Information and Communication Technology in Construction Industry Sergey Kalinichuk In the construction industry there is a necessity for innovative methods to improve the construction efficiency that proves to be true happening now and for soon expected changes. The given paper studies information and communication technologies concerning their usage within the construction industry with purposes to increase construction efficiency and solve the special challenges such as sustainable design and construction.
Need for New Approaches to Construction In the construction industry there is a necessity for innovative methods to improve the construction efficiency that proves to be true happening now and for soon expected changes. The given paper studies information and communication technologies concerning their usage within the construction industry as a new approach for achieving the following purposes: • Quantify the scope for improvement of construction efficiency; • Examine current construction practice and assess the potential for its improvement by way of innovation; • Identify specific actions and good practice that would help achieve more efficient construction. [1] Fig. 1: Indexes of labor productivity for construction and nonfarm industries
Source: Eastman C., BIM handbook, 2011
Tab. 1: Construction initiatives Recommendation
Number 1
The commitment of leadership from all parties
2
Greater customer focus
3
Application of products and services from other industries
4
Promote best practice in health and safety
5
Provide decent working conditions and promote people as the construction sector's greatest asset
6
Measure and assess own performance, set performance targets, and share information
7
Development of an integrated process instead of reliance on convention
8
Improved quality and fewer defects
9
Use of demonstration projects to develop and illustrate innovations
10
Rethinking (i.e., reengineering) the construction process
11
Adopt lean thinking as a method of sustaining performance improvement
12
More and better training
13
Development of technology (e.g., standardization and prefabrication)
14
Development of long-term relationships
15
Greater use of performance improvement tools and techniques (e.g., value management, benchmarking, etc.)
Source: Adapted from Proverbs, Holt, and Cheok, Summary of J.Egan, Report, Rethinking Construction, 2002.
Information and Communication Technology in Construction Industry Combination of site positioning, design requirements, materials selection, budget constraints and the availability of specialized skills makes each building project absolutely unique. Also, the construction industry is well-known for its highly fragmented and competitive environment. Nowadays the majority of building projects are hardly treated without traditional communication means, such as face-to-face meetings and the exchange of paper documents. Despite it there is a huge potential for increasing of volume, speed, quality and efficiency of information transfer. The Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry shows huge interest in accepting of new technologies in the sphere of nD visualization, data analysis, information sharing, communications and collaboration. Following this way it is possible to improve communication, increase client satisfaction, reduce coordination errors in construction, provide a greater understanding between project participants, create fewer ambiguities and discrepancies in documentation and generally increase awareness and recognition of issues and requirements by all project participants. The main destination of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is providing construction stakeholders with information and analytical tools for the best control
of the construction delivery processes. ICT include computer hardware, software, and communications devices which give access and allow communicating easily at local and international level. [2] An nD model has been defined as “an extension of the building information model, which incorporates multi-aspects of design information required at each stage of the lifecycle of a building facility”. [3] ICT creates necessary conditions for the complete approach to project delivery. The key advantage to professionals is the possibility to consider and produce project changes at any time. It ensures functioning over determination of design, construction and maintenance dimensions and helps to consolidate separated knowledge advancements made within time, cost, accessibility, crime, sustainability, acoustics, thermal and visual comfort, build ability and maintainability into a holistic decision-making tool. ICTs can play an important role in accelerating and improving of various processes that are unambiguously necessary for ecological sustainability. Tab. 2: ICT supported technologies in construction Needs
Information processing
Item
ICT Supported Technology
Project
Document management, product and process models
Company
Data warehouses
Country
National construction information systems
World
Global ICT networks
Man with man
E-mail, video conferences
Man with application
nD Visualization, virtual reality, graphical user-interfaces
Man with machine
Indirect contact using computers
Application with machine
Robotics, Remote sensors
Just-in-time
Database look-up, internet search
and management
Interaction facilities
Time saving Just-in-case
Subscriptions to customized content, distance learning
Source: Turk, M., Proceedings of the Workshop on Perceptual User Interfaces, Banff, AB, October 1997.
ICT creates the big integration into construction industry. The big advantage can be received with development of corresponding ICT solutions. Building Information Modeling (BIM) or Green Design can be one of the examples. Being rather new, already at the given stage of development BIM technologies provide savings in time, cost, and resources. Also, ICT should satisfy in equal, as much as possible admissible level of all subdivisions of every construction
stakeholder, whenever saving the existing productions, and also methods and management structure.
Current using ICT in Czech Republic New approaches to construction management, such as relational contracting and lean construction are made on the basis of integration of a team and an open sharing of the information connected with the project. The synchronous information interchange is produced on the basis of an information model in the documented form. It creates conditions for allround, unified, capable to sharing information models that also include business analysis, principles of economical building, and a policy of green building and accounting of the whole life cycle of a building object. The condition precedent for all these changes is the maturity of network/software technologies providing sharing of interdisciplinary model. The possibility of implementing a new construction approaches and tasks in Czech Republic can be shown on the example of current using of ICT in construction industry. These data are shown in Table 3. Tab. 3: Current using/having ICT in Czech Republic
Electronic data sharing with customers
Electronic data sharing to manage supplier/customer relationships Electronic data sharing with suppliers
Production/servic es management
Automated data sharing inside a company
Stock holding management
Computer knowledge training
Personnel and information technologies
Portable computer
Mobile internet
Internet connection
High speed internet connection
Distant access to company's data
Company's computer network
Company's computer network
Computer
Total number of companies
Construction companies uses/have main parts of ICT
Share of whole number companies (%) 5157
96,6
64,8
30,3
90,9
24,6
62,4
12,5
18,4
20,3
10,7
9,6
Source: ICT v podnicích ČR - výsledky za leden 2012, Czech Statistical Office, 2013.
Conclusion Most modern construction projects takes place over all-round, unified and capable to an exchange data model. It allows carrying out complex analyses at early stages of virtual design and construction. Further the model will include business intelligence, lean construction principles, green policies and whole lifecycle costing. Information and Communication Technologies in this case becomes the base for all innovative methods of design and construction and needed as much attention possible. It gains currency for Czech construction companies which generally are being short of investments to ICT.
Literatura: [1] Succar, B.: “Building information modeling framework: A research and delivery foundation for industry stakeholders.” Automation in Construction, 18, 2009, p. 357–375.
[2] Forbes, L., Ahmed, S.: Modern construction: lean project delivery and integrated practices. Boca Raton, FL, USA: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2011. [3] Marshall-Ponting, A.J., Aouad, G.: An nD modeling approach to improve communication processes for construction, Automation in Construction, 14, 2005, p. 311– 321. [4] Marshall-Ponting, A.J., Aouad, G.: An nD modeling approach to improve communication processes for construction, Automation in Construction, 14, 2005, p. 311– 321. [5] Czech Statistical Office - ICT v podnicích ČR - výsledky za leden 2012, http://www.czso.cz/csu/2012edicniplan.nsf/p/9702-12 [6] A. Lee, S. Wu, A.J. Marshall-Ponting, G. Aouad, R. Cooper, I. Koh, C. Fu, M. Betts, M. Kagioglou, M. Fischer, Developing a Vision of nD-Enabled Construction, University of Salford, Salford, 2003. [7] Koskela, L.: The theory of project management: Explanation to novel methods. Proceedings of the international group for lean construction (IGLC-10), 10th Annual Conference. Gramado, Brazil, 2002. [8] Shouke, C., Zhuobin, W., Jie, L.: Comprehensive evaluation for construction performance in concurrent engineering environment, International Journal of Project Management, 28, 2010, p. 708–718. [9] Forbes L., Ahmed S. (Authors). Modern construction: lean project delivery and integrated practices. Boca Raton, FL, USA: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2011, ISBN 978-14200-6312-7 [10] Robert, S.: BIM Content Development Standards Strategies and Best Practices, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, 2011, ISBN 978-0-470-58357-9 [11] Eastman C., Teicholz P., Sacks R., Liston K. (Authors). BIM handbook: a guide to building information modeling for owners, managers, designers, engineers and contractors (2nd. ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011, ISBN 978-0-47054137-1 [12] Fabozzi, Frank J. Complete CFO Handbook: From Accounting to Accountablity. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2008. [13] Bertelsen, S., and L. Koskela. 2004. Construction beyond lean: A new understanding of construction management. Proceedings of the 12th annual conference of the international group for lean construction (IGLC-12). Elsinore, Denmark. [14] BuildingSMART – Adoption of BIM Software. http://buildingsmarttech.org/implementation/implementations [15] BuildingSMART – The Impact of BIM on Business Development. http://buildingsmarttech.org/implementation/implementations [16] BuildingSMART – The business value of BIM. http://buildingsmarttech.org/implementation/implementations [17] BuildingSMART – Integrated Project Delivery. http://buildingsmarttech.org/implementation/implementations [18] BuildingSMART – The Business Value of BIM in Europe. http://buildingsmarttech.org/implementation/implementations [19] Azhar, S., Carlton, W., Olsen, D., Ahmad, I.: Building information modeling for sustainable design and LEED® rating analysis, Automation in Construction, 20, 2011, p. 217–224. Ing. arch. Sergey Kalinichuk
Phone: (+420) 776 767 392 E-mail:
[email protected] Department of Economics and Management in Civil Engineering Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague Thákurova 7, 166 29 Praha 6, Czech Republic
