The Analytical Design Planning Technique (ADePT) project has its roots in the early
1990’s when research at Loughborough University developed a possible solution to
the problem of inadequate planning and management of the design process in
construction projects (Austin, Baldwin & Newton, 1994, 1996). This led, in 1996, to
the successful application for grant funding under the Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions (DETR) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC) Integration in Design and Construction (IDAC) programme and
further grant funding under the EPSRC Technology Transfer programme. Both of
these projects involved significant industrial collaboration from AMEC, ARUP, BAA,
Boots, Laing, and Sheppard Robson.
These grant funded projects closed at the end of 1999 (re Austin et al, 2000) with the
ADePT project already winning a number of awards and plaudits, including: winning
the Quality in Construction Innovation and Supreme awards in 1999; and an EPSRC
research project top alpha 5 grading.
The ADePT project team (Loughborough University, AMEC Capital Projects, Laing
Limited and Ove Arup and Partners) recognised a need to capitalise on the success of
the research projects and to secure deployment of ADePT into the construction
industry. With this intent the ADePT project team have secured the collaboration of
the Building Information Warehouse in development and provision of a web based
industrial tool (portal) called PlanWeaver due for release during the third quarter of
2001