Cloud Computing to Enhance Collaboration ... - IEEE Xplore

Cloud Computing to Enhance Collaboration, Coordination and Communication in the Construction Industry Amarnath C B Research Scholar [email protected]

Anil Sawhney Professor [email protected]

J. Uma Maheswari Assistant Professor [email protected]

Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi – 110016, India Abstract— Construction industry involves a multitude of stakeholders who perform their work from disparate locations. This involvement of numerous stakeholders, which is common in construction industry compared to the other industries, has led to conceptual fragmentation. In spite of this fragmentation, the construction industry delivers complex projects with limitations. The limitations can be mostly attributed to the difficulties in achieving the optimum levels of collaboration, coordination, and communication (referred as three C’s) which are required for efficient project delivery. Shifting from a two-dimensional design documentation, the industry has recently embraced Building Information Models (BIM) that allow an information rich visualization of the facility during feasibility analysis stage enabling efficient information transfer among the stakeholders. Deploying the BIM in the ‘cloud’ can further enhance the project integration through the near optimal levels of the three C’s. Very few researchers have investigated that the modifications made to the BIM can promote post project delivery functions too in a seamless fashion. To incorporate this, the authors had proposed a conceptual framework using BIM on the cloud for construction project life cycle. This framework is described in this paper. The utility of the framework is also discussed. Keywords- BIM; CC; project life cycle.

I.

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that construction industry is highly fragmented even today. The fragmentation is further complicated by the fact that project delivery involves several disciplines collaborating for relatively short periods of time with feeble transfer/sharing of data/information [1]. It has been discussed that in reality, although the fragmentation exists amongst almost all the project specialists, proper adoption of the three C’s can overcome the barriers caused by fragmentation [2]. New information technologies can be instrumental in this process, especially the Internet and specialized Extranets [3]. The rapid emergence of BIM has changed the way AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) project teams think and work in putting their ideas together [4]; leading to

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enhanced project delivery marked by efficient information exchange, especially to solve problems in clash detection, resolving conflicts, etc., [5]. BIM is a data-rich, objectoriented, digital representation of the facility, from where data and views of the facility, appropriate to the user’s needs can be extracted and analyzed for decision-making [6]. Apart from the advantages of visualizing the as-built facility, minimizing the number/frequency of design and construction errors; modern BIM tools can define objects parametrically [7]. Also, as these 3D objects are machine readable, it becomes practical to use the data for other analysis such as energy, lighting, acoustic etc., [8]. Thus building models allow for feasible integration of design phases simultaneously while explorations and analysis of the design can be conducted. The power of BIM is limited by numerous factors pertaining to people, process and technology. The industry is striving to solve the people and process issues via a variety of strategies that include national BIM standards, standard contractual documents, etc., [9]. On the technology front, CC can provide many fundamental enhancements to the way BIM can be deployed and used in the industry [10]. CC is not a specific technology or a particular software solution but instead, it is an umbrella concept for different methods to share resources over internet [11]. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the USA has defined CC as a model for enabling convenient, ondemand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction [12]. In simple worlds, Cloud Computing is a technology used to access computational services offered via the Internet [2]. CC is ultimately the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, which can provide computation, software, data access, and storage devices that do not require the user; knowledge of the utility [14]. As such CC offers three broad services referred as SPI (Software, Platform, and Infrastructure) targeted for end users, developers and engineers respectively as seen in figure 1. Cloud services that deliver infrastructure resources (such as operating system, storage, networking, etc.,) as a service are

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known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). A Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud lies directly upon an IaaS layer providing a platform upon which applications and services can be developed and hosted as illustrated in the figure 1. Software as a Service (SaaS) clouds provides applications or services using a cloud infrastructure and or platform [15].

a cloud has real potential to elevate engineering and design quality, expedite workflows, encourage team collaboration, and many others while reducing the total cost [11]. Under this worldview the authors have envisioned three distinct streams of applications as shown in Figure 2. They are: (1) Model Server: using the CC platform, the central model of the building can be hosted. This will allow interand intra- disciplinary access of the model contents in a seamless fashion; (2) BIM Software Server: current BIM software require significant hardware resources to run. This hardware can be deployed in the cloud and shared efficiently between the project participants; and (3) Content Management: CC provides a perfect centralized and secure hosting environment for content in the form of data attributes/libraries needed for BIM usage and deployment. Owing to the paradigm shift of the current designers to the digital era, the need for a conceptual framework for implementing CC for BIM has arisen. The next section

Figure 1: Cloud Service Models (Adapted from [16]).

With the help of the service models deployed on either public or private cloud can offer variety of solutions to overcome the above mentioned barriers seamlessly. Thus, there arises the need for conceptual framework for CC using BIM. II.

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND CLOUD COMPUTING

Designers are now able to ‘virtually’ construct a fully documented, three-dimensional facility on a computer before it is actually built on-site. The driving force behind this innovation has been BIM. Apart from visualization [17], the current BIM software allow decision-making on the ‘virtual’ model and provide scope for improvement [18]. When BIM is deployed on a Cloud platform it further enhances the collaborative process that leverages web-based BIM capabilities and traditional document management to improve coordination [19]. Beyond the biggest benefit of significant cost savings, CC has the potential to transform the way stakeholders interact with each other [20]. On large-scale infrastructure projects with distributed project teams, CC can provide engineers and architects with a centralized, computing platform for collaborative design using BIM as discussed earlier [10]. It is envisioned that the construction industry can beneficially utilize CC in a variety of functions throughout the project delivery lifecycle [2]. Supply chain integration, product modelling, knowledge management, fabrication details and site data management are some of the functions that can be beneficially deployed under the CC framework [6]. BIM in

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Figure 2: Functional Benefits of Cloud Computing

describes the proposed framework. III.

PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR AEC INDUSTRY

Our proposed framework for the construction life cycle on the cloud platform has an http front-end, allowing access to a central server which serves as a host of numerous design and engineering software packages installed into it using BIM as seen in the Figure 3. The models developed through BIM on the cloud can benefit the stakeholders during the conceptual stage, detailed design stage, the pre-construction stage and the construction stage [6]. These individual BIM users/teams can collaborate with the local groups of a particular locality for data/information sharing and transfer. Data exchange can be performed with accurate information along with the revised information. Apart from the information rich capabilities of the BIM software, this server on the cloud also serves as a back-up for storing all the files and can serve as a permanent database apart from temporary storage on local servers. As the cloud offers a structured, reliable and speedy

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information transfer across the project stakeholders through the BIM on the cloud platform, it can also use for Project Management Systems. This database referred as PIM (Project Information Model) can provide input data for scheduling, quantity surveying, cost estimating, and few other applications whereby, benefitting the pre-construction and construction planning stage [21]. The concept of 4D, 5D,…., nD for BIM emerged with additional input of time, cost, and any other attribute to this information rich building models [22]. With the increased demand and usage of industry users for PIM, the owner/operators requirements for life time maintenance of that building has increased in leaps and bounds. FIM (Facility Information Model) offers quality and reliable facilities management information such as repair, rework and maintenance operations for the future user through the data available on the cloud [23]. FIM, when deployed on the cloud as illustrated in the figure can allow the facility manager to collaborate with the designers and contractors in no time to facilitate easy information

retrieval for future maintenance operation in the form of repairs and rework. There is no end to the on-going attempt in the use of BIM in the continuum of the project lifecycle. But, most often if the built facility is not maintained and used efficiently can lead to defects in the utility leading to destruction. Nowadays, there is a paradigm shift in the trend to use computers to view and analyse the resulting destructed facility using explosives or other equipment [24]. Deconstruction has strong ties to environmental sustainability and recycling/reuse of materials as it can be categorized into structural and non-structural [24]. The enhancements in BIM can facilitate the decay of the stripped part of the facility without any harm to the environment commonly referred as non-structural deconstruction. While the structural deconstruction offers dismantling of the components of a building which can be recycled for other usage. Through BIM services on the cloud one can collaborate with the work team while choosing the materials and technology used for constructing the facility keeping in mind for the life after destruction as seen in the figure 3. Concept Stage

DIM

Demolition Stage

Re c St yc a g lin e g

PreConstruction Stage

PIM

y ilit b a in e ta tag s Su S

d le ai n et ig D es ge D ta S

BIM

C on s St tru ag cti e on

FIM Operations & Maintenance Stage

Figure 3: Conceptual Framework for Construction Project life cycle using modified BIM on CC


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IV.

EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

For the testing on the proposed framework, the experimental set-up has been established at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi which is based on Revit Server Network Architecture as seen in the figure 4. Currently, this private cloud hosts Four Virtual Machines [VM’s]: VM1, VM2, VM3 & VM4 for deployment. As shown in the figure 4,

VM1 has been identified as a Central server, which will be operated by Revit server administrator for managing security issues and BIM model at central server through central model cache and the others were expected to be local servers for architectural, structural and MEP modellers to do BIM and sync to central server through cloud technology.

Coordination

Communication

Collaboration

Figure 4. Revit Server Network Architecture on BIM Cloud

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The Basic configuration of the VM adopted for the experimental setup is as given below: • • • •

performance Graphic work) stations needed for the design and coordination process can be deployed efficiently on CC.

Windows edition: Windows server 2008 R2 enterprise. Processor: Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU [email protected] (2 processors) Installed memory (RAM): 8.00GB System type: 64 bit OS

The Autodesk Revit was considered as the principal application for the experimental setup. Revit server installed at the central server was used to remotely collaborate with the other local groups as illustrated in figure 4. Initially, two groups were planned for the study as Architecture and Structures and hence Revit Architecture 2011 and Revit structures 2011 were installed. The project under consideration was the “Campus wellness center for an academic institution”. The Model was developed to be at the schematic design stage. Once experimental setup was installed on IITD Cloud, three Designers ‘A’, ‘S’ and ‘D’ were employed for each of the domain – Architectural, Structural and Design management respectively. Here, ‘A’ & ‘S’ were using VM’s on Local server for designing Architectural and Structural design and both designs were managed and coordinated on central server by ‘D’. The initial architectural design was done by ‘A’ using Revit Architecture 2011 on VM2 and was hosted on the Central server and was notified to ‘S’. Later, ‘S’ started the structural design using Revit structure 2011 on VM3 and hosted the structural design on the central server in parallel to notifying ‘A’. At this juncture, ‘A’ finalised the design and again the same process was continued with ‘A’ and ‘S’ for the detailed design as was done during the initial design. Figures 5 & 6, shows the campus wellness centre model for Architecture and Structures domain. Also, figure 7 shows the snapshot of the rendered model. After the detailed architectural and structural design, it was notified to ‘D’, who continued to perform the clash detections through Autodesk Navisworks 2011 on VM1. The design process turns complex as more and more disciplines play a predominant role for the design team. Currently, the investigations are extended by including MEP engineer (M) who designs using Revit MEP 2011 on VM4. With the CC approach, BIM modelling process can be deployed such that collaboration, coordination and communication can be enhanced. The HPGW (High

Figure 5: Architectural BIM model on the cloud

Figure 6: Structural BIM model on the cloud

Figure 7: Rendering BIM model using cloud computing on “iPhone”

V.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSIONS

Researchers have shown the benefits of using BIM technology for building models such as clash detection, resolving conflicts, and others. In the construction industry, the current trend is toward deploying BIM on the cloud in order to efficiently integrate and manage engineering information, which is also termed as


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ubiquitous computing. The initial testing of the model on structural and architecture was also found to be positive. The generic framework proposed for construction project life cycle has captured the entire project life cycle including the destruction and life thereafter. The enhancements of BIM at every stage has been clearly identified and discussed for the efficient usage of the construction participants for a better delivery of the project. Normally, the deconstruction/sustainability is not included in the project life cycle stages. But, the authors have envisioned that if the sustainability/recycle analysis is considered, the future world can be ‘green’ and sustainable on the cloud.

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