Collaborative production planning with BIM – Design, development and evaluation of a Virtual Production Planning system
Doctoral thesis, 2021

Construction projects have for a long time been characterized by increased specialization, low productivity, and a fragmented information exchange culture, resulting in inefficient work processes, with time delays and budget overruns. Research within the context of construction planning and scheduling and IT points to improving communication, collaboration, and cooperation to address these problems. However, the focus has been chiefly on production planning processes and scheduling tools and software. Research also points to collaborative user-friendly scheduling systems remaining under-researched; even though collaborative approaches have been introduced, the technological support and implementations are lacking.

In this context, this thesis presents a novel collaborative planning and scheduling process and software system, supporting multiple modes of interaction such as individual review, planning, collaborative scheduling and review work in 4D, both co-located and remote. A Design Science Research approach was used to identify requirements that guided the collaborative production planning system's design and development and evaluations. These evaluations show that implementing the collaborative planning and scheduling system enhances understanding of the planning and scheduling of projects and supports both individual and group work. The developed system facilitates information gathering when creating activities and improves collaborative production of the schedule. Furthermore, the new collaborative setting shortens the length of planning workshops while simultaneously increasing the quality output. Thus, the thesis contributes to the body of knowledge of collaborative production planning, collaborative IT systems in construction, how these systems can support communication and collaborative processes in a social context, and how a design science approach could be used in this setting.

Construction Informatics

BIM

Construction IT

Scheduling

Collaborative Production Planning

Opponent: Professor Timo Hartman, Civil Engineering Institute, Technical University Berlin, Germany

Author

Mikael Viklund Tallgren

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Construction Management

An empowered collaborative planning method in a Swedish construction company - A case study

Proceedings of the 31st Annual Association of Researchers in Construction Management Conference, ARCOM 2015, Lincoln, United Kingdom, 7-9 September 2015,; Vol. 2015(2015)p. 793-802

Paper in proceeding

BIM-tool development enhancing collaborative scheduling for pre-construction

Journal of Information Technology in Construction,; Vol. 25(2020)p. 374-397

Journal article

4D modelling using virtual collaborative planning and scheduling

Journal of Information Technology in Construction,; Vol. 26(2021)p. 763-782

Journal article

Developing support for BIM-based takt time schedules for production control

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2022),; Vol. 22(2022)p. 723-730

Paper in proceeding

Byggprojekt sägs ofta vara försenade och över budget, detta kan delvis spåras till tidsplaner som är orealistiska eller inte följs. Dessa tidsplaner produceras ofta av platschef eller projektplanerare, som inte kan känna till och förstå alla typer av arbete på en byggarbetsplats. Alltså baseras tidsplanen delvis på gissningar eller kunskaper baserade på erfarenhet från tidigare projekt. Denna avhandling visar att dessa osäkerheter kan minskas och erfarenhet och kunskap delas bättre genom att engagera underleverantörerna i tidsplaneringen av projektet.

Detta engagemang skapar möjligheter för deltagarna att dela kunskap och därmed bidra till att skapa bättre tidsplaner, vilket minskar potentiella problem med tidsplanen redan när den skapas. Avhandlingen visar också att den mjukvara som traditionellt används under tidsplanering inte är lämplig för denna typ av samarbetsplanering att det finns ett behov av att skapa en programvara som bättre hanterar samarbetsaspekter av tidsplanering och kommunikation. Denna avhandling presenterar designen, utveckling och utvärderingen av en sådan programvara. Avhandlingen bidrar därmed till forskningen och till praktiken med en beskrivning av den aktörsinvolverade tidsplaneringssprocessen samt designen, utveckling och utvärdering av en programvara som möjliggör samarbetsplanering och schemaläggning med hjälp av 3D -modeller.

Construction projects are often said to be late and over budget; this can partly be traced to unrealistic or not followed schedules. Site managers or project planners usually produce these schedules; these cannot know and understand all work at a construction site. Thus, a great deal of guesswork or knowledge based on experience from previous projects go into the schedule. This thesis shows that collaborative planning can reduce guesswork in planning. At the same time, experience and knowledge are shared through the involvement of subcontractors in the scheduling of the project.

This involvement creates possibilities for participants to share knowledge and thus help develop better schedules, thus reducing potential issues with the schedule when it is created. The thesis also shows that software traditionally used during scheduling is not suitable for this type of collaborative planning and scheduling. There is a need to create software that better addresses collaborative aspects of scheduling and communication.
This thesis presents the design, development and evaluations of such software. The thesis thus contributes with a description of the collaborative scheduling process and the design, development and evaluation of the software that enables collaborative planning and scheduling with the help of 3D models.

Virtual Produktion Planning with the help of BIM and visualization, Phase III

Development Fund of the Swedish Construction Industry (SBUF) (13609), 2018-11-01 -- 2021-03-31.

Digital Twin Cities Centre

VINNOVA (2019-00041), 2020-02-29 -- 2024-12-31.

Subject Categories

Construction Management

Information Science

Human Computer Interaction

ISBN

978-91-7905-581-3

Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie: 5048

Publisher

Chalmers

Online

Opponent: Professor Timo Hartman, Civil Engineering Institute, Technical University Berlin, Germany

More information

Latest update

11/13/2023