Kristian Birch Sørensen

Ontologies to Support RFID-Based Link between Virtual Models and Construction Components

: Virtual models have in recent years proven their worth in practice in building design. Today, virtual models of a complete building project are often created before the project is carried out in practice. The immediate advantages of this new working process are great; it reduces the number of errors, it gives a better production basis, and it improves clarity and enhances communication compared to traditional 2D drafting methods. However, there is still much unutilized potential in the virtual models, especially for use in the construction and operation phases. A digital link between the virtual models and the physical components in the construction process can improve the information handling and sharing in construction and building operation management. Such a link can be created by means of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Ontologies play an important role as the foundation for information sharing between trading partners, reuse of data from one phase in construction to the next, integration of process and product models with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, easy access of information, communication of data through networks, reading of data stored in electronic tags, etc. This article reviews existing ontologies relevant in relation to creating such a digital link between virtual models and the physical components. The ontologies are reviewed from an ontology consumer (system developer) point of view. The ontologies are categorized according to their applicability to specification of technical services, resources, organizational relations, business processes, and overall frameworks for ontology descriptions and their relations. It is concluded, with a few modifications for industrial use, the technical service and resource ontologies are applicable and that the meta-, organizational, and business process ontologies need further development and industrial maturity to be applicable for use in system development.

Elucidative programming in Java

The authors describe the ideas of Elucidative Programming. With Elucidative Programming we are primarily concerned with documentation of program understanding, and presentation of such understanding on the World Wide Web. In a broader perspective, we are interested in support of any technical writing which needs to address source program constituents. We claim that Elucidative Programming may be helpful for these purposes, mainly due to a documentation model based on relations between places in the documentation and program constituents. The article introduces a concrete Elucidator tool for Java. We use this tool as outset for a discussion of collaboration and teamwork centered in WWW based program presentations.

User Driven Innovation in the Building Process

During the late years there has been an ever-increasing focus on the possibilities to change the building process to raise quality on the final building products as well as the activities of actors involved in the building process. One reason for this interest is the new opportunities evolving due to introduction of advanced information and communication technology (ICT). The paper focuses on creative changes of the building process powered by user driven innovation activities. An overview of existing user driven innovation methodologies is given as well experiences from the ongoing Virtual Innovation in Construction (VIC) project. One important driving force for change is the opportunity for users to develop and articulate real needs concerning for example different functionalities of a building and its parts, but also on artifacts supporting the actual needs capture and requirements formulation during building design. A general methodological framework and meta ontology for Virtual Innovation in Construction is presented as well as findings from implementation of the method.