Information Interoperability for Engineering and Construction Supply Chain

1. Information Interoperability for Engineering and Construction Supply Chain Kincho H. Law, Gio Wiederhold, Charles Han, Jack Cheng

2. The big idea Information Mapping and Integration, which can be leveraged to - establish a network of information and services for AEC virtual supply chain - facilitate the virtual design and construction process - enhance collaboration, decision-making and cost saving.

3. Owner Architect/ Design Consultants General Contractor Subcontractors Suppliers Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Motivating Engineering/Business Problem Current AEC Supply Chain • Scattered information sources • Fragmented SC • Different hardware and software • Different information models Courtesy: Hans Bjornsson

4. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Inevitable Need for Data Exchange 3D Models in Autodesk ADT eQUEST Model for HVAC gbXML IFC ???

5. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Consequences • Lack of information reuse and sharing • Decreased corporation and system accountability and transparency • Increased lead-time • Reduced customer service level Can it be improved? Information Interoperability

6. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Points of Departure • Information Interoperability is often neglected in a network of systems (e.g. supply chain network, workflow network) • A single, unifying standard model is commonly built • Mapping between different standards is now manual

7. Deployed Suppliers Web Services Web Service Gateway Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Online Web Services 1: Integrating Online Catalog with CAD and Inventory Management Web Services Availability Check Autodesk i-drop Order & Invoice Information Interoperability Architectural Design Inventory Management Automated Procurement Further Simulation Automated Workflow/ Supply Chain

8. <?xml version="1.0"?> <WeatherReport> <weather date="2003-9-23"> <location> <zipcode value="33410" /> </location> <conditions value=" Isolated thunderstorms early, mainly cloudy overnight with a few showers" /> <temperature> <templow c="23.3" f="74.0" /> <temphigh c="32.2" f="90.0" /> </temperature> …… </weather> …… Microsoft Excel Autodesk ADT Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Online Web Services 2: Integrating Online Weather Service to Engineering Simulation Information Interoperability

9. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Point of Departure (2/3)Unified Information Models Design, analysis, procurement, installation, etc. Product, process, organization information BIM Separated yetlinked models, differentiated by types and scopes Building a single, unifying model of concepts and definitions is neither efficient nor practical[Source: Steve Ray (Division Chief, NIST Manufacturing Systems Integration Division) ]

10. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Point of Departure (3/3)Manual Information Mapping Between Standards • Multiple information standards or data model structures in AEC industry: • Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) • OmniClass Construction Classification System • CIMsteel Integration Standards (CIS/2) • Automating Equipment Information Exchange (AEX) • UniFormatTM • MasterFormatTM • etc. • Mapping is now done manually by domain experts • Time-consuming • Labor-intensive • Ineffecient Mapping is needed for model rebuilding and data exchange purpose…

11. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Manual Mapping CIS/2 and IFC for Structural Steel Located_part CIS/2 Coord_system_cartesian_3d Section_profile IfcColumn IfcLocalPlacement IfcShapeProfileDef Took 2 Years! IFC Reference: Lipman (2006)

12. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Research Methods • Two basic work packages: • Knowledge-Driven Approach for Semantic Similarity Comparison  Discover similarity of concepts  “Harmonize” different ontological standards • Methodologies to Information Transformation and Integration  Formal operations for mapping  Information across scopes and applications  Web service framework

13. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Making Use of Ontology Ontology– Terminology and structure of information sources  meaningful information exchange and sharing Gartner Group*: “By 2010,ontologies ….will be the basis for 80 percent of application integration projects” Heterogeneous Representation of Ontologies: • Term Difference (Elevator vs. Lift) • View/Contextual Difference (Transportation vs. Equipment) • Schema Difference (BPEL vs. PSL vs. WSML vs. etc.) • Version Difference (IfcWorkTask – IFC 2.0 vs. IfcTask – IFC 2x) *Jacobs, J. and Linden (2002), A. Semantic Web Technologies Take Middleware to the Next Level, Technical Report T-17-5338, Gartner Group.

14. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Mediation for Information Articulation • Mediation semantic differences of formats • Metadata (ontology) are defined and extracted Information Articulation Terms useful for linking rules Result contains shared terms Text-miningData-mining Mediation Metadata Metadata Source Domain 1: Owned and maintained by Organization A Source Domain 2: Owned and maintained by Organization B Courtesy: Gio Wiederhold Knowledge Corpus

15. IfcSlab steel Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Semantic Comparison Between OmniClass and ifcXML Ontology 1 (OmniClass) Ontology 2 (ifcXML) Source Domain 2 Source Domain 1 Knowledge Corpus for Mediation Regulation Set (International Building Code, IBC)

16. O1 sprinkler system O2 water flow orifice O1 O2 alarm fire alarm system fire Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Knowledge-Driven Approach for Semantic Similarity Comparison [F] 903.4.2 Alarms. Approved audible devices shall be connected to every automatic sprinkler system. Such sprinkler water-flow alarm devices shall be activated by water flow equivalent to the flow of a single sprinkler of the smallest orifice size installed in the system. Alarm devices shall be provided on the exterior of the building in an approved location. Where a fire alarm system is installed, actuation of the automatic sprinkler system shall actuate the building fire alarm system.

17. Sellers Suppliers (Form, Fit, Function) Product cost (suppliers) (Form, Fit) [produce and store] Product cost (buyer) [obtain and store] Product cost (suppliers) (Form, Function) [price it sells the item] Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Information Transformation and Integration • Migration of data: • In same domain (e.g. MasterFormat to UniFormat, proprietary schemas to open standards) • Across disciplines (e.g. green building information with product geometry information) • Form – physical structure and contentFit – entity’s semantics or meaningFunction – purpose of how the entity is used ???

18. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Relationship to CIFE Goals • Engineering Modeling Methods: • Modeling of product, process and organization data for information exchange and sharing • Analysis Methods: • Establishment of formal methodologies and operations to solve the information interoperability problem • Business Metrics: • Support for information flow and global supply chain • Strategic Management: • Integration of distributed information and services for decision-making • Economic Impact Analysis: • Cost saving because of efficient collaboration between stakeholders and interoperation among heterogeneous applications

19. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Research Tasks, Schedule and Milestone Deliverables

20. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Risks • Establishment of a comprehensive information system infrastructure is a task beyond a 1- or 2-year seed research proposal • We will make use of: • Pilot project leading to fundamental understanding • Collaborations with other researchers and their organizations • Publications: • J. Cheng, C. P. Cheng, M. A. L. Thi, and K. H. Law. "Engineering Simulations with Web-based Services," Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, (ICCCBE XI), Montreal, Canada, June 14-16, 2006. • C. P. Cheng, G. T. Lau, J. Pan, K. H. Law, and A. Jones "Domain-Specific Ontology Mapping by Corpus-Based Semantic Similarity," Scientific Foundations Workshop of End-to-End Service Utility (E2ESU), NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA, March 22-23, 2007. • C. P. Cheng, G. T. Lau, and K. H. Law "Mapping Regulations to Industry-Specific Taxonomies" 11th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, June 4-8, 2007.

21. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals External Involvement • Potential Interest from industry organizations and government agencies • Collaborations: • Prof. Hans Bjornsson (Chalmers, Sweden and UC Merced) • Dr. Robert Lipman (NIST, IAI’s ifc & CIS/2 Interoperability project) • Dr. Mark Palmer (NIST, FIATECH’s AEX Interoperability project) • Dr. Albert Jones (NIST Enterprise Systems Group) • Mr. Dave Conover (International Code Council) • Dr. Calvin Kam (GSA) • others... (for example, ENSURE partners with EU researchers)

22. Plan, Risk, Funding Motivating Problem Point of Departure Semantic Similarity Information Mapping CIFE Goals Potential Funding Sources • Key initiative at various agencies: NSF, NIST, FIATECH, EU Framework 7, etc. • NIST (as well as FIATECH): • “Information interoperability and supply chain management” is the upcoming key initiative • Established strong collaboration with NIST Further funding support is anticipated

23. Thank You Questions and Answers