| Summary: | Automated daily site reporting as an integral part of a
project management system has the potential to be the missing link
for effective construction project monitoring and control. Problem
trends over time can be detected more readily through the
maintenance of daily site records that track problems occurring
against activities; timely corrective action can thus be initiated
more quickly. The goal of this thesis is to develop a schema to
perform the automated interpretation of daily site records to
identify activities that are experiencing difficulties; to identify
the source(s) of these problems; to identify the types of problems
resulting; to find collaborating information from the daily site
records to validate the causes of these problems; and to suggest
likely corrective actions.
A framework is presented wherein each component of the
analysis schema is defined. Fuzzy logic is used to define the
imprecise relationships that exist between these components. A
prototype system is developed to implement and test the schema.
The components of the prototype are: a user interface; data files;
an application program; an inference engine; and an expert rule
base. The prototype is validated by way of several simple examples
solved both manually and by the computer. A case study of a
hypothetical construction project is also treated by automated
interpretation to demonstrate the workability of the prototype on
a multi-activity project. The model developed in this thesis would benefit from addition
to and refinement of the expert rule base, and further
investigation of the use of fuzzy logic to incorporate in the
analysis other items of information that can be collected on site.
A future system would make use of user feedback, reporting on which
corrective actions have been implemented and their impacts on
performance. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Civil Engineering, Department of === Graduate
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