Towards automated cost analysis, benchmarking and estimating in construction: a machine learning approach

In this paper, a novel machine learning based approach is proposed for automated cost analysis from priced bill of quantities prepared by tenders in the construction industry. The proposed approach features: 1) An effective integration of structured project-specific information with surveyor’s domain knowledge in order to model the complex interrelationships between the specifications and descriptions of an item and its trade category; 2) An effective transformation to map the original data into a 2-dimensional space to tackle issues of high dimensionality in modelling, and 3) Simply classifiers with good classification capability. Relevant comparative experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Improving cost and time control in construction using Building Information Model (BIM): a review

The control of cost and time in construction projects is one of the most important issues in construction since the emergence of the construction industry. A successful project should meet not only quality output standards, but also time and budget objectives. The management and control of cost and time in construction is fundamental in every project. An effective cost and time management and control technique for construction projects is important in managing risk of cost overrun and delay in completion of projects. Construction projects are becoming more complex as they now involve many stakeholders from different disciplines. The emergence of Building Information Model (BIM), an alternative technology is believed to solve issues related to project cost and time control as it efficiently increases collaboration between stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to review and summarise the causes of delay and cost overrun in construction industries, which are the main causes of disputes and abandonment of projects in the industry. It was found that delays and cost overrun eat deep into the industry and leave the construction industry with a bad image for decades even with rapid advancement in technology. The review of the applications of BIM showed that most of the applications are geared towards minimising construction cost and time spent on projects. This means that the use of BIM in the management of construction projects has great impact on project cost and time

Using Classification Techniques for Assigning Work Descriptions to Task Groups on the Basis of Construction Vocabulary

Construction project management produces a huge amount of documents in a variety of formats. The efficient use of the data contained in these documents is crucial to enhance control and to improve performance. A central pillar throughout the project life cycle is the Bill of Quantities (BoQ) document. It provides economic information and details a collection of work descriptions describing the nature of the different works needed to be done to achieve the project goal. In this work, we focus on the problem of automatically classifying such work descriptions into a predefined task organization hierarchy, so that it can be possible to store them in a common data repository. We describe a methodology for preprocessing the text associated to work descriptions to build training and test data sets and carry out a complete experimentation with several well-known machine learning algorithms.Programa Juan de la Cierva. Grant Number: FJCI-2015-24093Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. European Regional Development Fund—ERDF. Grant Number: TIN2014-58227-

A avaliação dos impactos da implantação de Business Intelligence na Construção Civil: Estudo de caso em uma construtora da Grande Florianópolis, com foco na análise de viabilidade financeira

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Tecnológico. Engenharia Civil.Tendo em vista que a indústria da construção civil no Brasil sofre influência direta de fatores como inadimplência, desemprego, variações nas taxas de financiamento, aumento no preço de materiais, controle orçamentário e velocidade de vendas, o desenvolvimento e uso de uma ferramenta que disponibilize diagnósticos relacionados à análise de viabilidade financeira de um empreendimento imobiliário de forma ágil pode ser decisivo para tomada de decisões. Dessa forma, o trabalho busca identificar na literatura a utilização de Business Intelligence na construção civil, analisar o uso de ferramentas de BI que atuem na análise de desempenho financeiro, bem como realizar uma análise de viabilidade financeira de um empreendimento, mapeando os processos de desenvolvimento e os obstáculos e vantagens de sua implantação. Para tal, o trabalho inicia-se com a caracterização de conceitos que abordam Business Intelligence e Gestão Financeira. Então, é apresentado o processo de desenvolvimento de uma dashboard responsável por auxiliar na análise de viabilidade financeira de um projeto imobiliário, a partir de informações cedidas por uma construtora que atua no mercado imobiliário da Grande Florianópolis. A ferramenta desenvolvida leva em consideração modelos de entrada e saída de recursos, a partir do levantamento dos custos para aquisição do terreno, previsões de desembolsos com a obra, formas de pagamento e velocidade de venda das unidades comercializadas. Além das informações levantadas, o dashboard possibilita ao usuário determinar parâmetros, como taxa mínima de atratividade e preço médio de vendas dos apartamentos, para análise dos impactos que a variação de tais fatores traz ao resultado do investimento, através do uso de indicadores de viabilidade financeira, como VPL, TIR e payback descontado. Por fim, apresentam-se os benefícios e obstáculos do desenvolvimento e implementação da ferramenta para tomada de decisões estratégicas em uma empresa que atua no setor da construção civil.Considering that the construction industry in Brazil is directly influenced by factors such as default, unemployment, variations in financing rates, increase in the price of materials, budget control and sales speed, the development and use of a tool that provides diagnostics related to the analysis of the financial viability of a real estate project in an agile way can be decisive for decision making. The work seeks to identify in the literature the use of Business Intelligence in civil construction, to analyze the use of BI tools that act in the analysis of financial performance, as well as to carry out an analysis of the financial viability of a real estate project, mapping the development processes, as well as the obstacles and advantages of its implementation. To obtain that, the work begins with the characterization of concepts regarding Business Intelligence and Financial Management. Then, the process of developing a dashboard responsible for assisting in the analysis of the financial viability of a real estate project is presented, based on information provided by a construction company that operates in the real estate market of Grande Florianópolis. The developed tool takes into account models of inflow and outflow of resources, from the survey of costs for acquiring the land, forecasts of disbursements with the execution of the project, forms of payment and speed of sale of the commercialized units. In addition to the information collected, the dashboard allows the user to determine parameters, such as minimum attractiveness rate and average sales price of apartments, to analyze the impacts that the variation of such factors brings to the investment result, through the use of financial viability indicators. such as NPV, IRR and discounted payback. Finally, the benefits and obstacles of the development and implementation of the tool for making strategic decisions in a company that operates in the civil construction sector are presented