Process Information Modelling (PIM) Concept for On-site Construction Management: Hong Kong Case

When compared to the manufacturing industry, the advances of intelligent and seamless project management approaches lag behind in the construction industry. This is due to the complexity of the construction projects as well as various stakeholders who acquire specific interest of the project. For instance, public building construction has many sub-tasks and numerous systematised working processes such as planning, mobilisation, scheduling, procurement and controlling. The management of the processes of each phase of the project life cycle is of great importance in order to prevent project delay and cost overrun. A particular importance is required if construction robotics is involved since precise process and scheduling information as well as feedback are critical to ensure each task is completed accordingly. This paper proposes a holistic system approach, which focuses on the process-oriented management for on-site construction. To succeed, the Process Information Modelling (PIM) concept is introduced. The main goal of PIM is to integrate Building Information Modelling (BIM) for extensible solutions with a process-based database platform, which allows for smooth data transfer and supports continuous data sharing among all stakeholders. The overall aim is to develop a collaborative way of planning, designing, producing, assembling and managing the entire project life cycle strategy. Digital documentation, simulation and real-time data are produced progressively to facilitate decision-making. A case study applying the PIM concept for the facade painting task by a painting robot for an on-going consultancy project commissioned by the construction industry council (CIC) in Hong Kong is presented. This paper is the revised version of the paper that has been published in the proceedings of the Creative Construction Conference 2018 (Pan et al., 2018).