Enhancing data utilisation in the construction project lifecycle through early involvement and integration

Abstract The productivity of projects in the construction sector has not developed as well as in other sectors. One factor contributing to this low productivity is the weak digital intensity of the construction sector. Often, the implementation of construction projects is fragmented, and the objectives of the project stakeholders’ conflict with those of the whole project. Existing research has highlighted the importance of the use of building information modelling in the construction industry. In some other sectors, the product data lifecycle management has an essential role in their business, but in the construction industry, product data management has less attention. The motivation for this dissertation is to help the construction industry to gain the benefits that the use of BIM can provide. The focus is on enhancing data utilisation because late and fragmented management of information during the project lifecycle leads to defects and rework. This dissertation’s aim is on how to enhance data utilisation in construction projects by enabling early integration of stakeholders. The technical description of the data transfer format has not been in the scope of this research. This dissertation does not either include descriptions of all the commercial project delivery models. This compilation dissertation consists of qualitative studies with literature reviews, focus group interview, survey, and interviews. It identifies practical obstacles to the wider use of information modelling, how information modelling supports early involvement and integration, and the benefits of early integration. Finally, it produces a model for data and information management for construction projects. The main contribution of this study is that it identifies a need to design a unique project product data model in the early phases of the project, according to the information of all stakeholders. One master data enables data sharing with different applications. Design for X (DfX) can be used for early integration. The client is responsible that the project delivery agreements support the well-organised use of data and information flow throughout the project’s lifecycle. The most significant barrier for achieving the benefits of BIM is that the data needs and the overall process of BIM utilisation are not planned proactively. The practical implications are written mainly from the infrastructure construction project angle. The main impact is that the project product data model is better to design specially for each unique project that matches the capability level of the project team, available data, software and hardware, project delivery type, and team motivation.Tiivistelmä Rakennusalla hankkeiden tuottavuus ei ole kehittynyt yhtä hyvin kuin muilla aloilla. Yksi tähän alhaiseen tuottavuuteen vaikuttava tekijä on rakennusalan heikko digitaalinen intensiteetti. Rakennusprojektien toteutus on usein hajanaista, ja hankkeen sidosryhmien tavoitteet ovat ristiriidassa koko projektin tavoitteiden kanssa. Olemassa oleva tutkimus on korostanut rakennustietojen mallinnuksen käytön merkitystä rakennusteollisuudessa. Joillakin muilla aloilla tuotetietojen elinkaarihallinnalla on keskeinen rooli heidän liiketoiminnassaan, mutta rakennusteollisuudessa tuotetietojen hallintaan on kiinnitetty vähemmän huomiota. Tämän väitöskirjan motivaationa on auttaa rakennusalaa saamaan hyötyjä, joita BIM:n käyttö voi tarjota. Painopiste on datan käytön parantamisessa, koska tiedon myöhäinen ja hajanainen hallinta projektin elinkaaren aikana johtaa virheisiin ja korjauksiin. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on parantaa tiedon hyödyntämistä rakennusprojekteissa mahdollistamalla sidosryhmien aikainen integrointi. Tiedonsiirtomuodon tekninen kuvaus ei kuulu tämän väitöskirjan sisältöön. Tämä työ ei myöskään sisällä kuvauksia kaikista kaupallisista projektitoimitusmalleista. Tämä kokoomateos koostuu laadullisista tutkimuksista, joissa on tehty kirjallisuustutkimuksia, kohderyhmähaastattelua, kyselytutkimus ja haastatteluja. Se yksilöi käytännön esteet tietomallinnuksen laajemmalle käytölle ja sille, miten tietomallinnus tukee varhaista osallistumista ja integraatiota sekä tuo esiin varhaisen integroinnin hyödyt. Lopuksi se tuottaa mallin tiedon hallintaan rakennushankkeissa. Tämän tutkimuksen tärkein kontribuutio on, että siinä yksilöidään tarve suunnitella projektin tuotetietomalli hankkeen varhaisessa vaiheessa kaikkien sidosryhmien yhteistyöllä. Hyvin määritelty liiketoimintakriittinen perustieto mahdollistaa tiedon jakamisen eri sovellusten kesken. Design for X -menetelmää (DfX) voidaan käyttää eri sidosryhmien aikaiseen integrointiin. Tilaaja vastaa siitä, että projektin toimitussopimukset tukevat datan ja informaation hyvin organisoitua käyttöä hankkeen koko elinkaaren ajan. Merkittävin este BIM:n etujen hyödyntämiselle on, että tietotarpeita ja BIM:n käyttöönoton kokonaisprosessia ei suunnitella hankkeen alussa. Käytännön toimenpide-ehdotukset on kirjoitettu pääasiassa infrastruktuurin rakennusprojektin näkökulmasta. Merkittävin johtopäätös tämän työn tuloksista on, että projektin tuotemalli on hyvä suunnitella erikseen jokaiselle ainutlaatuiselle projektille, joka vastaa projektitiimin osaamistasoatasoa, käytettävissä olevaa dataa, ohjelmistoja ja laitteistoja, projektin toimitustyyppiä ja ryhmän motivaatiota

Situational Awareness in Construction Projects Using Takt Production

The construction industry is improving its processes targeting to increase productivity. Lean construction has been in use for decades, and now lean is expanding in the form of takt production. Takt production gives clear steps to apply lean in daily construction projects. Takt production transfers the improving flow from the manufacturing industry’s conveyor belts to construction sites. Digital situational awareness systems are good examples of new digital solutions in construction. They provide possibilities to construction stakeholders to better control and improve their processes by visualizing waste and helping find the root causes of problems to be fixed. This paper aims to study how digital awareness systems support takt production in construction projects. This study is a qualitative case study based on a project implementing a digital situational awareness system and relies on project staff interviews and the data available on the project. The project team has successfully improved takt production with digital awareness systems for revealing and fixing waste. They have successfully improved the productivity of tasks. Digital situational awareness systems can play an important role in the continuous improvement of processes in the construction industry.Peer reviewe

The contemporaneous use of building information modeling and relational project delivery arrangements

Abstract The initiatives of building information modelling (BIM) and relational project delivery arrangements (RPDA) have traditionally been quite different, although both aim to enhance customer value. BIM was developed to serve as an information center and collaboration and simulation model, whereas RPDAs were developed to foster a search for a mutual and single project objective through early stakeholder involvement and integration. However, recent experiences have indicated some reasons for suspecting that BIM and RPDA, surprisingly, have a lot in common. This paper studies the contemporaneous use of BIM and RPDA and aims at finding out the main benefits when utilized simultaneously

Whole field flow measurements of attraction channel as entrance to fishways

Migrating fish that swim upstream rivers for reproduction need to overcome obstructions like hydropower plants in their path to the spawning grounds. To guide the fish pass the obstruction fishways are often used. Since most of the water in regulated rivers flow through the power plant fish are often attracted to the turbine tailrace instead of the fishways. The efficiency of the fishways is often low due to inefficient attraction water. In this report an attraction channel which uses a small fraction of the tailwater, or any free stream, to create the attraction water is studied. The channel is open and Ushaped. A local acceleration of the water is created by changing the cross sectional area in the downstream end of the channel. The flow through the channel is subcritical and the bump which accelerates the water also blocks the water flowing into the channel. To study how the water flows are affected of the blockage as the geometry is altered, a model of the channel is studied in lab scale using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). With PIV instant flow field can be studied in a plane of the flow. The results show the water flow in and around the channel and how the flow pattern in the channel changes with water depth. Increased depth over the bump increases the downstream traceability of the acceleration. It is also shown that it is possible to obtain accelerations up to 50% downstream the attraction channel compared to the pure flow upstream.Validerat; 20101217 (root

Managing data flows in infrastructure projects:the lifecycle process model

Abstract Productivity in the construction industry (both houses and infrastructure) has not been improving as expected, while other industries have been able to improve their productivity significantly. The appropriate use of building information modelling (BIM) technologies brings several benefits and advantages to construction projects. The main challenges of project efficiency emerge in the form of numerous requests for information during the construction project, which are considered to be waste in the processes. This highlights the need for a practical process model to plan the information flow for BIM-based projects. The main aim of this study is to propose a model to plan the flow of project information among primary stakeholders especially in infrastructure projects. Our main findings are firstly, the foundation for data management starts from defining unified one data for the product and the for the process. Unified data means one single repository of data — all stakeholders use the same unified data. It is also essential that data responsibilities and ownership are defined. Secondly, we found that the biggest challenges are that the data needs are not planned beforehand, resistance to change, difficulty receiving existing data and data must be modified before use. As a whole, it seems sometimes that the technology on data transfer is more important that what has been transferred and why. Finally our construction, the life cycle model for data flow originates from one data to all stakeholders, single data repository must be updated along the life-cycle of the object covering also the operations and maintenance, where the data has to be updated through the whole life-cycle. This new approach is intended to enable the early involvement of maintenance stakeholders in designing product data for a project lifecycle perspective. The model helps to change the current information flow and gain the benefits that a BIM-based process can offer. This study is based on case studies and is qualitative in nature and naturally needs more validation