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Information fragmentation has been identified as a major contribution to the huge waste in the architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) industry. Information and communication technology (ICT) has been recognized as one of the effective solutions to this problem. Although a number of IT applications have been developed and applied for various purposes in the AEC industry, it still lacks integrated technologies and applications, which can deal with comprehensive trade-off of the overall issues that should be taken into account in the lifecycle of a building project.

The potential of mobile Information Technology (IT) applications to support the information needs of mobile construction workers has long been understood. However, existing mobile IT applications in the construction industry have underlined limitations, including their inability to respond to the changing user context, lack of semantic awareness and poor integration with the desktop-based infrastructure. This research argues that awareness of the user context (such as user role, preferences, task-at-hand, location, etc.) can enhance mobile IT applications in the construction industry by providing a mechanism to deliver highly specific information to mobile workers by intelligent interpretation of their context. Against this this background, the aim of this research was to investigate the applicability of context-aware information delivery (CAID) technologies in the construction industry. The research methodology adopted consisted of various methods. A literature review on context-aware and enabling technologies was undertaken and a conceptual framework developed, which addressed the key issues of context-capture, contextinference and context-integration. To illustrate the application of CAID in realistic construction situations, five futuristic deployment scenarios were developed which were analysed with several industry and technology experts. From the analysis, a common set of user needs was drawn up. These needs were subsequently translated into the system design goals, which acted as a key input to the design and evaluation of a prototype system, which was implemented on a Pocket-PC platform. The main achievements of this research include development of a CAID framework for mobile construction workers, demonstration of CAID concepts in realistic construction scenarios, analysis of the Construction industry needs for CAID and implementation and validation of the prototype to demonstrate the CAID concepts. The research concludes that CAID has the potential to significantly improve support for mobile construction workers and identifies the requirements for its effective deployment in the construction project delivery process. However, the industry needs to address various identified barriers to enable the realisation of the full potential of CAID.

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The Latham (1994) and Egan (1998) reports identified fragmentation, poor co-ordination and communication as major weaknesses in the UK construction industry. The Generic Design and Construction Process Protocol has been developed to address these problems and help the industry to improve their business. The need for an IT solution to combat the obstacles and problems in implementing the Process Protocol in the industry has emerged. This PhD research focuses on developing an IT solution to support and help the implementation of the Generic Design and Construction Process Protocol to enable the fundamental change in the construction industry. The IT solution, named The Process Protocol Toolkit, aims to assist the creation of the process model and to manage the information of the project based on the Process Protocol framework. The Process Protocol Toolkit is composed of a Process Protocol Map Creation Tool and a Process Information Management Tool. The first tool will automate the process map creation process by using the Process Protocol as a framework and allow users to create and customise their specific project process map, and the second aims to manage and develop project information based on the project process. It will enable the construction managers to understand the construction process and facilitate the management of the construction process. The prototype of the Process Protocol Map Creation Tool is developed incorporating this research. Literature Reviews are used to understand the Process Protocol, process modelling and construction IT development. A questionnaire is employed to establish the IT usage and awareness within the industry. Information associated with the Process Protocol framework is modelled by a data modelling technique and transferred into a relational database. Subsequently, the data model is used in the development of the prototype of the Process Map Creation Tool to automate the process map production. A series of web based project information management systems are reviewed to identify the requirements of the project management system. The solution for knowledge integration with the Process Information Management tool is proposed for future development. The main contribution of this research is the establishment of the data model of the Process Protocol framework and the development of the Process Protocol map creation tool. It demonstrates how the Process Protocol framework can be customised and integrated into the project information system. The secondary contribution is the IT framework for knowledge based construction project information system. The framework of the system is demonstrated and validated through workshops and questionnaire. The concept of process driven project information system has also been taken by a software firm for their future product development.

Collaborative working using innovative integrated VR based IT systems in construction has become a reality as many activities are performed in a distributed manner with the construction stakeholders situated in discrete geographical locations. Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) is the type of innovative integrated information system that helps to reduce the fragmentation and enables the construction stakeholders to collaborate together in the construction projects. Researchers have raised that the concept of CIC has been the subject of research for many years but the uptake of this technology has been very limited because of the development of the technology and its effective implementation. Furthermore, the industrialist and researchers conveyed that the networking, collaboration, information sharing and communication will be popular issues in the future, which can be managed through CIC systems. In order for successful development of the technology, successful delivery and effective implementation of the user and industry-oriented CIC systems, the requirements engineering seems a key parameter. Requirements engineering is the branch of systems engineering and it is related to the issues of the development of the technology and its effective implementation. That is to say, it helps what to develop, how to develop and when to implement. Requirements engineering is concerned with the goals, desired properties and constraints of complex systems such as the CIC systems that involve software systems, organisations and people. Furthermore, it covers all activities related to the acquisition, specification and maintenance of requirements throughout the lifecycle. It also covers how requirements relate to business processes, work redesign, system and software architecture and testing and validation. Therefore, this thesis is about the development of a requirements engineering process through case study research. The case study of the research is the DIVERCITY project, which is the latest CIC development in the area of Construction IT. DIVERCITY was a large EU funded project in the area of construction IT undertaken by a European consortium of researchers and practitioners from the construction industry. DIVERCITY is the acronym for Distributed Virtual Workspace for enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry. The DIVERCITY system presents the mechanism to smoothly and collaboratively conduct the construction projects from early briefing stage to the detailed design stage and even further by the end of the construction phase in construction project lifecycle over an integrated environment. The requirements engineering process that has been developed in the research is targeted at the computer integrated construction (CIC) systems. The key features of the requirements engineering process are the following: (1) ready-to-use, (2) simple, (3) domain specific, (4) adaptable and (5) systematic, (6) integration with the legacy systems. The method has three key constructs: techniques for requirements development, which includes the requirement elicitation, requirements analysis/modelling and requirements validation, requirements documentation and facilitating the requirements management. In short, this thesis focuses on the system development methodologies for the user and industry driven VR based integrated systems development for the construction industry and its theoretical contribution to the fields of Construction IT and Requirements Engineering.

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The focus of this thesis is on the precast concrete products manufacturing industry, which as one of the labour-intensive industries requires a substantial number of highly skilled operators in terms of crews to produce the final product. A crew is a group of multi-skilled chargehands and operators that have various skills and experience necessary to conduct an activity in a professional way. The high cost of skilled operators and the apparent inefficiencies of utilising such skilled operators in the industry are the major driving force. To achieve this, optimal crew allocation is required. Crew allocation is complex because of the multi-criteria nature of the problem and availability of thousands of possibilities and allocation alternatives. There is a gap in previous research efforts associated with crew allocation planning in the precast industry. Current practices suggest that the crew allocation process is carried out intuitively and the allocation of crews to production processes is subjective. This has led to high process-waiting times, improper allocation of skilled operators and ultimately higher production costs. In this context, the aim of this research is to propose an effective crew allocation methodology and a computer-based intelligent simulation model for its implementation. The objective of the approach is to guarantee a better workflow through minimising process-waiting time, optimising operator utilisation, and subsequently reducing the allocation cost. This research develops a holistic and integrated methodology for modelling crew allocation problems by reviewing state-of-art resource allocation techniques, structured interviews with production managers, site visits and a detailed case study. The methodology is developed using an IDEF0 process model and a generic process map for both the business and the production processes of the precast manufacturing system. A multi-layered genetic algorithm model is developed in conjunction with a process-simulation model to form a hybrid allocation system dubbed ‘SIM_Crew’. The model incorporates databases (Excel and MS Access), a simulation model (developed using Arena 12.0) and genetic algorithms (developed using Visual Basic for Applications) to facilitate the generation and evaluation of various “what-if” crew allocation scenarios. A number of performance criteria have been developed to evaluate the allocation plans. ‘SIM_Crew’ enables the investigation and analysis of allocating possible schedules and provides a facility to visualise the production processes. ‘SIM_Crew’ was validated using real life case study data and it was concluded that the allocation of crews to precast processes using genetic algorithm improves the throughput time and reduces the allocation cost as compared with real life production data. It is anticipated that future use of this research will solve the crew allocation problem in the precast industry.