A MODULARIZED APPROACH TO THE INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENT

The lack of a high level structure for and a full understanding of an integrate environment has led to the development of a number of small integrated applications in various fields of construction. This paper has addressed this issue and proposes a strategic, but generic, framework for an Integrated Construction Environment (ICE). The framework is based on three main components; the central core data models, the construction applications, and project specific information. The paper has adopted IDEF0 notations to represent a process based model which shows the various activities involved in the ICE along with their relationship with each other. The framework highlights a methodology for operating such an environment addressing specifically the three main issues outlined above.