A meta-model based environment to assist integrating one-off production in B&C

Abstract

The building and construction (B&C) industry is a one-off industry that has adopted a traditional and conservative attitude, resisting technical and organisational innovations. Nevertheless, it has been recognised that the lack of interoperability between the actors acting in its production processes is a major problem for the modernisation of this industry. A key factor in solving this problem is the adoption and implementation of standard models towards a global integrated environment. However, the implementation of standards has been identified as being costly and requiring a large amount of manpower. In order to stimulate the adoption and implementation of such standards, specific tools must be developed acting at a standard meta-model level. This paper begins describing the major problems that have been identified in the B&C industry in the scope of interoperability of software and applications, proposing a meta-model based environment to assist in solving the integration problem at metadata level. The paper concludes by proposing a methodology to assist in the validation and to assure the reliability of the integrated environment.