ITcon Vol. 11, pg. 565-586, http://www.itcon.org/2006/40

Assistance to building construction coordination – towards a multi-view cooperative platform

submitted:December 2005
revised:April 2006
published:July 2006
editor(s):Katranuschkov P
authors:Sylvain Kubicki, Architect, PhD applicant
MAP-CRAI Laboratory, Architecture School of Nancy, France
email: sylvain.kubicki@crai.archi.fr, http://www.crai.archi.fr

Jean Claude Bignon, Architect, Professor
MAP-CRAI Laboratory, Architecture School of Nancy, France
email: jean-claude.bignon@crai.archi.fr

Gilles Halin, Dr., Lecturer
MAP-CRAI, University of Nancy 2, France
email: gilles.halin@crai.archi.fr

Pascal Humbert, Dr., Research Engineer
MAP-CRAI Laboratory, Architecture School of Nancy, France
email: pascal.humbert@crai.archi.fr
summary:Building construction is a complex activity, involving numerous and heterogeneous actors during relatively short periods. The methods of project management used are specific because of the complexity of the architectural “object” and the prototype character of each operation. Methods usually used in other industrial sectors (such as workflow definition or inverse engineering) are not transposable in the AEC domain. In fact, coordination modes existing in this domain are adapted to its particularities (decentralised decisions, uncertainties on the building construction methods etc.). Our analysis shows that coordination takes two major forms: on the one hand there are explicit and hierarchical methods, and on the other mutual adjustment between actors is necessary and implicit. We suggest to model this particular cooperative activity using model driven engineering based on the MOF architecture. This form of engineering allows us to define entities in relation in the cooperation at a high abstraction level. This abstraction enables us to design tools adapted to the cooperation in the AEC sector by defining an infrastructure based on a cooperation model. We suggest a new assistance tool for coordination (building construction multi-view interface) taking into account the analysis of coordination modes and IT potentialities. The tool provides a vision of the activity from coordination point of view. It adapts information representation to the user context and uses multi-view arrangements to allow the user navigating in project context. It is integrated in a cooperation platform, managing information about the project and redirects the user to other external tools if necessary. Interface views of the tool are suggested in the paper. Its design is still in progress.
keywords:Building construction process, coordination, awareness, model-driven architecture, process modelling, cooperative context multi-vie.
full text: (PDF file, 1.419 MB)
citation:Kubicki S, Bignon J C, Halin G and Humbert P (2006). Assistance to building construction coordination – towards a multi-view cooperative platform, ITcon Vol. 11, Special issue Process Modelling, Process Management and Collaboration, pg. 565-586, https://www.itcon.org/2006/40