Research directions of informatics

A nationwide IT conference in Turkey in 2007 identified various themes that would help in improving the way informatics is headed. These themes were further established by a series of meetings that took place between people from the industry and academia. The following are some of the themes that were established:

                                                                                                                           Training in Information and Communication Technologies

The first theme that was clearly established was the inefficient use of software within the industry and the need for training to spread awareness of various ICT systems and aid in the efficient use of such applications within the industry. Structural software, one of the first steps in the building process where a structure is given its stability is very crucial. A lot of building collapses happen due to misuse of these applications or due to inconsistencies in them. A consensus was established that when building such software, training needs to be done by both the developers and the end users in conjunction as the theoretical concepts clearly need to be laid out.
The second point that needs to be focused on is the exchange of electronic documents between various stakeholders in the project. The lack of training in this area is most often the case which leads to discrepancies in small and medium enterprises.
The other area of focus is on 3d simulations of buildings. These play a crucial role in BIM based estimating during the early stages of the project and also towards the end when the final product needs to be marketed. There is also a high demand in collaboration of 4d and 5d BIM modeling but the lack of skills is clearly evident in this area.                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                   

Site and Building Automation

There is an increasingly need for the right technology to ease the automation process on construction sites everyday which could increase productivity. One such technology that could be used is the radio frequency identification sensors which allows for tracking of materials in construction projects. This technology could help in better identification and flow of construction materials on site that could reduce wastage on site and also help in efficient management of tasks.
The other technology that should be focused on was using GPS as a means for surveying, tracking vehicles and workers on construction sites. Mobile computing was identified as a core technological advancement that would help in automation of tasks on site. Some other technologies that were identified were photogrammetric technologies such as 3D scanning and model reconstruction, site surveillance technologies such as webcams, video streaming and the use of intelligent building technologies to facilitate building automation.

                                                                                                                               

Critical Management of ICT’s                                                                                

As mentioned earlier, industrial practice still views the role of ICT’s as something that is value adding. We need to change that view and for this happen we have to focus on management of ICT’s at the strategic level. Majority of the investments towards ICT’s are seen towards facilitating process improvement, but a major shift is required towards strategic planning. We need senior management to be open to changes and inform them about various tools and techniques for strategic management such as Value change analysis, Nolan stages of growth model, etc.

                                                                                                                              

Process Reengineering

The view in the industry is that the processes are not defined properly which acts as a major barrier to ICT implementation. There is a need to redesign variety of processes within the construction cycle to help better communication, cooperation and collaboration amongst all the stakeholders involved. Process reengineering would lead to efficiency in management of resources including time and cost, knowledge management and better teamwork and will thus improve various tasks within the construction lifecycle. A good way to start this process would be to document the current processes and identify the necessary changes that would help to work in an era of Building Information Modeling and integrated project delivery.

                                                                                                                      

Building Smart

Building Information Modeling in recent years has become an active area of research to tackle problems of information management and interoperability. The main aim of BIM is to enable integration of information management and data level interoperability throughout the building’s life cycle. The transition from the processes that support CAD to the ones that support BIM should be gradual and a long term objective. Process and product models are the two platforms of BIM, hence the redesign of processes needs to be supported by research on process engineering. There would be a point where it would become mandatory to use such processes on all projects.

                                                                                                                          

Enterprise Integration

Enterprise integration as the name suggests is something that can be achieved at the data and information levels of the enterprise by integrating information resources and the application levels used within the organization. Information can be integrated in many ways such as physical file exchange, transferring of files to a database, sharing data on a virtual platform, etc. Integrating application components include the use of distributed objects, web platforms, and other messaging services. There are many ways to integrate information but building up a successful one requires a lot more.

The architectural frameworks such as The Open Group Architecture Framework and Zachman Framework provide the insight into design and implementation of enterprise wide information system architectures. Construction informatics needs to be focused on integrating information at the enterprise level. To enable this we need to look at facilitating the integration of different information resources used by different software applications. Research towards enabling the integration of remote applications or systems also needs to be carried out in parallel with research on information integration.

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