Building information modelling (BIM) has been made mandatory as part of the public procurement pr... more Building information modelling (BIM) has been made mandatory as part of the public procurement process in the UK. This move will by default encourage SMEs to develop their own capabilities to work with BIM technologies in order to maintain their market share or gain competitive advantage. It is argued that graduates with BIM expertise will be high in demand and will also have a profound effect on the sector and high project performance. This paper argues that the industry should look to the construction related education providers to instil students with awareness of BIM concepts and principles. This trend must be underpinned by educating and training BIM users and preparing future industry participants by modifying the curricula of architecture, engineering and construction and construction related programmes. The research will use case study approach to capture data from key staff, students and documentary evidence from two universities, one in the north-east and the other in the ...
Existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry are constrained by their reliance on... more Existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry are constrained by their reliance on static methods of information delivery, which are often not appropriate to meet changing work demand resulting from dynamic project conditions. This paper focuses on a new interaction paradigm i.e. context-aware information delivery (CAID), which promises to make information provisioning more responsive to workers’ changing work demands. A roadmap to personalized CAID in construction is laid out, with a focus on creating a pervasive user-centred intelligent work environment capable of serving relevant information needs of busy construction professionals by intelligent interpretation of their context. Research approach includes use of scenario planning method. Face-to-face unstructured interviews were arranged with 28 industry and technology experts for scenario validation and provided input for the road-mapping exercise. The research demonstrates that the realisation of the CAID vision ...
Visual Management (VM) is a fundamental element of the lean production system that relies on the ... more Visual Management (VM) is a fundamental element of the lean production system that relies on the effectiveness of sensory communication to realise the lean production/construction goals. VM can be implemented by following certain frameworks in an incremental fashion. Visual controls are one of the main tools of VM that are used to limit and guide process outcomes. They are generally adopted in production management, process, safety, quality, and maintenance management efforts. VM and visual controls have extensively been an important part of lean construction initiatives for a while. Their implementation is also envisioned to be relevant to highway construction and maintenance projects. A set of critical points, general recommendations and possible areas of implementation for VM and visual controls identified from both research and practical experience are presented in this report.
Context-aware information delivery for mobile construction workers
The potential of mobile Information Technology (IT) applications to support the information needs... more The potential of mobile Information Technology (IT) applications to support the information needs of mobile construction workers has long been understood. However, existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry have underlined limitations, including their inability to respond to the changing user context, lack of semantic awareness and poor integration with the desktop-based infrastructure. This research argues that awareness of the user context (such as user role, preferences, task-at-hand, location, etc.) can enhance mobile IT applications in the construction industry by providing a mechanism to deliver highly specific information to mobile workers by intelligent interpretation of their context. Against this this background, the aim of this research was to investigate the applicability of context-aware information delivery (CAID) technologies in the construction industry. The research methodology adopted consisted of various methods. A literature review on context-aw...
Lean construction and construction automation are two of the important efforts to improve the per... more Lean construction and construction automation are two of the important efforts to improve the performance of the construction industry. However, apart from a small number of scholarly articles and implementation prototypes, the lean and digital construction movements seem to be largely running independent of each other. This paper aims at exploring those connections between Visual Management (VM), a fundamental information management strategy in lean construction, and emerging technologies, demonstrating the synergy between the two concepts over potential implementation scenarios and establishing their conceptual connections in construction. Consequently, the hypothesis of the paper is there is a significant synergy between emerging technologies (construction automation) and visual/sensory information management strategies (Visual Management) in lean construction. The hypothesis is explored by (i) discussing how emerging technologies can support conventional VM tools and techniques ...
Existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry are constrained by their reliance on... more Existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry are constrained by their reliance on static methods of information delivery, from dynamic project conditions. This paper information delivery (CAID), which promises to ma changing work demands. A roadmap to personalized pervasive user-centred intelligent work environment capable of serving relevant information needs of busy construction professionals by intelligent interpretation of their context. scenario planning method. Face-to-face experts for scenario validation and provided input for the road that the realisation of the CAID vision is within reach and will t mobile information technology in the co delivery will save valuable time and construction ICT applications and worker’s immediate work environment more responsive to work demands, thereby allowing better management of construction projects. enabling elements with methodological, cultu industry. This would require a multi computer science, ergonomics, social studi...
The information intensive nature of construction projects requires the site personnel to have an ... more The information intensive nature of construction projects requires the site personnel to have an on-demand access to project information. Current information delivery methods are primarily static and do not take into account the site personnel's changing context. Delivering information to site staff, based on their context (such as location, time and profile) has the tremendous potential to improve construction productivity. In this paper a prototype application for context-aware information delivery is discussed. The implementation is based on a Pocket-PC platform and makes use of wireless local area networking (WLAN) to capture context parameters. A semantics-based Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) is used for both context interpretation and to define construction documents and project task structure. Conclusions are drawn about the possible future impact of context-aware applications for the construction industry.
The information intensive nature of construction projects requires project team members to have o... more The information intensive nature of construction projects requires project team members to have on-demand access to project information. However, existing mobile communication deployments in the construction industry rely on static modes of information delivery and do not take into account the worker’s changing context and dynamic project conditions. This often results in a mismatch between what an application can offer and the actual (data) requirements of mobile workers. This paper explains how awareness of user context (such as user profile/role, preferences, task, location, existing project conditions, etc.) can enhance construction collaboration by providing a mechanism to deliver pertinent information. Also, parallel to the recent developments in context-aware computing technologies, there are developments in Web Services which provide the ability to dynamically discover and invoke services regardless of operating system or programming language. This enables mobile workers to ...
This report presents a collaborative research effort between the University of Salford and Highwa... more This report presents a collaborative research effort between the University of Salford and Highways England on the implementation of the Visual Management (VM) concept,a fundamental element of lean construction, in the highways construction supply chain. After 10 visits to 5 different highways construction sites to identify VM implementation opportunities for the project, the 5S, which is a systematic visual workplace structuring methodology and the very first step to creating a visually transparent workplace, was implemented in one of the highways construction sites. The recorded benefits include a significant reduction in item transaction times (circa 50% reduction on average), savings in space (both vertical and horizontal), and improvements in the overall health and safety conditions. Alongside demonstrating the captured benefits, the report also explores the current 5S condition and how to disseminate the 5S concept further through the highways supply chain. A discussion of the...
There has been a tremendous growth in facilities management (FM) systems over the last twenty yea... more There has been a tremendous growth in facilities management (FM) systems over the last twenty years. These systems have evolved from paper-based methods to become more ITbased. However, there are still limitations in the level of communication between different subsystems of an FM system and between the helpdesk and building management systems. There are also inadequate links between computer-aided facilities management systems (CAFM) and decision analysis tools. Recent developments in information and communications technologies will enable these shortcomings of conventional systems to be addressed while opening up the possibilit ies for the development of next -generation FM systems. Such next-generation systems are expected to incorporate sensors, wireless communications systems, tagging and tracking systems (such as RFID), and advanced integrated software systems. This paper explores this potential for the development of next- generation FM systems. It starts with a critical revi...
Groups of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed members are increasingly being assembl... more Groups of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed members are increasingly being assembled to accomplish a wide range of organizational tasks using a combination of telecommunication and information technologies. The emergence of such technologically savvy globally dispersed teams has also heralded a complex and largely uninvestigated area of interaction practices of such team members. By enabling team interactions via non-traditional media, information technologies have actually expanded and transformed the conventional team interaction space. This paper assesses the impact of team interaction space on perceived team performance using qualitative and quantitative research techniques. To collect qualitative data, interviews were conducted with members from globally dispersed teams from three Global 500 companies. Audio, video and face-to-face team interactions between these team members were observed and analyzed. A survey on team interaction space was administered to the t...
The use of programme management systems by construction programme managers is critical nowadays. ... more The use of programme management systems by construction programme managers is critical nowadays. The increasing complexity of multiple construction projects require information and service delivery systems that are more effective and efficient in order for the programme manager to be able to achieve the business objectives or benefits. This paper reports on the main findings from a study of programme managers in the United Kingdom and Malaysia concerning the challenges and issues in the delivery of information and services in multiple construction project environment and explores how the context of a user (such as role, location, time, preference, etc) may be utilised to provide personalised information. The discussion in the paper focuses on the key issues and requirements for programme managers to manage multiple projects using the existing programme management tools. Conclusions are drawn about the potential implementation of context-aware computing technologies in the current co...
Construction project delivery is highly dependent on the effectiveness of the team put together t... more Construction project delivery is highly dependent on the effectiveness of the team put together to execute the project. To provide real time, on-demand intelligent mobile collaboration support for their workers, construction enterprises increasingly need to use powerful wireless devices coupled with the availability of improved bandwidth, to tap into different inter and intra-enterprise data resources. This paper focuses on the synergy between the Semantic Web, Web Services and agent technologies in the provision of such mobile collaboration support infrastructure. A multi-tier architecture is presented, which 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 multi-agent technologies (to help mobile worker accomplish a particular task) to support intelligent mobile collaboration. Future deployment scenarios...
This paper explores the benefits of Visual Management (VM), a fundamental sensory information man... more This paper explores the benefits of Visual Management (VM), a fundamental sensory information management strategy in the lean production system, in the transportation sector in England. Lean construction and VM have recently gained momentum in England’s transportation construction supply chain with high efficiency targets. VM in construction is a scarcely researched topic, particularly outside the building construction context with its quantitative and qualitative benefits. The recorded benefits of four different visual tools/systems (visual workplace structuring or the 5S, visual performance system, visual specification/indicator and visual control) from one highways construction and one metro station upgrade project in England were presented through an action and case study research effort. The findings show that VM systems can contribute to (i) increased self-management, (ii) increased coordination, (iii) increased PPC through better promises, (iv) easier control and (v) improved...
An efficient maintenance of the UK’s transportation network is of critical importance to the coun... more An efficient maintenance of the UK’s transportation network is of critical importance to the country’s economy and among the top priorities of the government and public agencies (e.g. Network Rail, Highways England). The public transportation agencies have huge data sets related to asset management and maintenance. However, those data sets are usually held in disparate platforms and have been historically developed using multiple standards and formats. As a result, full value of such data is often not fully realized. Effective management of asset data and availability of reliable information as and when needed, could bring in key benefits for effective management of the transportation network. This paper aims to present the initial findings of a research effort understanding the potential of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in handover processes for a more efficient maintenance of highways assets, and discuss the way forward. The research methodology applied is systematic litera...
This paper discusses the potential to use an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)/Building Informati... more This paper discusses the potential to use an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)/Building Information Modelling (BIM) based method to undertake Building Energy Performance analysis of an academic building. BIM/IFC based methodology provides a mechanism for providing quick and cost-effective feedback to building users. The paper discusses the need for IFC and BIM-based analysis of existing buildings. A case study of Building Energy Performance Analysis of an academic building is presented with a detailed discussion on various interventions undertaken to calibrate the model. The paper concludes that BIM/IFC based approaches provide a feasible alternative to conduct energy analysis of existing buildings provided various correlations are built into the model.
Model making is a crucial part of the design development for evaluating the form, fit, and functi... more Model making is a crucial part of the design development for evaluating the form, fit, and functionality of a design before a notable investment is made. The emergence of novel technologies and their increasing uptake are helping to redefine the architecture and the architects’master builder role by altering the way architects think and make things. Different methods and strategies are available to utilize for the production of artifacts that are considered not only to be new communication and representation tools but also are being utilized for testing and evaluation during design processes. Rapid-prototyping processes are forming a language for use between different phases of the design and are considered as a feedback mechanism informing each other. This article presents the experimental research products of two rapidprototyping technologies, focusing on how each technology can effectively be used in the delivery of design intent. Prototyping machines were used in testing the acc...
Disputes are common problems in the construction industry. The unclear contract underlines in mos... more Disputes are common problems in the construction industry. The unclear contract underlines in most practiced procurement systems lead to various disputes among stakeholders . In order to minimise the problem, it is interesting to identify the disputes and conflict arises in the industry. This paper exp lore the pattern of construction disputes occurrence in Malaysia through legal cases synthesis extracted from available data bases such as Construction Law Report and Building Report. Result identified six (6) categories of disputes happen in the Malaysian construction industry that are people/stakeholders/ organisation, nature of the work and project administration, contractual and procurement, poor workmanship, design and external f actors. These factors are worth to be considered in proposing new procurement system for sustainable Malaysian construction industry.
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