ABSTRACT
The United States has traditionally used the Design- Low Bid-Construct process. This arrangement consists of a separate Designer and Constructor on a project. The designer is chosen and employed by the owner of the desired facility. The contractor selection is based on low bid. This scenario is well known and understood. One of the major inherent deficiencies with this system is the lack of construction knowledge incorporated into the design documents. This is commonly called “constructability.” Because each responsibility is separated this integration is hard to achieve.
Constructability has been defined as the integration of construction knowledge and experience during all phases of the facility development process. The primary objectives of constructability are to improve construction, as well as the overall performance of the facility. The input of construction knowledge during the design phase is especially important to achieve these goals. To accomplish this, the design team requires either direct field experience, or at least immediate access to experts in construction issues. Unfortunately, most designers do not possess sufficient construction experience. Furthermore, there are few construction professionals who have sufficient design expertise to function effectively as constructability experts for the design team. This creates a serious obstacle to achieving constructability in a project.
This paper describes how this obstacle can be overcome with a computerized constructability support system. The system organizes and presents construction knowledge as both concepts and lessons learned. Specifically, the paper describes a computer tool that captures, records, and stores constructability concepts and lessons learned, while providing design professionals with easy access and graphical retrieval of concepts and lessons to deepen their understanding of constructability issues. The system uses a “windows” environment, an open navigation architecture for the user, and full 510range of multimedia displays to represent constructability knowledge.
The multimedia feature significantly improves user comprehension. Text, graphics, images, video and sound are used to represent construction knowledge more completely. The richness of graphic retrieval and multimedia representation combine to enable a designer to more effectively assimilate constructability knowledge into his or her own existing knowledge of design.
The approach used in this system provides many advantages over existing systems. Not only can the integration of construction knowledge and experience at the earliest stages of project planning now be possible, but also, constructability knowledge base now can be rendered economically feasible to create, update and use.
Dans ce mémoire il est décrit un outil à ordinateur multimedia pour l’aptitude de construction. L’aptitude de construction est l’integration de la science de construction et de l’experience dans la conception à fin d’améliorer la méthode de construction et la performance de l’infrastructure une fois complète. La multimedia nous donne une série de d’information complète, qui permet de capter cette connaissance. A travers des outils imperatifs, on arrive à une application robuste qui est facile à l’usage et qui est très representative de cette domaine d’information. Les organisations de construction et du dessain, peuvent utiliser cet outil pour creer leurs propres “lessons appris” à fin de capter l’experience et de la mettre disponible pour utilisation prochaine. L’outil se présente en CD-ROM et fonctionne dans un milieu Windows sur ordinateur individuel.
