Integration and Interoperability of IT Applications in Construction

Information fragmentation has been identified as a major contribution to the huge waste in the architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) industry. Information and communication technology (ICT) has been recognized as one of the effective solutions to this problem. Although a number of IT applications have been developed and applied for various purposes in the AEC industry, it still lacks integrated technologies and applications, which can deal with comprehensive trade-off of the overall issues that should be taken into account in the lifecycle of a building project. This study, as part of the nD modelling research, specifically focuses on the issues of integration and interoperability of building information and IT applications in the AEC industry. The study adopted a series of empirical research methodologies, such as literature review and workshop based vision development. These methodologies helped the author to expand the knowledge in the relevant research areas, identify requirements from both industry and academia, and define the research questions and objectives. In Particular, this study also applied a typical methodology for IT-focused research – the prototyping approach. As the detailed techniques of prototyping, the conceptual modelling and prototype development were conducted as the major research activities in the study. An integrated conceptual model of IT applications and information repositories was developed to illustrate the overall IT applications and databases that are categorised into ‘resource database’ as input and ‘project database’ as output in a building project. This conceptual model can also help us to identify the gaps between current IT and ideally integrated applications. By targeting some of these gaps, two prototypes were developed to demonstrate the applications of some advanced techniques and the ideas of this study. This aims to close the gaps impeding integration and interoperability of information and IT applications in the AEC industry. Based on the integrated system architecture of the nD modelling tool, the first prototype tool focuses on an IFC-based application for lifecycle costing and accessibility dimension checking. It also consists of an integrated interface facilitated by interactive virtual reality visualisation. The second prototype demonstrates an application of a resource database of the design guidance for the Alzheimer clinic environment design. It is embedded in a CAD system and aims to assist designers in conceptual design. The evaluation and discussion about the software prototypes, conducted by a range of experts in a number of meetings, forums and workshops, are also detailed in this thesis. Finally, the conclusions and future work are addressed toward the end of this thesis