Special issue on construction informatics

The European Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering (EG-ICE) Workshop 2009 on Intelligent Computing in Engineering was hosted by Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. Computing in engineering is a growing field which traditionally has been focusing on numerical methods such as the determination of physical behaviour of structures. Today, computing in engineering includes geometric modelling and simulation of technical systems, design support, diagnostic applications such as system identification, control of complex systems and data fusion. It expands its focus onto the field of construction and infrastructure management. Research and development in topics of computing in engineering require a strong theoretical basis that often originates from concepts developed in basic fields such as mathematics. Applications often benefit from advances in modern information and communication hardware. For example, sensor technologies and data interpretation are now important topics for researchers in computing in engineering. The wide range of topics was reflected by the programme of the workshop in Berlin; and the community is proud of this extensive range of topics. In Berlin, the decision was made that a special issue with contributions to the Berlin event should be worked out. In cooperation with the editors of this journal, the committee of EG-ICE and the organizers of the 2009 event in Berlin, we decided to select ‘‘Construction Informatics” as the topic for this special issue. There is a common understanding in all engineering sectors that digital models have to include processes. Construction processes are focused on research activities since a couple of years. For instance, starting with research at Stanford University more than 10 years ago, 4D technologies have been investigated to improve the understanding of the complexity of construction processes. Research activities have influenced the use of modern information technology in the context of construction processes, and this special issue contains research papers in the field of construction informatics with a close link to construction processes. The issue starts with the paper ‘‘Bridge-Construction Schedule Generation with Pattern-based Construction Models and Constraint-based Simulation” [1]. For specific kinds of projects, i.e. bridge construction, an approach is presented that assists the automatic generation of schedules for projects of this kind. The approach makes use of a three-dimensional model. Components are specified to describe the structure. Activities and constraints are extracted from this model based on pre-defined construction methods that are assigned to components. Activities cover information about required resources and quantities. Based on this information, a Monte-Carlo simulation is executed to generate a proposal for the schedule ensuring that no constraint is violated. Due to the availability of the link between components and activities, four-dimensional animations can be executed without any additional effort of specification. A simple bridge project was used