A Formal Process to Create Resource-Loaded and Cost-Loaded Activities Related to Feature-Based Product Models

Understanding how the building design influences construction costs is a challenging task for estimators. Estimators must recognize the design conditions that affect construction costs and customize the cost estimate accordingly. Estimators have different preferences for how and when to adjust a project's activities, resources, and resource productivity rates that form the basis of a cost estimate. Current tools and methodologies lack ways to help estimators customize construction cost information according to their preferences and maintain cost estimates as the design changes based on those preferences. This paper describes the formal process we developed to customize a project's activities, resources, and resource productivity rates based on a project-independent representation of estimators' rationale and a project-specific feature-based product model. The formal process creates a set of project-specific activities that know why they are needed in the cost estimate, what feature requires their execution, what resources are executing the activity and why, and what their labor and material costs are. The formal process leverages the explicit relationships between features, activities, resources, resource productivity rates, and the estimator's rationale to identify the cost information affected by design changes. Our tests show that the formal process enables a software prototype to generate and maintain cost estimates quickly and consistently for feature-based product models.