Each industrial domain's business models provide unique contexts for information technology innovation. The part of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry that deals with building design and construction is the subject of this article. On a variety of construction sites, the building industry custom designs, engineers, and constructs projects. The parts are either off-the-shelf, made-to-order, or custom-built on-site. On a project, a group of design and engineering experts collaborate, each bringing their own expertise and using specialised software. The value of all construction work in the United States is $845 billion (Economic Census, 2000), making it one of the country's largest industries.
For over twenty-five years, digital knowledge-based building models have been promoted as the standard representation for construction work. We use the term "knowledge-based building models" to refer to the combined use of several technologies: (1) multiple heterogeneous computer applications that allow three-dimensional representation, design, analysis, and management of the systems and components that make up the proposed building, all of which incorporate significant domain knowledge; (2) backend workflow integration using one or more building product models; (3) associated Internet links to material supplies, delivery planning, operational controls, and other such services required for the building's procu We take all of these technologies into account to determine current best practises for advanced information technology use (IT).
Despite ten years of serious building model efforts (e.g., CIMsteel – CIS/2 2001), national and international efforts to move the AEC industries toward the use of advanced information technologies have made little progress. Almost all buildings designed today are still represented primarily through two-dimensional (2D) drawings. This isn't to say there hasn't been progress; rather, the construction industry's unique circumstances have prevented it from moving as quickly as other product-oriented industries like manufacturing, electronics, aerospace, and other industrial sectors. It hasn't even advanced as quickly as the arts and entertainment industries, such as television, film, or music production.
This paper examines why there has been so little progress and proposes a strategy for the AEC industry's gradual conversion to advanced IT applications. We use the structural steel and precast concrete sectors of the construction industry as examples. The concerns and strategies may be applicable to industries other than AEC. In the architectural and general contracting industries, the majority of the standards stated above have not been satisfied. However, since these activities are the key information producers, the bulk of research in the building construction product-modeling arena has concentrated on integration at the frontend architectural design element of the process. The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) and its Industry Foundation Class (IFC) building model (IFC 2001) are now leading the charge in establishing a knowledge-based building model. The IAI brings together a diverse group of construction industry groups to support the development of the IFCs.
Architects and engineers, on the other hand, were expected to spend just as much in converting their business procedures to the new software tools needed by the IFC integration technology. Different methods of 3D Modeling Services enable us to develop a variety of different objects, some of which are better than others. Large-scale IT system installation requires not just vision and money, but also major process changes, which need organisational reorganisation (Egan 1998). Architects and engineers earn a tiny and generally set share of the construction dollar, notwithstanding the high value-added component of design services. There has been no successful business strategy created to pay for the extra effort that would be required to populate a building model. Personnel and training difficulties are often at the forefront of such reorganisation.
Only a few architectural or building design software products claim to be able to completely fill a building model at the moment. As of 2001, no collection of software could accommodate all of the design details that is customary in architectural practise. As a result, the software required to use a building model has been insufficient.
Large software businesses whose products are extensively utilised in the AEC sector stand to enjoy relatively minor and unpredictable advantages from creating new generations of software technologies on the software side. When new selection criteria and a lack of track records in the new capabilities expose the market to new rivals, such changes may result in them losing market share. Small software businesses, on the other hand, which are naturally interested in replacing the established ones, lack the financial resources required to teach designers about new technologies and methods of design.
Many technological issues remain unsolved as a result of the lack of major deployment attempts (Amor and Faraj 2001, Eastman and Augenbroe 1998). Integration of applications and data exchange with productive workflows, system architectures to support integrated data models, and data management and integrity issues where many organisations and individuals contribute to a building project with varying levels of involvement and over different segments of the project life-cycle are among the issues that need to be addressed.
Software capable of dealing with the datasets associated with huge, complicated production-oriented 3D models also has issues. Even medium-sized projects are likely to need models with 500,000 or more items. These are some of the challenges that have inhibited the use of recent breakthroughs in web-based project collaboration.
While there are several analytic and simulation applications to incorporate, architectural practitioners have not seen these advantages as considerable (as indicated by present expenditure). In architectural companies, the benefits of integrating with enterprise-level computer systems do not seem to be considerable. Design automation help for design development and contract drawing preparation is one underdeveloped potential advantage of knowledge-based building modelling for architects.
Similarly, beyond project estimates and invoicing, contractor services have not been automated, typically due to the assertion that none of their subcontractors are ready. Again, neither industrial sector has had access to robust knowledge-based CAD systems.