PDT includes all aspects of the definition and methods of processing of information pertinent to a product throughout its development and operational life-cycle. A product is producible, produced or natural object, system of objects or substance. The product may consist of any combination of physical and conceptual (Owen et al. 1995).
Published in Chapter:
Product Modelling in the Building and Construction Industry: A History and Perspectives
Edwin Dado (The Netherlands Defence Academy, The Netherlands), Reza Beheshti (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands), and Martinus van de Ruitenbeek (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 34
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-928-1.ch005
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of product modelling in the Building and Construction (BC) industry based on authors’ experiences gained from various conducted research projects and also taking into account results of other research projects. This chapter starts with an introduction and background of the subject area in terms of motivation, industrial needs and requirements. This is followed by an overview of a historical background of the subject area. In this historical background we distinguish five generations of product modelling developments. The first generation of product modelling developments is characterized by the influence of previous expert and database developments and by the constituting high-level constructs (e.g. EDM, BSM, RATAS and GARM). The second generation of product modelling developments can be characterized by the development of detailed aspect systems and supporting frameworks for data exchange and integration (e.g. IRMA, ATLAS, COMBINE, PISA and IMPPACT). The third generation product modelling developments can be characterized by its focus on collaborative engineering support by means of the application of middleware and client/server technology (e.g. SPACE, CONCUR, BCCM, VEGA and ToCEE) and the development of the IFC. The fourth generation of product modelling developments is heavily influenced by the Internet and Web Services standards such as XML, SOAP and UDDI and related business models such as eBusiness and eWork (e.g. bcXML, ifcXML and eConstruct). The next (fifth) generation of product modelling developments will be based on the emerging semantic web standards such as OWL and RDF, and based on the concepts of ontology internationmodelling as experienced in ongoing (European) projects such as SWOP. After this historical overview, an analysis of the characteristics of interesting conceptual product approaches is presented. Here we discuss the Standardisation, Minimal Model, Core Model, NOT, Vocabulary and Ontology product modelling approaches. Followed by an analysis of a number of specific conceptual product models and how the basic product modelling constructs (i.e. semantics, lifecycle modifiers and multiple project views) are implemented. This chapter ends with a discussion about some ongoing projects (COINS, CHEOPS and SWOP) in the context of future trends.