Application of Relationally Integrated Value Networks in the Implementation of BIM for Better Life Cycle Considerations of Buildings

Track: TG80Emerging as an innovative tool with rapidly increasing usage in the construction industry, Building Information Modeling (BIM) can provide a platform to enable two dimensions of information exchange, namely i) information sharing among relevant participants within a certain project phase; and ii) information exchange between two or more project phases. The latter is of vital importance to help achieve potential life cycle benefits of BIM. However, a significant gap exists in information flows in current BIM implementation in Hong Kong, between 'Design & Construction' (D&C) and ‘Operation & Management' (O&M). This paper discusses the potential application of a relational management framework named 'Relationally Integrated Value Networks' (RIVANS) to guide the process of information exchange between ‘D&C’ and ‘O&M’ in a BIM system. Possible causes of the above information flow gap are explored and proposals are developed based on RIVANS principles to bridge this gap. Findings and recommendations presented in this paper should pave the way for enhancing information flow in BIM across various phases of a construction project, thereby enabling integrated efforts for improving building life cycle performance.published_or_final_versio

To what extent does the knowledge gap between client’s expectations and project construction team deliverables adversely impact commercial (Office Buildings) BIM projects?

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an evaluation methodology that has the potential to achieve an adequate communication of information between different construction project stakeholders and clients. Due to the amount of information involved in construction projects and the requirement in control of time, cost and waste, BIM can be perceived as a future-proofed design, construction and Facilities Management (FM) process. Having been involved in various projects working to Level 2 BIM standards over the past 3 years the author has seen a gap in terms of client’s expectations of BIM deliverables and those which are actually produce by the project teams. This is most evident during the building to operations phase at project handover. A better way of communicating the BIM process to client should be implemented, exploiting its full potential, not only through the duration of design and construction phase of the building, but more importantly for the operation and maintenance of the building assets following handover to the client. Literature review was conducted investigating the gaps in communication and client and design and construction team stakeholder perspectives on the BIM process. A prototype solution, aiming to help and bridge the communication gap was derived. The objective of this research, which involved literature review, stakeholder interviews and proposed focus group discussions was to develop a prototype solution with the aim of helping to bridge the gap between client expectations and project team delivery

THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE THROUGH H-BIM MODELS: HISTORIC DOCUMENTATION WITH A SEMANTIC APPROACH

Abstract. The Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the Architectural Heritage field is constantly proving to be a fertile ground for the experimentation of innovative systems for the enhancement and management of cultural heritage. Regarding to the management of the entire process, the building field is increasing in efficiency from the construction to the management phase; conversely, the approach to historical buildings opens up interesting and heterogeneous scenarios, according to different levels of complexity. The presented work is the result of a collaboration between the Politecnico di Torino and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of Granada: the main scope was to create an historic building information model (H-BIM) of the building that today hosts the Faculty of Architecture (ETSAG), taking into account its historical past from the sixteenth century up to the present day, as the result of many modifications, extensions and different use classifications over time. According to this, the BIM methodology can be considered as a bridge between the archive documentation and the digital model, proving to be an effective tool as a data repository, semantically oriented, not only constituted by geometry, but also by alpha-numerical attributes, improving in effectiveness if it is directly related to formal language object oriented.</p

Relational Study of Information Technology and Production Management: - The Case of Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) between Mainland China and Hong Kong

In the last few decades, many large corporations have been moving part of the supply chains, especially manufacturing, offshore to take advantage of the low cost resources and labor. For example, the southern part of China, such as Pearl River Delta (PRD), has been attracting the enterprises from all over the word in the last two decades and has become the world manufacturing hub. The types of the manufacturing extend the spectrum from light industry (e.g. toy and garment) originally to high-tech (e.g. semi-conductor wafer) recently and such transition triggers the changes of the technology requirements. In addition, joining WTO has opened up the gate to China and sped up the process of technology advancement as well. The paper investigates the relationships between technology adoption and production management by examining production technology, information systems, and information qualities in a study based on the review of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) between Hong Kong and China. The paper concludes the recommendations for the capability building to bridge the gap for information systems and operations management in China

Geospatial Data Management Research: Progress and Future Directions

Without geospatial data management, today´s challenges in big data applications such as earth observation, geographic information system/building information modeling (GIS/BIM) integration, and 3D/4D city planning cannot be solved. Furthermore, geospatial data management plays a connecting role between data acquisition, data modelling, data visualization, and data analysis. It enables the continuous availability of geospatial data and the replicability of geospatial data analysis. In the first part of this article, five milestones of geospatial data management research are presented that were achieved during the last decade. The first one reflects advancements in BIM/GIS integration at data, process, and application levels. The second milestone presents theoretical progress by introducing topology as a key concept of geospatial data management. In the third milestone, 3D/4D geospatial data management is described as a key concept for city modelling, including subsurface models. Progress in modelling and visualization of massive geospatial features on web platforms is the fourth milestone which includes discrete global grid systems as an alternative geospatial reference framework. The intensive use of geosensor data sources is the fifth milestone which opens the way to parallel data storage platforms supporting data analysis on geosensors. In the second part of this article, five future directions of geospatial data management research are presented that have the potential to become key research fields of geospatial data management in the next decade. Geo-data science will have the task to extract knowledge from unstructured and structured geospatial data and to bridge the gap between modern information technology concepts and the geo-related sciences. Topology is presented as a powerful and general concept to analyze GIS and BIM data structures and spatial relations that will be of great importance in emerging applications such as smart cities and digital twins. Data-streaming libraries and “in-situ” geo-computing on objects executed directly on the sensors will revolutionize geo-information science and bridge geo-computing with geospatial data management. Advanced geospatial data visualization on web platforms will enable the representation of dynamically changing geospatial features or moving objects’ trajectories. Finally, geospatial data management will support big geospatial data analysis, and graph databases are expected to experience a revival on top of parallel and distributed data stores supporting big geospatial data analysis

Developing a Tailored RBS Linking to BIM for Risk Management of Bridge Projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the current theoretical gap in integrating knowledge and experience into Building Information Model (BIM) for risk management of bridge projects by developing a tailored Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) and formalising an active link between the resulting RBS and BIM. Design/methodology/approach – A three-step approach is used in this study to develop a tailored RBS for bridge projects and a conceptual model for the linkage between the RBS and BIM. First, the integrated bridge information model is in concept separated into four levels of contents (LOCs) and six technical systems based on analysis of the Industry Foundation Classes specification, a critical review of previous studies and authors’ project experience. The second step develops a knowledge-based risk database through an extensive collection of risk data, a process of data mining, and further assessment and translation of data. A critical analysis is conducted in the last step to determine on which level the different risks should be allocated to bridge projects and to propose a conceptual model for linking the tailored RBS to the four LOCs and six technical systems of BIM. Findings – The findings suggest that the traditional method and BIM can be merged as an integrated solution for risk management by establishing the linkage between RBS and BIM. This solution can take advantage of both the traditional method and BIM for managing risks. On the one hand, RBS enables risk information to be stored in a formal structure, used and communicated effectively. On the other hand, some features of BIM such as 3D visualisation and 4D construction scheduling can facilitate the risk identification, analysis, and communication at an early project stage. Research limitations/implications – A limitation is that RBS is a qualitative technique and only plays a limited role in quantitative risk analysis. As a result, when implementing this proposed method, further techniques may be needed for assisting quantitative risk analysis, evaluation, and treatment. Another limitation is that the proposed method has not yet been implemented for validation in practice. Hence, recommendations for future research are to: improve the quantitative risk analysis and treatment capabilities of this proposed solution; develop computer tools to support the solution; integrate the linkage into a traditional workflow; and test this solution in some small and large projects for validation. Practical implications – Through linking risk information to BIM, project participants could check and review the linked information for identifying potential risks and seeking possible mitigation measures, when project information is being transferred between different people or forwarded to the next phase. Originality/value – This study contributes to the theoretical development for aligning traditional methods and BIM for risk management, by introducing a new conceptual model for linking RBS to BIM

Performing fatigue state characterization in railway steel bridges using digital twin models

Railway infrastructures play a pivotal role in developing the national transportation system. Recently, the strategy of the railway engineer has been significantly shifted; along with the development of new assets, they tend to pay increasing attention to the operation and management of existing railway assets. In this regard, this paper proposes a Digital Twin (DT) model to improve fatigue assessment efficiency in the operational processes of railway steel bridges (RSBs). The DT concept mainly lies in the federation and interaction of a Fatigue Analysis System (FAS), which is based on Eurocodes principles, and a model in Building Information Modeling (BIM). Along with the proposed DT concept, a prototyping system for a real bridge is initiated and curated. The FAS is validated in good-agreement results with the ambient vibration test of the bridge (about 1.6% variation between numerical and experimental values), and close values were found between numerical and experimental stresses, the latter obtained by installing strain gauges on the bridge. The BIM model provides access to the numerical values of fatigue state results in a given bridge connection detail but also automatically represents that information in a 3D environment using a color-scale-based visualization process. Furthermore, a simulation model with the main input variables being the traffic and geometric conditions of the bridge is continuously updated for timely re-evaluation of the damage state, which shows promise for the lifecycle management of the bridge.This work was financially supported by: Base Funding—UIDB/04708/2020 of the CONSTRUCT—Institute of R&D In Structures and Construction—funded by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; SFRH/BD/151229/2021. This work was also carried out in the framework of Shift2Rail projects IN2TRACK3 [101012456- H2020-S2RJU-CFM-2020] for the development of a DT framework. This work is also co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) through the Northern Regional Operational Programme (Norte 2020) [Funding Reference: NORTE-06-3559-FSE-000176]; And was partly financed by FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) under the R&D Unit Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering (ISISE), under reference UIDB/04029/2020, and under the Associate Laboratory Advanced Production and Intelligent Systems ARISE under reference LA/P/0112/2020.The authors would like to acknowledge ANI (“Agência Nacional de Inovação”) for the financial support given to the R&D Project “GOA Bridge Management System—Bridge Intelligence”, with reference POCI-01-0247-FEDER-069642, co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Program (POCI)”

Knowledge management for bridge design process using building block concept

This thesis explores the concept of building blocks in the context of structural design within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The building block concept refers to the pieces of design knowledge from previous projects in the form of digital files that can be assembled and reused in future structural bridge projects. These building blocks consist of multiple types of file used in bridge design. The goal of the building block is to utilize the accumulated knowledge created from previous design projects to increase productivity and design quality of future ones. With that in mind, the thesis aims to establish the foundational theories of the building block concept in the knowledge management field, develop a conceptual framework, and create a proof-of-concept system. Literature in knowledge base development and knowledge reuse in the context of AEC design showed that reusing design knowledge requires both the knowledge content and the context surrounding it, which can be measured through the dimensions of abstraction and granularity. Both dimensions determine how relevant and reusable knowledge is to different users. The author concluded that the building block concept requires multiple levels of abstraction and granularity since no single level of context is adequate to cover all engineering knowledge. Moreover, the context information must be provided to different user's needs during the knowledge retrieval process by providing different browsing and querying interfaces. The implementation of the building block concept was done through the development of an ontological Expert System, capable of modeling the complex knowledge in structural design. The development focused on 2 stages: creating an informal model and translating that model to a machine-readable ontology. The informal model used the Icam DEFinition for Function Modeling (IDEF0) modeling method to represent the information requirements of the bridge design process. The build-ing blocks became the Inputs, Controls, Outputs, and Mechanisms (ICOM) of a design process. The ICOMs could be shared between different design processes, providing connection, relationships, and context information by association. This is the basis for the bridge design process assembly. The IDEF0 model was translated into the OWL language using Protégé to become a proof-of-concept. It demonstrated the extraction of building blocks associated with design processes through Protégé’s inferencing and querying capability with additional user inputs

Hydrological Web Services for Operational Flood Risk Monitoring and Forecasting at Local Scale in Niger

Emerging hydrological services provide stakeholders and political authorities with useful and reliable information to support the decision-making process and develop flood risk management strategies. Most of these services adopt the paradigm of open data and standard web services, paving the way to increase distributed hydrometeorological services’ interoperability. Moreover,sharing of data, models, information, and the use of open-source software, greatly contributes to expanding the knowledge on flood risk and to increasing flood preparedness. Nevertheless, services’ interoperability and open data are not common in local systems implemented in developing countries. This paper presents the web platform and related services developed for the Local Flood Early Warning System of the Sirba River in Niger (SLAPIS) to tailor hydroclimatic information to the user’s needs, both in content and format. Building upon open-source software components and interoperable web services, we created a software framework covering data capture and storage, data flow management procedures from several data providers, real-time web publication, and service-based information dissemination. The geospatial infrastructure and web services respond to the actual and local decision-making context to improve the usability and usefulness of information derived from hydrometeorological forecasts, hydraulic models, and real-time observations. This paper presents also the results of the three years of operational campaigns for flood early warning on the Sirba River in Niger. Semiautomatic flood warnings tailored and provided to end users bridge the gap between available technology and local users’ needs for adaptation, mitigation, and flood risk management, and make progress toward the sustainable development goals

Integration of HBIM and 3D GIS for Digital Heritage Modelling

This paper outlines a new approach for digitally recording cultural heritage sites from laser scan data or photogrammetric data. This approach involves 3D modelling stage and the integration of the 3D model into a 3D GIS for further management and analysis. The modelling stage is carried out using a new concept; Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM). HBIM uses Building Information Modelling (BIM) software with parametric and procedural modelling techniques to automate the modelling stage. The HBIM process involves a reverse engineering solution whereby parametric objects representing architectural elements are mapped onto laser scan or photogrammetric survey data. A library of parametric architectural objects has been designed from historic manuscripts and architectural pattern books. These parametric objects were built using an embedded scripting language within the BIM software called Geometric Descriptive Language (GDL). Using this embedded scripting language, elements of procedural modelling have also been replicated to automatically combine library objects based on architectural rules and proportions. If required the position of elements can be manually refined while overlaying the automatically generated model with the original survey data. After the 3D model has been generated the next stage involves integrating the 3D model into a 3D GIS for further analysis. The international framework for 3D city modelling, CityGML has been adopted for this purpose. CityGML provides an interoperable framework for modelling 3D geometries, semantics, topology and appearance properties. CityGML enables further historical information to be added to the model and allows for efficient management and analysis of all data relating to a heritage site. The aim of this research is to bridge the gap between parametric CAD modelling and 3D GIS while using benefits from both systems to help document and analyse cultural heritage sites