A VISION FOR A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT MANAGEMENT OF AND LEARNING FROM CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS

Construction projects are information-intensive. The availability of integrated project data and the recording of such data throughout the construction process are essential not only for project monitoring, but also to build a repository of historical project information that can be used to improve future project performance. This paper describes ongoing research and proposes a knowledge-based framework that uses ontological engineering to help retrieve and disseminate construction engineers’ tacit knowledge in managing on-site construction problems. A Problem/Action (P/A) model is presented to describe the relationships between relevant concepts describing a P/A pair. The ontology-driven search mechanisms implemented will enable users to query for P/A pairs based on the related “concepts” rather than on mere “keywords” used to describe the problems. The authors expect that the envisioned framework will enable standardized storage and retrieval of construction problems/actions knowledge and apply an automated, semantic reasoning process to manage reported knowledge. This would allow construction engineers to better share and use corporate knowledge when searching for appropriate actions to remedy on-site construction problems. The shared knowledge is also expected to help better predict the impacts of remediation actions in a project life cycle, positively affecting their cost and schedule ramifications.

[1]  Nabil Kartam,et al.  Making Effective Use of Construction Lessons Learned in Project Life Cycle , 1996 .

[2]  Celson Lima,et al.  Domain Taxonomy for Construction Concepts: Toward a Formal Ontology for Construction Knowledge , 2005 .

[3]  Alexander Palagin,et al.  INFORMATION THEORIES & APPLICATIONS , 2003 .

[4]  Tamer E. El-Diraby,et al.  A semantic framework to support corporate memory management in building construction , 2006 .

[5]  Tamer E. El-Diraby,et al.  Ontology-based optimisation of knowledge management in e-Construction , 2005, J. Inf. Technol. Constr..

[6]  Frank Boukamp,et al.  Leveraging project models for automated identification of construction safety requirements , 2007 .

[7]  Yimin Zhu,et al.  Capturing Implicit Structures in Unstructured Content of Construction Documents , 2007 .

[8]  Aminah Robinson Fayek,et al.  Automated Corrective Action Selection Assistant , 1994 .

[9]  Yu-Cheng Lin,et al.  Developing an activity-based knowledge management system for contractors , 2004 .

[10]  Alan D. Russell.  Computerized Daily Site Reporting , 1993 .

[11]  Gregory A. Howell,et al.  Model for Understanding, Preventing, and Resolving Project Disputes , 2001 .

[12]  Thomas R. Gruber,et al.  A translation approach to portable ontology specifications , 1993, Knowl. Acquis..

[13]  Ching-Hwang Wang,et al.  PCM in Taiwan: A Diagnosis Knowledge-Base in PCM Plan/Design Phase , 2007 .

[14]  Vladimir Gorovoy,et al.  INTELLIGENT SEARCH AND AUTOMATIC DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGING BASED ON ONTOLOGY APPROACH , 2007 .

[15]  Sidney M. Levy.  Project Management in Construction , 1987 .

[16]  Yacine Rezgui,et al.  Ontology-Centered Knowledge Management Using Information Retrieval Techniques , 2006 .