Designing a novel virtual collaborative environment to support collaboration in design review meetings

Project review meetings are part of the project management process and are organised to assess progress and resolve any design conflicts to avoid delays in construction. One of the key challenges during a project review meeting is to bring the stakeholders together and use this time effectively to address design issues as quickly as possible. At present, current technology solutions based on BIM or CAD are information-centric and do not allow project teams to collectively explore the design from a range of perspectives and brainstorm ideas when design conflicts are encountered. This paper presents a system architecture that can be used to support multi-functional team collaboration more effectively during such design review meetings. The proposed architecture illustrates how information-centric BIM or CAD systems can be made human- and team-centric to enhance team communication and problem solving. An implementation of the proposed system architecture has been tested for its utility, likability and usefulness during design review meetings. The evaluation results suggest that the collaboration platform has the potential to enhance collaboration among multi-functional teams

Overview of building information modelling in healthcare projects

In this paper, we explore how BIM functionalities together with novel management concepts and methods have been utilized in thirteen hospital projects in the United States and the United Kingdom. Secondary data collection and analysis were used as the method. Initial findings indicate that the utilization of BIM enables a holistic view of project delivery and helps to integrate project parties into a collaborative process. The initiative to implement BIM must come from the top down to enable early involvement of all key stakeholders. It seems that it is rather resistance from people to adapt to the new way of working and thinking than immaturity of technology that hinders the utilization of BIM

A requirements engineering framework for integrated systems development for the construction industry

Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) systems are computer environments through which collaborative working can be undertaken. Although many CIC systems have been developed to demonstrate the communication and collaboration within the construction projects, the uptake of CICs by the industry is still inadequate. This is mainly due to the fact that research methodologies of the CIC development projects are incomplete to bridge the technology transfer gap. Therefore, defining comprehensive methodologies for the development of these systems and their effective implementation on real construction projects is vital. Requirements Engineering (RE) can contribute to the effective uptake of these systems because it drives the systems development for the targeted audience. This paper proposes a requirements engineering approach for industry driven CIC systems development. While some CIC systems are investigated to build a broad and deep contextual knowledge in the area, the EU funded research project, DIVERCITY (Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry), is analysed as the main case study project because its requirements engineering approach has the potential to determine a framework for the adaptation of requirements engineering in order to contribute towards the uptake of CIC systems

Diverse virtual social networks: Implications for remote software testing teams

This paper evaluates offshore outsourcing in the IT testing industry and determines what conditions determine its success. There is particular focus on the influence of diversity in teams on group relationships. Two studies are described: the first, investigated the perceptions of professional software testers on the critical factors of offshore outsourcing; and the second study looked at the ability for diverse teams to form close working relationships through virtual networks. We find that overt diversity factors inhibit interaction across nationality boundaries. The limitations of virtual networks for fostering personal communications is apparent in preventing group members from overcoming the initial aversion to mix with out-group members, which could be achieved with closer and more personal communications between members with different diversity factors in normal face to face communications. Where software testing teams are outsourced globaly, and must rely on virtual communications, there seems potential for significant difficulties in developing close working relationships, which on the one hand, can be negative for group cohesion, but one the other hand, can be positive for encouraging imparitality

Grid infrastructures for the electronics domain: requirements and early prototypes from an EPSRC pilot project

The fundamental challenges facing future electronics design is to address the decreasing – atomistic - scale of transistor devices and to understand and predict the impact and statistical variability these have on design of circuits and systems. The EPSRC pilot project “Meeting the Design Challenges of nanoCMOS Electronics” (nanoCMOS) which began in October 2006 has been funded to explore this space. This paper outlines the key requirements that need to be addressed for Grid technology to support the various research strands in this domain, and shows early prototypes demonstrating how these requirements are being addressed

Virtual manufacturing: prediction of work piece geometric quality by considering machine and set-up

Lien vers la version éditeur: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0951192X.2011.569952#.U4yZIHeqP3UIn the context of concurrent engineering, the design of the parts, the production planning and the manufacturing facility must be considered simultaneously. The design and development cycle can thus be reduced as manufacturing constraints are taken into account as early as possible. Thus, the design phase takes into account the manufacturing constraints as the customer requirements; more these constraints must not restrict the creativity of design. Also to facilitate the choice of the most suitable system for a specific process, Virtual Manufacturing is supplemented with developments of numerical computations (Altintas et al. 2005, Bianchi et al. 1996) in order to compare at low cost several solutions developed with several hypothesis without manufacturing of prototypes. In this context, the authors want to predict the work piece geometric more accurately by considering machine defects and work piece set-up, through the use of process simulation. A particular case study based on a 3 axis milling machine will be used here to illustrate the authors’ point of view. This study focuses on the following geometric defects: machine geometric errors, work piece positioning errors due to fixture system and part accuracy