Computer-aided design for construction in the building industry
Abstract (summary)
In the last decades, the building industry has faced an increase of demands from society. There is a demand for higher quality, shorter lead times, custom-made buildings, more environmental consideration, and better working conditions. This increase of demands is likely to continue.
One of the answers of the building industry on these demands might be to improve the integration of the design and construction processes. Integration of sub-processes in a building project can be defined as "the continuous and interdisciplinary sharing of goals, knowledge, and information among all project participants". Design for Construction (DfC) deals with integration of design and construction. DfC is the building industry's counterpart of well-known technologies such as Design for Assembly and Design for Manufacturing in the mechanical industry.
Since design and construction are increasingly, and successfully, supported by computers, it seems logical to support their integration with computers as well. For Design for Construction this leads to Computer Aided Design for Construction (CA DfC). CA DfC is still a technology in its infancy. This PhD research aims a strategy to help CA DfC grow to a more mature state.
This research looks at the strategy for CA DfC from three related points of view: (1) integration concept, (2) computer implementation, and (3) organisational implementation.
The integration concept starts from the presumption that for integration of building processes, their computer applications have to be integrated. To integrate computer applications, the information and knowledge used have to be sharable. To realise this, formalisation and exchange of information and knowledge have to be standardised.
Technical implementation of the integration concept requires computer support. Among others, support is needed for developing the standards and for using those standards in practice for exchange between computer applications.
Before the participants in the building industry will start applying CA DfC, they want to know what it has to offer and how they can implement it organisationally.
The strategy developed is tested in a case study for precast concrete structures.