Towards facilitating team collaboration during construction project via the development of cloud-based BIM governance solution

Construction projects involve multi-discipline, multi-actor collaboration, and during their lifecycle, enormous amounts of data are generated. This data is often sensitive, raising major concerns related to access rights, ownership, intellectual property (IP) and secu- rity. Thus, dealing with this information raises several issues, such as data inconsistency, different versions of data, data loss etc. Therefore, the collaborative Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach has recently been considered a useful contributory technique to minimise the complexity of team collaboration during construction projects. Further- more, it has been argued that there is a role for Cloud technology in facilitating team collaboration across a building's lifecycle, by applying the ideologies of BIM governance. Therefore, this study investigates and seeks to develop a BIM governance solution util- ising a Cloud infrastructure. The study employed two research approaches: the first being a wide consultation with key BIM experts taking the form of: (i) a comprehensive questionnaire; followed by (ii) several semi-structured interviews. The second approach was an iterative software engineering approach including: (i) Software Modelling, using Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) and Unifed Modelling Language (UML), and (ii) Software Prototype Development. The fndings reveal several remaining barriers to BIM adoption, including Information Communication Technology (ICT) and collabora- tion issues; therefore highlighting an urgent need to develop a BIM governance solution underpinned by Cloud technology, to tackle these barriers and issues. The key fndings from this research led to: (a) the development of a BIM governance framework (G-BIM); (b) defnition of functional, non-functional, and domain specific requirements for develop- ing a Cloud-based BIM Governance Platfrom (GovernBIM); (c) development of a set of BPMN diagrams to describe the internal and external business procedures of the Govern- BIM platform lifecycle; (d) evaluation of several fundamental use cases for the adoption of the GovernBIM platform; (e) presentation of a core BIM governance model (class di- agram) to present the internal structure of the GovernBIM platform; (f) provision of a well-structured, Cloud-based architecture to develop a GovernBIM platform for practical implementation; and (j) development of a Cloud-based prototype focused on the main identified functionalities of BIM governance. Despite the fact that a number of concerns remain (i.e. privacy and security) the proposed Cloud-based GovernBIM solution opens up an opportunity to provide increased control over the collaborative process, and to resolve associated issues, e.g. ownership, data inconsistencies, and intellectual property. Finally, it presents a road map for further development of Cloud-based BIM governance platforms

Conceptual design of a support documentation system to assist troubleshooting in manufacturing

This research explores the conceptual design of a Support Documentation System (SDS), to assist manufacturing maintenance personnel during troubleshooting. Manufacturing systems maintenance is a crucial element of any organisation’s operating strategy. One of its main goals is to reduce downtime, both by avoiding the occurrence of failures and by effective reaction to breakdowns. Currently, most downtime reduction studies focus on the prevention of failures. Although these studies have made a significant contribution toward downtime reduction, it is impossible to prevent all failures. As such, troubleshooting will always be necessary for maintenance personnel to provide an effective contribution to their organisation. This research proposes a Support Documentation System that will improve maintenance through documentation management. It is argued that troubleshooting time will be reduced since such a system could provide maintenance personnel with enhanced access to support documentation, particularly to failure records. Until this research, little direct empirical evidence had been collected about the feasibility of such a system, and about the performance of current systems regarding troubleshooting support. There had also been no evidence concerning maintenance personnel requirements for improved support documentation. The objectives of this research are to assess the feasibility of the SDS, to determine why current systems do not effectively support troubleshooting, and to identify key features for the development of the SDS. To fulfil the objectives of this research, exploratory investigations were conducted. Questionnaire and interview surveys of maintenance practitioners, equipment vendors, and CMMS developers were performed to determine the status of failure records management and the reasons for the failure of current systems. A case study strategy was employed within three companies to identify requirements for the development of the SDS. The findings of this research are that the development of an SDS is feasible, and that current systems do not effectively support troubleshooting. The research identifies a set of design features for the SDS. It presents the end-user requirements, a ranking of most relevant troubleshooting data to be included in the failure records, and a list of record attributes that are to be used to better identify and classify records. The latter attributes constitute the means to manage failure records in a systematic way.Ph