Design of a Framework for Supporting the Execution-Management of Small and Medium sized Projects in the AEC-industry

The paper describes a framework for efficiently organizing and managing construction projects, aimed at reducing time and cost overruns. The approach provides concepts and tools to constantly monitor the actual progress of a project, so as to identify problems early on and to take corrective action by replanning and rescheduling. The framework combines three correlated modules: (1) Process Modeling, where high-level information about the structure of the building, the tasks to be performed and their interdependencies, the qualifications of the workforce needed, and the expected performance is collected; (2) Scheduling, where the daily or weekly work assignment to the crews is determined, based on the modeling information and the actual progress; (3) Actualization, where the actual work performed on site is recorded, using the concepts of the process model. We show how the framework can be translated into the architecture of an IT system to support the approach and report on a prototype that is currently under development.