Another section is devoted to the suggestion of the practical framework. There we investigate the most significant issues concerning the application of the IWW in mobile real-time supply chain coordination. Technology convergence, semantic integration, implementation scenario, and discussion on the aspects of intelligent response are four major topics considered in this section. The paper ends by concluding remarks.
... Thus, many organizations started making significant investments in KMS [21] [22]. Despite the large amount of money spent for KMS implementation, this does not guarantee of its accomplishment [23] [24][25] [26]. Not a few and many of them had wasted organizational efforts as well as their resources [27]. ...
This paper presents the analytical factors that influence Knowledge Management System (KMS) adoption at the individual level known as post adoption phase. Though many organizations have increasingly recognized KMS significance and started to implement it but its adoption has proved to be very difficult and many organizations are still facing with challenges. The analysis of Grounded Theory (GT) process provides results of the individual factors influence the adoption. These factors offer insights into in-depth of the case study in the real setting of oil and gas industry in Malaysia. Also, these factors provide the possibilities to prove and help in stimulating employees’ adoption and assisting company to reach its KMS goals.
... Thus, many organizations started making significant investments in KMS [21] [22]. Despite the large amount of money spent for KMS implementation, this does not guarantee of its accomplishment [23] [24][25] [26]. Not a few and many of them had wasted organizational efforts as well as their resources [27]. ...
This paper presents the analytical factors that influence Knowledge Management System (KMS) adoption at the individual level known as post adoption phase. Though many organizations have increasingly recognized KMS significance and started to implement it but its adoption has proved to be very difficult and many organizations are still facing with challenges. The analysis of Grounded Theory (GT) process provides results of the individual factors influence the adoption. These factors offer insights into in-depth of the case study in the real setting of oil and gas industry in Malaysia. Also, these factors provide the possibilities to prove and help in stimulating employees' adoption and assisting company to reach its KMS goals.
... Although technology has an important role to play, experts have argued that knowledge management cannot be implemented using technology alone, Anumba et.al., Davenport and Lawrence, and Ruikar et.al.[18][19][20] very effectively pointed out that IT alone cannot take form of knowledge management on its own, it is the way IT has been implemented to support knowledge management that is important. ...
Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today's organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to keep “reinventing the wheel”. Given the nature of construction projects, collaborative knowledge management seems to be the most appropriate solution to capture project based knowledge. Information and communication technologies offer a number of solutions to implement collaborative knowledge management solutions. This paper discusses a range of these solutions and presents a case study where a collaborative knowledge management solution is implemented across a multi functional construction company.The work presented in the case study was carried out while the first author was employed by the case study organisation. A social web application was implemented to solve a particular knowledge sharing problem within the organisation's concrete pumping business. The new solution provided an effective and simple way to create knowledge by taking employees' ideas through an iterative cycle of discussion.
... From the view point of applications in real-time supply chain coordination, the Semantic Web technologies offer considerable benefits in terms of project management, content and document management, knowledge management, supply chain management and integration of distributed applications and services [64]. The Semantic Web-based rules are starting to be applied in large scale distributed systems for real-time supply chain coordination. ...
Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) employs the capabilities of high speed wireless networks and exploits the parallel advancements in Internet-based technologies such as the Semantic Web, Web Services, Agent-based Technologies, and context awareness. Considering its great potentials to be applied in business systems, we have devised an innovative model, based on the IWW services, for a typical mobile real-time supply chain coordination system which has been developed and tested in a real operational environment. Our article investigates the proposed system in this way: at the start, the building blocks of the IWW are discussed in detail. Then, we fully explain the basic concepts of mobile real-time supply chain coordination and concentrate on the motivations to implement such a modern system. The vision of intelligent wireless web services, as discussed in this paper, centers on the need to provide mobile supply chain members highly specific data and services in real-time on an as-needed basis, with the flexibility of use for the user. In this regard, we investigate nine enabling technologies of the IWW for our system and discuss how, by exploiting the convergence and synergy between different technologies, it has become possible to deliver intelligent wireless web support to mobile real-time supply chain coordination. Afterwards, a practical framework is clearly established in four phases. This initiative system has been implemented in the laboratory and has passed the evaluation processes successfully. Further details will be announced in near future in another research article.
This conceptual paper seeks to fulfill Thailand 4.0 initiatives in which digital technology is one of the key factors provided by Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. The initiative allows universities as a main role, industries, citizen and Thai government or private agencies to interconnect through digital infrastructures for establishing value-based society. This proposed iKnow2Cloud collaborative system will accomplish through embedded technology and mobile application in setting up Islamic knowledge management system as a main source of references. The system will collaborate between Islamic Studies Department as a main knowledge resources and IT Department for designing system architecture in Fatoni University, Thailand. Moreover, Four (4) focused groups will enable to access through this system which are people, students, academicians and institutes or agencies that confront the problem in any matters regarding to Islamic issues to search, post or live chat with registered scholars. All incoming and providing information will be stored in system databases for the future analyzing to avoid untrusted resources and getting to know society focused issues. The expected outcome of iKnow2Cloud will be improved Islamic knowledge and enhanced quality of life for the focus groups through the execution of social and education.
Research studies indicate an increase in the use of electronic document management systems (EDMS) for managing project documents by firms working in the construction industry over the past few decades. In addition to the basic function of providing the means to organize documents in a central repository, various EDMS's offer additional functionalities such as advanced document search capabilities and facilitating collaboration between project participants. A survey of the top design firms and contractors in the US was conducted in order to investigate the degree of adoption of electronic document management techniques. The objective of the survey was to identify characteristics of EDMS adopters in the industry in addition to the EDMS features/functionalities regarded as important by the users. A total of 141 respondents from 67 different top firms in the US participated in the survey. The results indicate the wide-spread use of EDM techniques by the leading firms in the industry. Concerns regarding document security and integrity play a major role in determining what document management practices are implemented.
Several important aspects characterize construction project documents. Large numbers of documents are produced in construction projects. The majority of the documents are unstructured textual documents. The production of documents is a gradual process that extends over the duration of the project. Documents, as information carriers, are an important repository of project knowledge. Project information is recorded, disputed, revised, and reiterated in various successive documents producing links between these documents and creating groups of semantically related documents within the project corpus. Despite the difficulties imposed on document management efforts by these characteristics, an electronic document management (EDM) approach must take into account these features in order to successfully manage project documents. In this study, a prototype electronic document management system (EDMS) that capitalizes on the various aspects that characterize project documents is presented. The system is based on the document discourse concept, which recognizes the semantic relations between groups of documents. The system also employs a text analysis feature which was evaluated for accuracy of classification based on document discourse and produced satisfactory results. The prototype system was evaluated using expert review. The main finding of the review recommends implementation of document discourse management as a module of an integrated project management system to achieve the best and most practical application. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
This paper presents research that investigated algorithms for high-precision identification of contextual information in location-aware engineering applications. The primary contribution of the presented work is the design and implementation of a dynamic user-viewpoint tracking scheme in which mobile users’ spatial context is defined not only by their position (i.e., location), but also by their three-dimensional head orientation (i.e., line of sight). This allows the identification of objects and artifacts visible in a mobile user’s field of view with much higher accuracy than was possible by tracking position alone. For outdoor applications, a georeferencing based algorithm has been developed using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and magnetic orientation tracking devices [5] to track a user’s dynamic viewpoint. For indoor applications, this study explored the applicability of wireless technologies, in particular Indoor GPS, for dynamic user position tracking in situations where GPS is unavailable. The objectives of this paper are to describe the details of the three-stage-algorithm that has been designed and implemented, and to demonstrate the extent to which positioning technologies such as GPS and Indoor GPS can be used together with high-precision orientation trackers to accurately interpret the fully-qualified spatial context of a mobile user in challenging environments such as those found on construction sites. The obtained results highlight the potential of using location-aware technologies for rapidly identifying and retrieving contextual information in engineering applications.
The vision of intelligent wireless web services, as discussed in this paper centres on the need to provide mobile construction workers highly specific data and services on an as-needed basis, with flexibility of use for the user. With the emergence of high speed wireless networks, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G, and parallel advancements in Internet based technologies such as the Semantic Web, Web Services, Agent based technologies and Context Awareness, the realisation of the vision of the intelligent wireless web has become a possibility. The paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the enabling technologies and discusses how, by exploiting the convergence and synergy between different technologies, it has become possible to deliver intelligent wireless web support to mobile construction workers.
Effective communication is vital for the success of concurrent engineering in construction. This requires a clear understanding of the communication facets (or interfaces, such as those between project team members and between inter- and intradiscipline design tools) implicit in the implementation of concurrent engineering. This article presents a taxonomy (or classification framework) for these communication facets within the context of concurrent life-cycle design and construction (CLDC). It identifies seven key facets of communication that need to be addressed and discusses how these facets change through the stages in the life cycle of a constructed facility. Other communication taxonomies are also briefly reviewed and related to the identified facets.
In this paper we present a new approach for build- ing metadata schemas by integrating existing ontologies and structured vocabularies (thesauri). This integration is based on the specification of inclusion relationships between the- saurus terms and ontology concepts and results in application- specific metadata schemas incorporating the structural views of ontologies and the deep classification schemes provided by thesauri. We will also show how the result of this integration can be used for RDF schema creation and metadata query- ing. In our context, (metadata) queries exploit the inclusion semantics of term relationships, which introduces some re- cursion. We will present a fairly simple database-oriented so- lution for querying such metadata which avoids a (recursive) tree traversal and is based on a linear encoding of thesaurus hierarchies.
The Semantic Web should enable greater access not only to content but also to services on the Web. Users and software agents should be able to discover, invoke, compose, and monitor Web resources offering particular services and having particular properties. As part of the DARPA Agent Markup Language program, we have begun to develop an ontology of services, called DAMLS, that will make these functionalities possible. In this paper we describe the overall structure of the ontology, the service profile for advertising services, and the process model for the detailed description of the operation of services.
Web-based project management applications serve project teams and virtual enterprises to manage project information anywhere, anytime. Central to these applications is an EDMS that enables team members to store and organize all project documents, independent of type and format. We consider two problems regarding the adoption and effective utilization of such systems. Firstly, the advantages of using an EDMS become apparent only after a relatively large collection of documents has been stored and organized in the system. Secondly, EDMS’s currently offer little support for searching and retrieving information that straddles various documents. In order to address both problems, we propose a number of user abilities to add to current EDMS functionalities, offering the user increased freedom in locating and placing a document within a collaborative information space. We explore these abilities at the hand of two information environments: one developed for the Swiss AEC industry, the other currently under development as a common and extensible library for design precedents’ analyses.
Technical integration is regarded as one of the major approaches to improve data interoperability. The Web-based integration approach used in this study is a relatively new approach in this field, but it possesses great potential. Web-based front-end integration is based on XML technology. This study investigates the use of a construction document as a "malleable frame" that can be adjusted according to the user's needs. The study also determined that a malleable frame system is technically feasible and that the key is to have a neutral data format built on a standard "Construction Markup Language." In addition, a pilot study was conducted to determine whether processing a malleable frame construction document is more efficient than processing a standard document. Overall, it is still inconclusive as to whether using the malleable frame system is more efficient than using the standard system, because other features of the malleable frame need to be studied as well. However, this research presents an alternative to achieve construction data interoperability via the Web and shows that the approach used will improve construction document processing in certain cases.
For many years, the walkie-talkie has been synonymous with the construction industry. During jobsite project execution, there are three variables which can either hinder or facilitate successful results, namely, quality, quantity, and timing of information. Wireless data communications technology is capable of delivering just-in-time information within the `last mile' between the trailer and a desired location on the jobsite. This paper reports on a study which surveyed information needs at the jobsite, emerging wireless data communications technology, and assessed the extent to which wireless data technology can fulfill the information needs of the jobsite [J.M. de la Garza, I. Howitt, Wireless communication and computing at the jobsite, Research Report 136-11, Construction Industry Institute, Austin, TX, 1997]. We have organized jobsite information needs into the following ten categories: (a) requests for information, (b) materials management, (c) equipment management, (d) cost management, (e) schedule and means and methods, (f) jobsite record keeping, (g) submittals, (h) safety, (i) QC/QA, and (k) future trends. Each category was analyzed in terms of its appropriateness to take advantage of wireless technology. The four formats considered to transmit information wirelessly were: (a) live voice, (b) live video, (c) batched data, and (d) live data. Current wireless communication technology has been classified into the following five classes: (a) circuit-switched wireless data systems, (b) packet-switched wireless data systems—this class was further subdivided into specialized mobile radio systems and cellular digital packet data systems, (c) wireless local area networks, (d) paging systems, and (e) satellite-based data communications. A primer for wireless communications covering both fundamental and advanced communications concepts has also been included to enable a better understanding of the issues involved in making trade-offs while configuring a wireless jobsite communication system. The example presented in this paper shows how a contractor can define a subset of information needs by choosing from those already articulated herein and determine if a given wireless technology should even be considered as a viable way of meeting the information needs that such company has.
The growing complexity of the built environment requires increased professional specialization to master each one of the many issues involved in designing buildings. This specialization is transforming the construction process into a highly de-centralized operation, involving an ever-growing number of collaborating professionals. Habitual modes of collaboration among the participating professionals suffer from low-grade communication, leading to misunderstanding and resulting in design and construction errors, cost and schedule overruns, and ultimately, dissatisfaction of the users with the performance of the finished products. This paper explores the roots of misunderstanding in multi-disciplinary design and presents a solution based on explicit representation of reference and frame-of-reference through three connected databases and a set of inference tools.
IT in Distributed Open Learning Environments, Construction Information Technology 2000 - Taking the Construction Industry into the 21st Century, G. Gudnason (ed.)
- Christiansson P.
Wireless Need for the Semantic Web, Position papers for SWWS'01, The FirstSemantic Web Working Symposium
- Boncarosky D.
The Suitability of IT as a Tool to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing in Construction Alliances
- B Ingirige
- M Sexton
- M Betts
Reorganising the building process" VTT Publications 258 Technical Research Centre of Finland Espoo Finland
- Ladh
IT in Collaborative Building Design (IT-CODE
- Y C Lia
- P Christiansson
- S Kjeld
Mobile Computing and Active Mediation Technology in a Ubiquitous Computing Environment
- D W Liu
- K H Law
- K Liston
- G Wiederhold