7 research outputs found

    Building information modeling integrated with electronic commerce material procurement and supplier performance management system

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    This paper describes an innovative approach to the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and electronic commerce (e-commerce) in a material procurement process for improved design-construction integration. The paper includes the present applications, benefits, limitations and barriers to e-commerce and BIM in material procurement processes, compares the present commercial BIM based and non-BIM based quantity takeoff and cost estimating software, and identifies potential benefits of integrating BIM and e-commerce software solutions for construction quantity takeoff, cost estimating and procurement processes. The authors propose a framework for integrating BIM for quantity takeoff and cost estimating applications with e-commerce solutions for material procurement and supplier performance evaluation. The paper presents a proposed solution to link BIM-derived data with RS Means unit price cost data to generate accurate cost estimating reports, one weight coefficient-based model to evaluate the performance of material suppliers, and a preliminary version of corresponding BIM-based application integrated with e-commerce software system

    Building Information Modeling Integrated with Electronic Commerce Material Procurement and Supplier Performance Management System

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    Traditional construction material procurement is being replaced by electronic commerce construction material procurement now. Building Information Modeling (BIM) has shown benefit and practical value in construction material quantity takeoff and cost estimate. However, very few efforts have been directed to the application and integration of BIM in e-commerce material procurement. The author compares the present commercial BIM and non-BIM based quantity takeoff and cost estimate software, presents one solution to link the BIM with RSMeans Unit Price cost data to generate more accurate cost estimate reports, identifies the possibility and potential benefit of integrating BIM and e-commerce software solutions in material cost estimate and procurement process, designs one weight coefficient based model to evaluate the performance of material suppliers, proposes a framework to integrate BIM with e-commerce in material procurement and supplier performance evaluation process, and develops a preliminary display version of BIM integrated with e-commerce software system

    MDSSF: a federated architecture for product procurement

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    In the AEC (Architecture / Engineering / Construction) industry, large construction projects are tackled by consortia of companies and individuals, who work collaboratively for the duration of the project. The consortia include design teams, product suppliers, contractors and inspection teams who must collaborate and conform to predefined scheduling constraints and standards. These projects are unique, complex and involve many participants from a number of organisations. Construction projects require consortia to procure supplies such as building materials and furniture from product suppliers. In large AEC projects, procurement of products, services and construction materials is an important and time consuming activity. Materials are sourced on a global basis from a large number of suppliers. The scale of the purchases made in large projects show that their procurement is a non-trivial exercise. Therefore, consortia members or the contractors require access to a large body of information about products or material information to aid procurement decision making. Web based communication and network technologies play an increasingly important role in supporting collaboration in AEC projects. However collaborative working in the construction industry is still restricted by the current limitations of network and communication technologies and their system architectures which are usually client/server based. The construction industry has been examining how the advancements in distributed computing technologies such as the Grid computing can remove some of the existing limitations and enhance collaboration. This research investigated how the procurement challenges such as accessing up-to-date product information available from a large number of products suppliers in an integrated manner using standard means could be addressed. A novel solution to the procurement challenges in the form of a distributed information sharing architecture is presented. The architecture uses the concepts of federated databases such as distribution of data and autonomy of databases and couples it with Grid computing to facilitate information exchange in a collaborative, coherent and integrated way to address the product procurement challenges
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