Automated Generation of Work Spaces Required by Construction Activities

To provide a safe and productive environment, project managers need to plan for the work spaces required by construction activities. Work space planning involves representing various types of spaces required by construction activities in three dimensions and across time. Since a construction schedule consists of hundreds of activities requiring multiple types of spaces, it is practically impossible to expect project managers to specify manually the spatio-temporal data necessary to represent work spaces in four dimension. This paper presents mechanisms that automatically generate project-specific work spaces from a generic work space ontology and a project-specific IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) based 4D production model. The generation of these work spaces leads to a space-loaded production model. Work spaces know to which activities and construction methods they belong, when, where and for how long they exist and how much volume they occupy. A space-loaded production model enables richer 4D CAD simulations, time-space conflict analysis and proactive work space planning prior to construction.