ITcon Vol. 4, pg. 17-36, http://www.itcon.org/1999/2

Industry Foundation Classes for Project Management - A Trial Implementation

submitted:March 1999
revised:November 1999
published:November 1999
editor(s):B-C. Bjoerk
authors:Thomas Froese, Associate Professor
University of British Columbia, Canada
email: tfroese@civil.ubc.ca, http://www.civil.ubc.ca/~tfroese/
Martin Fischer, Associate Professor
Stanford University, USA
email: fischer@ce.stanford.edu, http://www.stanford.edu/~fischer

Francois Grobler, Civil Engineer/Principal Investigator
US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory
email: f-grobler@cecer.army.mil

John Ritzenthaler
Timberline Software Corporation, USA
email: johnritz@gte.net

Kevin Yu, Software Developer R&D,
Timberline Software Corporation, University of British Columbia, Canada
email: keviny@timberline.com

Stuart Sutherland
Bovis Construction Corporation, USA
email: stuart.sutherland@bovis.com

Sheryl Staub, Graduate Research Assistant
email: sstaub@leland.Stanford.edu

Burcu Akinci, Ph.D. Candidate
email: akinci@leland.Stanford.edu

Ragip Akbas, Graduate Research Assistant
email: rakbas@leland.Stanford.edu

Bonsang Koo, Graduate Research Assistant
email: bonsang@leland.Stanford.edu

Alex Barron, Graduate Research Assistant
email: abarron@leland.Stanford.edu

John Kunz, Senior Research Scientist
email: kunz@ce.stanford.edu
all: Stanford University, USA
summary:An effort is underway to develop Industry Foundation Classes--industry-standard data structures for exchanging information about construction projects. In addition to physical information about buildings, these classes represent project management information such as estimating and scheduling data. Many core concepts relating to the project management portions of the Industry Foundation Classes have recently been added to these models, but these have received virtually no testing and implementation to date. A workshop was held to work through an implementation and evaluation exercise for these models. The results identified many areas for potential improvement, but also confirmed that the overall approach taken by the models worked well for representing and integrating product, work process, estimating, and scheduling information. 
keywords:International Alliance for Interoperability, IAI, Industry Foundation Classes, IFC, Project Management, Estimating, Scheduling, Project Modelling, Data Standards, Integration
full text: (PDF file, 0.711 MB)
citation:Froese, T, Fischer M, Grobler H, Ritzenthaler J, Yu K, Sutherland S, Staub S, Akinci B, Akbas R, Koo B, Barron A, Kunz J (1999). Industry Foundation Classes for Project Management - A Trial Implementation, ITcon Vol. 4, pg. 17-36, https://www.itcon.org/1999/2