Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
OVERVIEW BACKGROUND This report, the fourth in a series, presents the findings of a workshop held at the National Academy of Sciences' Study Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in June 1986.1 The workshop's purpose was to present a demonstration of a prototype integrated data base that would support a facility throughout its life cycle and to recommend further activities to move forward the concept of the integrated data base. Particular attention focused on the requirements of the inte- grated data base at the facilities management phase of the building life cycle. This workshop on the development of an integrated data base is part of a study program of the National Research Council's (NRC) Building Research Board (BRB) to assess the long-range implications of computer technologies on future design, engineering, construction, and manage- ment of facilities.2 Since 1982, an NRC-appointed committee has been examining the potential for computer-based technologies to improve the building process. This committee's study is in response to a xThe other reports in the series are as follows: National Research Council, A Report from the 1983 Workshop on Advanced Technology for Building Design and Engineering. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1984; National Research Council, A Report from the 1984 Workshop on Advanced Technology for Building Design and Engineering. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1985; A Report from the 1985 Workshop on Advanced Technology for Building Design and Engineering. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1986. 2Although the proper title of the 1986 workshop is "Workshop on Integrated Data Base Development for the Building Industry" (the 1983, 1984, and 1985 workshops were titled "Workshop on Advanced Technology for Building Design and Engineering"), they are referred to in this report as the "Woods Hole Workshops." The change in titles reflects the change in emphasis by the committee and in the Woods Hole Workshops from the implications of computers in general to the development of an integrated data base for the building industry.
request from the 13 agencies of the BRB's Federal Construction Council to provide an informed assessment of the state of the art and its evolutionary direction. The committee has conducted four Woods Hole Workshops from 1983 through 1986. These week-long sessions, attended by experts in computer technology and in facility design, engineering, construction, and management, have each contributed to the further development of the conceptual and the prototype integrated data base. The following is a brief review of each of the previous Woods Hole Workshops. 1983 WOODS HOLE WORKSHOP The committee invited several other experts to join it at a work- shop held in August 1983. Participants at this first workshop, charged with the challenge to develop a conceptual framework for the integra- tion of computer-based technologies in the building process, found that much valuable data associated with the design, engineering, construc- tion, and management of a facility are lost during its life span. The workshop participants concluded that these lost data could potentially be used to improve the building process by providing the information needed to improve the performance and responsiveness of future designs, and bring about a reduction in the life-cycle costs associated with new facilities. Workshop participants recommended that efforts be made to explore the development of a computer-based integrated data base that would be available at all stages in the life of a building project. 1984 WOODS HOLE WORKSHOP This idea of an integrated data base became the core of the 1984 Woods Hole Workshop. As in 1983, the committee invited other experts to Woods Hole to focus on the conceptual framework of an integrated data base that spans the life cycle of a facility. Workshop participants generally agreed that there is a need for the development and imple- mentation of a project integrated data base such as the model developed in Figure 1. The project integrated data base would support all phases of the building project and involve new ways of representing and exchanging data (such as building geometry and protocols for data exchange). The participants concluded that life-cycle cost considerations should provide the economic rationale for the building owner to invest in the development of an integrated data base. The availability of an integrated data base would make it possible to have more efficient facilities management that should result in savings to the building owner.
-LJ Building Process Data Base Structure Building Project Management Project Integrated Data Base 171 "LJ L_L "LI External (General) Data Base *Prolect Development Function r_L Procurement* Planning* & Programming Design* & Engineering Documents Purchase Construction* & Outlining Building* Operations & Maintenance User* Operation Orders etc I | 1 1 1 1 1 f 1 1 I t Work File Work File Work File Work File Work File Work File FIGURE 1 Project integrated data base developed at the 1984 Woods Hole Workshop. 1985 WOODS HOLE WORKSHOP The 1985 Woods Hole Workshop addressed the developmental needs to formulate and construct an integrated data base. The results of this workshop were used to develop the prototype integrated data base that was demonstrated at the 1986 Woods Hole Workshop. The 1985 workshop focused on the interface between the design/engineering phase and the construction phase. The challenge presented to workshop participants was to use the requirements for an integrated data base developed in previous Woods Hole Workshops to determine the data requirements and the conceptual representation of all data that pass through the data base. Workshop participants identified user data needs, developed rules for data inclusion and exclusion, identified users and uses of data, and listed- incentives for users to"update and use an integrated data base. Efforts also focused on identifying required data base characteristics and examples of how these characteristics would be used by the building industry. A model of the conceptual view of the data base was developed, and the relationship between the conceptual view and its physical implementation was described. In addition, workshop participants developed a proposal for demonstrating the concept of an integrated data base by means of a prototype system. The prototype would represent and exchange data in such a way that, regardless of the hardware and software involved, data generated in one phase of a facility's development would be available in later phases of the process.
Workshop participants concluded that the concept, if successfully implemented, offers the promise of improving building performance and reducing operating costs of the facility. It also would improve communication among the many participants who use data in the building process. THE 1986 WOODS HOLE WORKSHOP The 1986 workshop, the subject of this report, involved 42 individ- uals invited by the Building Research Board and the Committee on Inte- grated Data Base Development to the National Academy of Sciences' Woods Hole Study Center from June 15 to 20, 1986. Workshop participants were invited from industry, government, and academia; they represented the building industry as well as computer fields appropriate to this effort. Biographical sketches are given in Appendix 1, and a workshop agenda can be found in Appendix 2. The centerpiece of the 1986 workshop was the prototype integrated data base demonstration that took place early in the workshop and served as the basis for much of the discussion and work that followed. The demonstration used heterogeneous hardware and software to show a typical sequence of tasks that take place between the design and construction phases of the building process. Chapter 1 describes in detail the integrated data base demonstration. A group of workshop participants concentrated on identifying data that need to be obtained from the integrated data base for the eventual management of facilities. This task analysis group extended the work of previous Woods Hole Workshops to the facilities management phase of the process. Chapter 2 details the findings of this group and includes a listing of tasks needed in the facilities management phase. Data modeling of the integrated data base at the conceptual level was the subject of another working group. This group concluded that it is possible to begin building a more comprehensive model. Chapter 3 presents the report from the data modeling group. Chapter 4 concerns the integrator description and functional specification. The integrator is the functional capability of an integrated data base. It contains elements that administer, direct, translate, access, and communicate data within the environment of an integrated data base. The working group developed design objectives for the further development of the integrator. Chapters 5 and 6 examine future directions of the integrated data base and the implications of introducing the data base into the building process. The two working groups developed comprehensive lists of issues requiring attention by the committee and others. Of prin- cipal concern is moving the integrated data base concept to organiza- tions that can help implement it and leverage the results of the four Woods Hole Workshops.
