An information management model for concurrent construction engineering ’

Projects in the construction industry are increasingly characterised by large numbers of actors working concurrently at different locations and using heterogeneous technologies. In order to support this kind of collaborative engineering, project information needs to be conceptually modelled throughout its lifecycle, along with the events that impact upon it by causing state changes. There exists, therefore, an urgent need to provide a flexible framework in which the highly interleaved and interactive events and transactions inherent in complex construction projects can be managed effectively. This paper addresses these issues by proposing such a conceptual framework consisting of four levels of abstraction and functionality governed by the COMMIT (Construction Modelling and Methodologies for Intelligent inTegration of information) Information Management Model (CIMM). A comprehensive presentation of the CIMM (which tackles issues such as versioning, notification, object rights and ownership) is given. The CIMM also facilitates the recording of the intent behind construction project decisions, thereby providing a complete project history. Finally, the model is illustrated through two proposed scenarios dealing with selected objects ’ lifecycles during design stages and actor transaction management