- Section 2.6: e-Business for
the Construction Industry
ICT Research and Development for the
Construction Industry in the European IST Programme
A. Zarli, Y. Rezgui, A.S. Kazi, T. Hassan, S. Soubra, Z. Turk,
R. Scherer
An Open Specification and Framework for
the Construction Dynamic Virtual Organisations: The OSMOS Project
Y. Rezgui, M. Bourdeau, A.S. Kazi, A. Zarli
ICT Support for Distributed Engineering
in Construction
A.S. Kazi, M. Hannus, J. Laitinen
eBusiness in Building and Construction:
The econstruct Project
R. Van Rees, F. Tolman, C. Lima, B. Fies, J. Fleuren, A. Zarli
Towards the Next Generation of Civil
Engineering Collaboration Platforms
Z. Turk, R. J. Scherer
Divercity: A VR Application for the Construction
Industry
J.-C. Lombardo, M. Marache, S. Soubra, L. Da Dalto, O. Balet,
M. Paulin
- Information
Services to Enable European Construction Enterprises: The I-SEEC
Project
Z. Turk, R. Amor, D. Bloomfield, T. Cerovsek
Knowledge Management in the Construction
Industry: The e-COGNOS Approach
M. Bourdeau, F. Giraud-Carrier, Y. Rezgui, A. Zarli
Communicating Information in the Joint
Sales Network of Construction Industry Suppliers
F. Reim
Internet Procurement for Products and
Services in the Construction and Engineering Industry - The Need
for European Standardisation
J.F. e Cunha, A. Amador, H. Nóvoa, A. Correia, J. Carvalho,
A. Lima, A. Conde
ICT
Research and Development for the Construction Industry in the
European IST Programme
Alain ZARLI(1), Yacine
REZGUI(2), Abdul Samad KAZI(3), Tarek HASSAN(4), Souheil SOUBRA(1),
Ziga TURK(5), Raimar SCHERER(6)
(1) Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment, BP 209, F-06904
Sophia Antipolis Cedex
(2) ISI, University of Salford, The Crescent, M5 4WT, Manchester,
UK,
(3) Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), P.O. Box 1801,
FIN-02044 VTT Finland,
(4) Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK
(5) University of Ljubljana, FGG-IKPIR, Jamova 2, 1000 Ljubljana,
Slovenia,
(6) University of Technology Dresden, 01062 Dresden,
This paper provides with a
synthetic presentation of currently on-going EC-funded research
and development efforts for generalising ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) integration in the construction industry
in Europe. A specific lighting is provided on six IST projects
that, as a whole, cover a large scope of the actual issues the
construction actors are today facing for a future real use of
ICT in their daily activities. This paper is an introduction
to the IST-2001-33022 cluster project ICCI providing an umbrella
for improved co-ordination of these six projects and broader
dissemination of their results, and also to the "ICT in
the construction industry" session of the e2001 conference.
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An
Open Specification and Framework for the Construction Dynamic
Virtual Organisations: The OSMOS Project
Yacine REZGUI(1), Marc
BOURDEAU(2), Abdul Samad KAZI(3) and Alain ZARLI(2)
(1) Information Systems Institute, University of Salford, The
Crescent, M5 4WT, Manchester, United Kingdom
(2) Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bdtiment (CSTB), 290
route des lucioles, B.P. 209, 06904 Sophia Antipolis cedex, France
(3) Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), P.O Box 1801,
FIN-02044 VTT, Finland
OSMOS is a European R&D
project within the Fifth Framework programme
(IST-1999-10491, Open System for inter-enterprise information
Management in dynamic virtual environments). The consortium includes
construction IT service providers: DERBi, JM, Granlund; and European
leading research centres and academic: CSTB, Information Systems
Institute of University of Salford, VTT. OSMOS aims at providing
an infrastructure that brings together, and promote co-operation
between actors and companies on construction projects. In particular,
an emphasis is put on developing an information infrastructure
that enables SMEs to be more closely integrated on projects,
to take a more active part in the design and delivery of the
construction product. First, the paper gives a general overview
of the construction industry process and organisational settings,
and introduces the aims and objectives of the OSMOS project.
The OSMOS solution is then described via a generic framework
addressing the information, sharing and process control requirements
of the project. Finally, the paper presents the OSMOS prototype
services.
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ICT
Support for Distributed Engineering in Construction
Abdul Samad KAZI(1),
Matti Hannus(1), and Jarmo Laitinen(2)
(1) VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1801,
FIN-02044 VTT, Finland
(2) YIT Corporation, Panuntie II, P.O. Box 36, FIN-00621 Helsinki,
Finland
This paper presents some of
the findings of the GLOBEMEN project with respect to ICT support
requirements for distributed engineering. The paper explores
distributed engineering, its related modes of inter-enterprise
communications, and furthermore some typical ICT support requirements
from the perspective of a construction contractor. A possible
scenario of how distributed engineering in construction.could
take place on the basis of a shared product model is furthermore
presented. The scenario illustrates how different actors in the
construction lifecycle share their respective partial models
to be merged together to form the product model to be used for
a project. The paper concludes with a brief presentation of an
envisioned distributed engineering environment for construction.
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eBusiness
in Building and Construction: The econstruct Project
Reinout VAN REES(1),
Frits TOLMAN(1), Celson LIMA(2), Bruno FIES(2), Joost FLEUREN(1),
Alain ZARLI(2)
(1) Delft University of Technology, PO Box 5048, NL-2600 GA,
Delft, The Netherlands
(2) Centre Scientfque et Technique du Batiment, 290, B.P. 209,
06904 Sophia Antipolis, France
The paper presents the current
state of the European IST 10303 "eConstruct" project.
After a broad overview that focuses on the industrial relevance
of the project, emphasis is on the development of the open bcXML
architecture, its implementation and its uses.
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Towards
the Next Generation of Civil Engineering Collaboration Platforms
Ziga TURK(1) and Raimar
J. SCHERER
(1) FGG-IKPIR, University of Ljubljana, Jumova 2, 1000 Ljubljana,
Slovenina;
(2) Lehrstuhl fur Computeranwendung im Bauwesen, Technische Universitat
Dresden,
D-01062 Dresden, Germany
The Internet is being increasingly
used as a collaboration platform so that design and planing information
is available to all involved through a web browser. Several companies
offer such collaboration environments for rent. However, these
environments are closed, project centred and provide only for
document/file level information exchange. ISTforCE is a European
5" Framework Information Society project (2001-2003) aimed
at developing technologies for the next generation of such services.
The acronym stands for "Intelligent Services and Tools for
Concurrent Engineering". The novel approaches in ISTforCE
are (1) that one should not provide project centred environments,
but that these should be focused on a human, (2) that collaboration
environments should be open so that they provide a platform where
users and providers of engineering information, services and
tools meet - clients of such environments are therefore both
engineers as well as providers of services, (3) that object level
data exchange is possible and (4) that infrastructure for on-line
business is provided - for legal and financial transactions.
In the paper we present the actors and use cases of such an environment,
the overall multiple-tier client-server architecture and a GUI
of a prototype.
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Divercity:
A VR Application for the Construction Industry
Jean-Christophe Lombardo(1),
Mathieu Marache(1), Soubeil Soubra(1), Laurent Da Dalto(2), Olivier
Balet(2), Mathias Paulin(3)
(1) CSTB, BP 209, 06 904 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
(2) CS SI, 13 rue Andre Villet, BP 4042.31029 Toulouse Cedex
4, France
(3) IRIT-UPS 118, route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
The construction industry is
extremely fragmented: a high number of different (mostly small)
companies meet and work together only for the duration of the
project. Current methods of communicating building design information
can lead to several types of difficulties (e.g. incomplete understanding
of the planned construction, functional inefficiencies, inaccurate
initial work, etc.). We believe that integrated software solutions
based on VR technologies can bring significant value improvement
and cost reduction to this industry as it did to other industrial
sectors. The aim of this paper is to present the research carried
out in the frame of DIVERCITY (Distributed Virtual Workspace
for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry
- IST project n"13365). DIVERCITY's goal is to develop a
Virtual Workspace that addresses the three key building construction
phases (Client briefing, Design Review and Construction) therefore
allowing teams based in different geographic locations to collaboratively
design, test and validate shared virtual projects. The global
DIVERCITY project will be presented in terms of objectives and
software architecture then a special focus will be made on the
Design Review Workspace and, in particular, on lighting simulations.
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Information
Services to Enable European Construction Enterprises: The I-SEEC
Project
Ziga TURK(1), Robert
AMOR(2), Dave BLOOMFIELD(3), Tomo CEROVSEK(1),
(1) FGG-IKPIR, University ofLjubljana, Jamova 2, 1000 Ljubljana,
Slovenia
(2) University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
(3) BRE Ltd, BucknaIls Lane, Garston. Watford, HERTS. WD25 9XX,
UK.
The construction industry traditionally
had local roots. Particularly small and medium enterprises have
been operating locally and were supplied by local materials and
components. Most Internet based information services aimed at
the construction industry followed this pattern and have been
local as well. The goal of two European projects - CONNET and
I-SEEC was to develop the infrastructure to add a European dimension
to such services and in this way contribute to the internationalisation
of the industry. Acknowledging the fact, that the best source
of local information exists locally, the result is a federation
of information services. The services are integrated through
the use of (1) common application interfaces, (2) common data
structures and (3) a pan European meta search. The information
can be viewed through the optics of several classification systems
and languages through the use of thesauri, We found that the
implemented approach is viable both technically and commercially.
There is a lack, however, of commonly accepted standards that
would ease the building of federated, distributed construction
services, both in the area of the data structures, information
metadata and service to service interfacing.
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Knowledge
Management in the Construction Industry: The e-COGNOS Approach
Marc BOURDEAU(1), Francois
GIRAUD-CARRIER(2), Yacine REZGUI(3) and Alain ZARLI(1)
(1) Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment, BP 209, F-06904
Sophia Antipolis Cedex
(2) Derbi, 18 boulevard de la Bastille, F-75012 Paris
(3) University of Salford, Information Systems Institute, Salford,
M5 4WT, UK
This paper presents the outlines
of the e-COGNOS project funded by the European Commission in
the framework of the IST programme. This project aims at specifying
and developing an open model-based infrastructure and a set of
tools that promote consistent knowledge management within collaborative
construction environments. The work will rely on a deep understanding
of knowledge management activities of European construction companies.
The analysis of the semantics within and across documents will
lead onto the development of ontologies and adaptive mechanisms
that can organise documents according to their contents and interdependencies.
The web-based infrastructure will include services allowing to
create, capture, index, retrieve and disseminate knowledge. It
will also favour the integration of proprietary tools. The e-COGNOS
approach will be tested and evaluated through a series of field
trials. This will be followed by the delivery of business recommendations
regarding the deployment of e-COGNOS in the construction sector.
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Communicating
Information in the Joint Sales Network of Construction Industry
Suppliers
Friedemann Reim
Infoman Informationsmanagement GmbH, Vaihinger Str. 169, D-70567
Stuttgart
Sharing and transferring of
business information, knowledge and best practices used to be
inefficient among co-operating construction companies. Small
and medium sized companies often lost know-how in their sales
network. Several such companies decided to use systematic procedures
and responsibilities to structure the workflow and thus to retain
the knowledge.
Efficiently communicating information among collaborating sales
persons, eventually sharing of knowledge within and between business
organisations, establishing a simple and quick reporting hierarchy
are being realised in a joint IT project. The paper describes
how construction companies in the production of prefabricated
elements plan to use a communication network in order to stay
competitive. It reports on practical experiences and visions
along with EU- funded project ECC (CRAFT-1999-70200).
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Internet
Procurement for Products and Services in the Construction and
Engineering Industry - The Need for European Standardisation
Joao Faldcao e CUNHA(1), Antonio
AMADOR(2), Henriqueta NdVOA(1), Ana CORREIA(2), Joao0 CARVALHO(1),
Antonio LIMA(3), Antonio CONDE(3)
(1) FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal;
(2) INEGI - Institute de Engenharia Meccanica e Gestao Industrial,
Rua do Barroco, 174, 4465-591 Leca do Balio, Portugal
(3) AMM - Alberto Mesquita e Filhos SA, Rua do Souto 1, 4471-001
Maia
The construction industry is
under pressure to find ways to improve efficiency and quality,
and to keep costs under control. Most of the communication throughout
the supply chain is based on paper, fax or email, with massive
duplication of in and out processing information to and from
internal systems. For instance, in order to submit a proposal
for a tender for a project, a construction company must undertake
a procurement exercise that may involve hundreds of suppliers,
making decisions regarding the best supplier for each supplying
task. This usually must be done in co-operation with project
partners', and if the proposal is accepted, usually many months
later, the same exercise must be re-done as products, services
and prices change with time, and negotiation will then be much
more controlled. This paper will address the way a particular
company has implemented an advanced prototype of a Web based
life-cycle procurement system, fully integrated with the internal
management system. The procurement system starts with a materials
and service requirement list, based on the project proposal documentation
(from the tender), and uses the supplier's database of the company
to organise patterns of consultations. Based on such patterns,
it then publishes on the Internet or the Extranet all the required
procurement tasks, organised to facilitate evaluation of answers.
All this process is automatic, but users can change all of the
default assumptions. This procurement system will be fully integrated
with Internet-based document management systems and workflow
control tools. Currently this procurement system uses company
standards for materials and services' definition. However, the
competition with some advanced suppliers' procurement systems
in the Internet, and the emergence of national and international
online-marketplaces targeting the construction industry will
require that an European level of standardisation will become
available for the Industry.
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