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Towards a Concurrent Engineering Environment in the Building and Engineering Structures Industry
Sponsor: European Union (ESPRIT Programme)
Funding: 2500 kECU (41 Person Years)
Duration: 01/1996 - 04/1998 (40 Month)
Project Summary
The goal of ToCEE is the development of systems of information
exchange in support of a concurrent engineering environment.
The output will be of benefit to the whole of the European
construction industry, its largest industrial sector, improving
quality and reducing lead time and hence costs by an estimated
20 %. Immediate exploitation of the results is ensured as the
industrial partners are leaders within their own countries'
construction industry.
The construction industry is unique in that the players - the
designers, engineers, suppliers, manufacturers and builders -
only form as a team for one project with new problems of
co-ordination on each occasion. A different Architecture,
Engineer and Construction (AEC) organisation, a fresh virtual
enterprise, is needed every time for every new project. Once
the project is complete, the enterprise is disbanded. Because
Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) dominate the construction
industry, the virtual enterprise structure consists of many
units that are widely located, with different organisational
structures and computer systems. A precondition that members of
each new enterprise have compatible management and Computer
Aided Engineering/Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CAE/CIM)
is not practical, given such a fragmented industry.
For Concurrent Engineering innovative techniques to co-ordinate
and manage information, resources and documents need to be
developed to integrate successfully and reduce lead times,
increase quality and keep within budget constraints.
The ToCEE project addresses the following key issues that are
essential for a successful concurrent engineering
approach:
- distributed product and document modelling including intra and intermodel operability
- conflict management
- information logistics
- version management
- legal issues related to electronic documentation
- monitoring and forecasting
- cost control.
Application fields are:
- design process
- construction process
- facility management
ToCEE key issues
An overall framework for a concurrent engineering environment
will be developed along with the initial development of
supporting and enabling tools, compatible with existing
software already marketed by members of the consortium.
Prototype tools addressing longer term developments will also
be developed. The twin approach of short term application and
longer term development is fundamental to the project. Emphasis
will be placed on the application of Artificial Intelligence
(AI), such as decision support, knowledge based and machine
learning methods and multi agent and distributed database
systems.
Large scale and geotechnic structures have been selected to
demonstrate the software tools. In the case of geotechnic
structures, the profile and material parameters are only known,
at the outset, at a fuzzy or incomplete level, in spite of much
time and resources have been spent in gathering the
information. As satisfactory and reliable information can only
be guaranteed during construction, the final design is carried
out at this stage, requiring a concurrent engineering
approach.
The ToCEE Interest Group
The ToCEE interest group (TIG) wants to bring together people
interested in the ToCEE technologies and subjects related to
Concurrent Engineering in Construction. Members of the TIG
regularly receive the TIG newsletter, an electronic newsletter,
containing announcements of new ToCEE technical specifications,
publications and dates of conferences and workshops with ToCEE
presentations.