Fernanda Leite

IDENTIFICATION OF DATA ITEMS NEEDED FOR AUTOMATIC CLASH DETECTION IN MEP DESIGN COORDINATION

This paper discusses a study carried out during the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design coordination of a 210,000 square feet facility, currently under construction in Western Pennsylvania (Project X). We have compared types of clashes identified in their manual coordination process (overlay of 2D drawings on a light table by pairs of subcontractors) and through automatic clash detection using a building information model (BIM) in NavisWorks JetStream v5. The automatic clash detection identified several clashes that were missed by the subcontractors, who were performing this task manually. Also, the manual clash detection identified clashes which could not possibly be found by the automatic clash detection software, since one of the clashing objects (e.g. cable trays) was not modeled in the BIM. This study also included site observations of field detected clashes, some of which were not identified in either manual or automatic processes. Results show that the combination of clashes identified in coordination meetings, those automatically detected, as well as those identified in the field enable identification of objects that need to be modeled in order to capture the largest possible number of clashes. This paper was limited to the comparison of types of clashes identified in each of the three methods during a specific project. Although these results cannot be generalized, they still provide insight towards the need to identify what needs to be modeled in a BIM for MEP coordination prior to the start of the coordination process.

Visualization, Information Modeling, and Simulation: Grand Challenges in the Construction Industry

AbstractWith the rapid advancement of sensing and computing technology and the wide adoption of mobile computing, the construction industry has faced a rise in the amount of information and data generated during the lifecycle of the construction project. To deal with a large variety of project data and information to support efficient and effective decision making, visualization, information modeling, and simulation (VIMS) has become critical in the development of capital facilities and infrastructures. The objective of this paper is to identify and investigate grand challenges in VIMS for the construction industry, to assist the academic and industry communities in establishing a future research agenda to solve VIMS challenges. In particular, 17 VIMS grand challenges were identified by an expert task force in the VIMS committee of the ASCE Computing and Information Technology Division, and then VIMS experts in the civil and construction areas from both academia and industry participated in a survey to as...

Process-oriented approach of teaching building information modeling in construction management

AbstractIt is widely accepted that the evolution of building information modeling (BIM) is increasingly affecting the roles of construction management professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Since the transition from 2D drafting to BIM is more of a process transformation, the use of BIM also affects how information is managed by and for construction management professionals. Teaching BIM in construction engineering and management (CEM) curriculum requires more emphasis on learning BIM as a process improvement methodology rather than only a technology. This paper describes the implementation of a graduate level course called “Building Information Modeling for Capital Projects” that was developed to educate next-generation construction managers to understand BIM and effectively use an existing BIM in plan execution for building construction projects. This is a project-based course where students gain knowledge on the implementation of BIM concepts throughout the life...

Formalized representation for supporting automated identification of critical assets in facilities during emergencies triggered by failures in building systems

AbstractThis paper presents a formalized vulnerability representation schema that targets supporting vulnerability assessment in a facility during an emergency triggered by a failure in a building system by identifying which critical assets might be affected by the current emergency. The representation schema captures to which threats specific content are vulnerable. Specifically, it enables the representation of threats and how they can be traced spatially. Moreover, it provides a way to describe content by its type, its exchange and use values as a way to identify and prioritize vulnerabilities, and to represent different types of content collections. Such a representation schema is needed for supporting automated vulnerability assessment in building emergencies. The formalized representation schema was tested for coverage in synthetic tests using OmniClass for content and the Emergency Response Guidebook for threats. For content, 84% of 245 content types in OmniClass were successfully represented using...

Requirements for autonomous crane safety monitoring

Crane related accidents, caused by multiple factors such as a worker entering a dangerous area, is one of the major accident types in the construction industry. A vision for addressing this problem is through an intelligent jobsite, fully wired and sensed. Recent advancement in pervasive and ubiquitous computing makes autonomous crane safety monitoring possible. An initial step towards implementing autonomous crane safety monitoring is to identify the safety and information requirements needed. This paper presents a literature review and results from a set of expert interviews, used to extract requirements for autonomous crane safety monitoring. The extracted requirements for dynamic safety zones and associated information requirements as a precursor to deployment are also presented in the paper.

Exploring approaches to improve the performance of autonomous monitoring with imperfect data in location-aware wireless sensor networks

In recent years, information and sensing technologies have been applied to the construction industry to collect and provide rich information to facilitate decision making processes. One of the applications is using location data to support autonomous crane safety monitoring (e.g., collision avoidance and dangerous areas control). Several location-aware wireless technologies such as GPS (Global Positioning System), RFID (Radio-frequency identification), and Ultra-Wide Band sensors, have been proposed to provide location information for autonomous safety monitoring. However, previous studies indicated that imperfections (errors, uncertainty, and inconsistency) exist in the data collected from those sensors and the data imperfections have great impacts on autonomous safety monitoring system performance. This paper explores five computationally light-weight approaches to deal with the data imperfections, aiming to improve the system performance. The authors built a scaled autonomous crane safety monitoring testbed with a mounted localization system to collect location data and developed five representative test cases based on a live construction jobsite. Seven hundred and sixty location readings were collected at thirty-eight test points from the sensors. Those location data was fed into the reasoning mechanisms with five approaches to generate the safety decisions at those thirty-eight test points and evaluate system performance in terms of precision, recall and accuracy. The results indicate that system performance can be improved if at least ten position readings from sensors can be collected at small intervals at any location along the moving path. However, by including additional data such as velocity and acceleration that may be read from devices mounted on workers, localization error may be significantly reduced. These findings represent a path forward to improve localization accuracy by mixing imperfect data from the sensed environment with supplemental input.

Process Knowledge Capture in BIM-Based Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Design Coordination Meetings

AbstractIn recent years, building information modeling (BIM) has been increasingly applied in design coordination of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems to enhance coordination and communication efficiency. While BIM has been mostly used to store and represent product information, process information such as discussions and decision made during design coordination is usually not properly captured. The research reported in this paper implements a previously developed knowledge representation schema to capture coordination information generated in the BIM-based design coordination process. A prototype system was developed for model-based knowledge capture and tested on a construction project. The proposed system indicates that process information can be captured and represented with direct links to the model, enabling model-based knowledge capture and further analysis of process information.

Conflicting Side of Building Information Modeling Implementation in the Construction Industry

AbstractBuilding information modeling (BIM) has changed the face of the construction industry as it has affected not only the nature of interactions between the multiple stakeholders involved in projects, but also the framework of the working environment and its boundaries. BIM has been widely recognized to have benefits ranging from enhancing cost and schedule performance to reducing safety risk. Despite the industry enthusiasm about BIM and its benefits, its implementation has been relatively challenging. Considering the characteristics of this technology combined with the very diverse nature of the construction industry working environment and contracting strategies, BIM implementation presents a set of challenges ranging from technical to contractual and personal challenges that extend beyond the design and construction phases to the postdelivery phase. This paper aims to present through literature review and expert interviews evidence of those challenges with a focus on BIM-related contractual challe...

Assessing Safety Risk among Different Construction Trades: Quantitative Approach

AbstractThe construction industry has one of the worst occupational health and safety records of all industries. In recognition of this, several innovative safety techniques have been introduced to...

Civil Integrated Management for Highway Infrastructure: Case Studies and Lessons Learned

The use of information modeling and digital data for highway projects has seen a considerable surge over the past decade. These tools have enhanced the predictability and performance of several tasks in the project delivery process. This study explores the implementation of civil integrated management (CIM) practices in four case studies and documents the lessons learned to enhance CIM inclusion in project delivery processes. CIM encompasses the system of interdependent technologies and practices that facilitate collection, management, and utilization of digital information for project delivery and asset management processes. CIM is an emerging practice, and studies concerning integration of CIM technologies with project life cycle are limited. Through case studies of four highway projects, this study emphasizes the standards and processes that played a vital role in utilizing CIM technologies for contract documentation, design coordination, construction automation, and project management. The two small-scale projects investigated as part of this study demonstrate that pilot initiatives could be successfully carried out to harvest best practices in overcoming contract and legal challenges while embracing new technologies in agencies’ workflow. The two large-scale projects indicate that with the owner’s participation and expertise, the role of CIM technologies can be further enhanced toward performing project management functions. The lessons learned from the case studies are organized to provide a synthesis of process and organizational considerations that would enhance the agencywide adoption of CIM technologies.