Investigation of Visual Management Cases in Construction by an Analytical Framework from Manufacturing

Along with the progress of globalization, speed and efficiency have become more critical for any industry than ever before. In this sense, the concept and methods of lean management, promoting these performances, have been deployed from manufacturing, its origin industry, to other industries. This paper deals with this management style in the construction industry, called lean construction. In particular, visual management (VM) as one effective tool in this scheme is focused on. A number of VM cases, 306 in total, was collected from both construction and manufacturing sites and investigated by the so-called 5W1H analytical framework developed in the manufacturing industry. Obtained results suggest that the VM cases in construction have common attributes such as purpose and location, target to attain, users’ attributes, timing to use and elemental technologies for case development. A comparison analysis of the VM cases from construction and those from manufacturing was also carried out, for a mutual transfer of this technology between these industries

Application of case-based reasoning techniques to the automation of single-family residential property appraisals

Case-based reasoning has emerged as an alternative to rule-based reasoning techniques for the design of expert systems. This paper concentrates on the issues involved in the application of the case-based reasoning techniques to a specific domain, property appraisal. Case-based reasoning has been recently favored because it seems to resemble more closely to the psychological process human follows when trying to apply their knowledge to the solution of problems: People adapt solutions of similar problems they handled in past experiences to address present situations. Property appraisal or valuation is a domain characterized by having a single parameter in its solution, that is, the value of the property being appraised. This makes it differ from most of the domains in which case-based reasoning have been attempted. Those other domains require the satisfaction of multiple goals, which are related to one another in some type of explanation or plan. Because of the fact that property appraisal has a single goal, it is particularly important to find the best possible answer for that solution. In addition to this, the achievement of consistency is also essential in this domain in which different experts may reach different answers, even having the same data at their disposition. By modelling the market data approach of the appraisal, using adaptations of case-based reasoning techniques, such as the similarity links and the critics, and integrating other techniques, such as the use of comfort factors, a case-based reasoned for property appraisal is implemented addressing the issues just mentioned above