ABSTRACT
Construction is a knowledge intensive industry characterized by its unique work settings and virtual organization like modus operandi (Rezgui 2007a). Buildings have long been designed and constructed by non co-located teams of separate firms, with various levels of IT maturity and capability, which come together for a specific project and may never work together again. Moreover, the Construction sector is fragmented and the major consequence is the difficulty to communicate effectively and efficiently among partners during a building project or between clients and suppliers of construction products. Several initiatives led by standardisation and/or industry consortia have developed data/product models aimed at facilitating data and information exchange between software applications. These efforts include STEP (ISO 1994) and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) (IAI 2007). Several other initiatives at a national and European level have developed dictionaries, thesauri, and several linguistic resources focused on Construction terms to facilitate communication and improve understanding between the various stakeholders operating on a project or across the product supply chain. However, these initiatives tend to be country specific and not adapted to the multi-national nature of the sector. Also, given the vast scope of Construction, these semantic resources tend to be specialized for dedicated applications or engineering functions, e.g. product libraries and HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning), respectively.
