Gilles Halin

Asynchronous coordination of virtual teams in creative applications (co-design or co-engineering): requirements and design criteria

This paper reports on asynchronous coordination of a virtual team in a virtual enterprise. It confronts two approaches: explicit coordination based on explicit process modeling, and implicit coordination, based on group awareness, to finally conclude that a good coordination is a subtle mixture of both approaches. For each approach and for the combination of both, requirements and design criteria are given and a study of the state of the art is done.

Towards a Sustainable Services Innovation in the Construction Sector

In this paper, we report on a business case in the construction sector where we have designed and prototyped an innovative Web-based distributed document management application. It supports various exchange and sharing of information services between the different stakeholders involved in a construction project. The development of the application is based on a service-oriented architecture and follows a systematic model-driven engineering approach. Besides the application itself, the paper also reports on a Sustainable Services Innovation Process (S2IP) guiding our activities related to the valorization and the successful technology transfer of a demonstrator into an innovative product. We illustrate how this innovation process has been applied to this business case in the construction sector where a networked value constellation has been identified and realized with professionals of the construction sector (including a standardization body), software houses and our technology transfer centre.

Method to Design Coordinated Multiple Views Adapted to User's Business Requirements in 4D Collaborative Tools in AEC

The issue of multiple views coordination became more and more challenging in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) field since the apparition and the increasing success of 4D/nD CAD. In order to adapt visualization to users business requirements in 4D-supported collaborative tools, this paper propose a method to design coordinated multiple views based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). The method enables users visualization needs description, visualization modes comparison. The aim is to choose appropriate visualization modes business needs, to associate interaction principles and coordination mechanisms in order to compose coordinated multiple views adapted to actors business needs. The paper presents a case study based on literature review and interviews with construction sector practitioners.

A Model-Based Method for the Design of Services in Collaborative Business Environments

The uncertainty of collaborative environments in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) projects makes the design of services dedicated to professionals of the construction sector particularly challenging. Our work - still in an early stage - introduces a method enabling the design of such services, from business analysis to implementation, answering the needs of specific projects’ situations. This method is supported by a toolset and based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) approach. We illustrate it by a case study scenario based on the particular requirements within sustainable building design projects.

Characterizing Collaborative 4D Use Contexts to Improve Interaction Mechanisms Design

This article proposes a metamodel to describe the use context of collaborative 4D modeling in Architecture, Engineering and Construction. While interaction with three-dimensional models has been extensively discussed in the literature, the interaction principles with the fourth dimension are much less treated. It is indeed a challenging issue according to the characteristics of the construction industry. The proposed metamodel is a preliminary step toward the proposal of adapted and/or innovative visualization and interaction mechanisms in collaborative 4D tools. It allows a good understanding of the collaborative 4D simulation activity and the identification of the main variables to consider from a high level point of view.

Collaborative 4D/nD Construction Simulation: What Is It?

Planning is crucial in the success of construction projects and 4D/nD simulation is an innovative approach to improve it. Because construction planning is mainly a collaborative activity, the collaborative use of 4D/nD simulation is growing in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction AEC, following the implementation of Building Information Modeling BIM workprocesses. Multiple scientific research works have been devoted to collaborative 4D/nD simulation. Major software editors in the industry are also proposing solutions to develop it. But many challenges remain such as adapting visualization or optimizing collaboration processes. To be able to address these challenges, it is important firstly to conceptualize the notion of collaborative 4D/nD construction simulation. This article is based on an understanding of collective activity in the AEC industry, and theoretical elements from Simulation and CSCW scientific fields. It provides a generic definition and identifies the key components to consider in the improvement of collaborative 4D/nD simulation tools.

A Metamodel to Describe nD CAD Visualization as Coordinated Multiple Views

4D/nD simulations are increasing the quality of project management in the construction industry and many attempts are made to enable their collaborative use. However, many limitations still exist, in particular the lack of adaptation of the proposed visualization to the requirements of business users. As collaboration in construction projects requires a special attention, it is important to fit visualization to real business needs of practitioners. The work in the present paper is part of a larger one that aims to propose a method to adapt visualizations to business requirements for the construction industry, using Model-Driven Engineering approach. It introduces a metamodel of coordinated multiple views (CMV) that enable to describe 4D/nD visualizations as CMV systems.

Usage-Centered Design of Adaptable Visualization Services: Application to Cooperation Support Services System in the AEC Sector

In the Architecture, Engineering and Construction sector (AEC) cooperation between actors is essential for project success. The analysis of the cooperation context enables the identification of the “usages” carried out by each actor of a construction project when cooperating with others. It constitutes an important issue in highly collaborative domains. This article suggests a usage-centered process to design Adaptable Visualization Services. A Model-Driven Engineering lets us to describe usages, visualization services, business services and business domain and to define the relationships between their concepts. This method, inspired from UI design methods from software engineering or HCI domains, is integrated in an innovative service design process which guides the visualization services discovery, specification, development and appropriation by the end-users.

Toward a Trust-Based Construction Management

: The growing complexity of AEC projects is increasing the importance of the building construction coordination role. Moreover, the uncertainty linked to the environment of the construction activity makes way for the notion of trust. The coordinator can make use of multiple tools/views for accomplishing his mission. This research work suggests analyzing data coming from these different views to consolidate trust indicators informing the coordinator about “trust in the correct progression of the construction activity.” The approach suggested in this article distinguishes between four aspects of the activity determining the global trust level: task progress, actors performance, documents required to perform the task, and building elements resulting from the task. The proposal suggests introducing these trust indicators in a dashboard, included in a multiview interface, thus allowing the coordinator to identify the tasks with a low trust level and to understand the nature of dysfunctions. A prototype has been developed and integrated in a service-based IT infrastructure. Results of an experiment stage are finally discussed to validate the approach.

A Method for Constructing a Reference Image Database to Assist with Design Process. Application to the Wooden Architecture Domain

Designing architectural projects requires the introduction of references, because design is an activity oriented towards a result which does not yet exist. If we summarise the current categories used in Artificial Intelligence to characterise the different forms of reasoning, we are able to consider that design is more the concern of the induction or the abduction mechanism than the deduction mechanism. Moreover, the main characteristic of the designers activity is to work towards non-routine situations with the use of many references. In this paper we will present method principles to construct a reference image database. These references will enable the designer to further in solving the design problem. To illustrate these reference usage, we choose photographic images belonging to the wooden construction domain We also present at the end of the paper an experiment which aims to evaluate the real help that this reference image database can bring to designers during their creation task.