A knowledge representation model for formalizing subcontractors' scheduling process

Abstract

Construction project participants that comprise the construction supply chain are increasingly making use of information technology (IT) to manage their businesses. Among various applications of IT to the construction industry, the construction scheduling technique has progressed drastically as scheduling software has become commercially available to project participants. However, the limitation of applying IT to construction scheduling still exists due to the fact that the schedule developed mostly by a general contractor (GC) or a construction management firm (CM) tends not to take the subcontractors' schedule information into consideration. The objective of this research was to formalize subcontractors' planning and scheduling processes through the development of a knowledge representation model (KRM). The KRM represented the definitions of concepts and the relationships between concepts in the construction scheduling domain. In order to formalize the construction scheduling process from the subcontractor's standpoint, an inductive approach was used. Even though the subcontractor's scheduling process varied, the KRM provided in-depth insight into the scheduling process. Various subcontractors' scheduling processes could be retrieved by conducting comparative analysis with the KRM developed by this research.