Summary: |
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) projects require multidisciplinary solutions. To develop these solutions, AEC professionals need to construct their discipline specific information, but they also need to interrelate and make trade-offs with the information of other disciplines. Today AEC professionals have formal methods to construct much of their single discipline information: however, they lack formal methodologies to plan, communicate and control their multidisciplinary processes. As a result, AEC professionals struggle to design and execute good multidisciplinary solutions. By leveraging existing industry and our own methods and technology, we are designing and implementing such a formal methodology. Using this methodology, AEC professionals will collaboratively and iteratively define their objectives using our POP (Product, Organization, Process) method. They will develop options and analyze them using our Narrative method. They will decide upon options using our Decision Dashboard method. To develop this methodology, we are gathering test cases from ongoing AEC projects, implementing our methodology in the CIFE iRoom, re-enacting these test cases and conducting live charettes with our implemented methodology, and validating the extent to which this methodology enables AEC professionals to better communicate and control their multidisciplinary design processes. The scientific purpose of this research is to better formalize and manage design processes among many AEC professionals and their information. The practical purpose of this methodology is to enable AEC professionals to improve their multidisciplinary designs. |