Developmentof engineering projects supported by BIM technology: internship report

Building Information Modeling (BIM) concept is able to reshape each AEC project and the industry in general, offering a comprehensive collaboration process over a model of structure with regularly actualized and synchronized information. This report presents an overview of BIM with focus on its core concepts, applications in the project life cycle and benefits for project stakeholders through four case studies carried out during the internship in the engineering office NEWTON - Engineering Consultancy Company. The aim of the four cases studies was to cover multidisciplinary and varied projects. The first case study highlights the engineering project’s workflow and presents a comparison of traditional procedures and BIM concepts applied on the rehabilitation of an existing building. In the second and third case study, attention is focused on the goals achieved, particularly by structural engineer, due to the implementation of the mentioned technology on a full-lifecycle BIM project of a small residence and a complex project of residential building in Porto and on its architectural integration. In addition, through the fourth case study, the spatial coordination of Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) systems at a large-scale hotel project has been analyzed and accomplished, highlighting merits of BIM at this project stage. Through a reduction of the space used for facilities and infrastructures and the ability to identify conflicts and to nullify the related costs, its advantage for a complex building was proved.

Knowledge Sharing within IT Projects

Even though today’s corporations recognize that they need to understand modern project management techniques (Schwalbe, 2002, p2), many researchers continue to provide evidence of poor IT project success. With Kotnour, (2000) finding that project performance is positively associated with project knowledge, a better understanding of how to effectively manage knowledge in IT projects should have considerable practical significance for increasing the chances of project success. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative method of data collection in multiple case studies spanning four continents, and comprising a variety of organizational types, the focus of this current research centered on the question of why individuals working within IT project teams might be motivated towards, or inhibited from, sharing their knowledge and experience in their activities, procedures, and processes. The research concluded with the development of a new theoretical model of knowledge sharing behavior, ‘The Alignment Model of Motivational Focus’. This model suggests that an individual’s propensity to share knowledge and experience is a function of perceived personal benefits and costs associated with the activity, balanced against the individual’s alignment to a group of ‘institutional’ factors. These factors are identified as alignments to the project team, to the organization, and dependent on the circumstances, to either the professional discipline or community of practice, to which the individual belongs.

Identifying the knowledge management structures in enterprise systems projects

Enterprise System (ES) implementation and management are knowledge intensive tasks that inevitably draw upon the experience of a wide range of people with diverse knowledge capabilities. Knowledge Management (KM) has been identified as a critical success factor in ES projects. Despite the recognized importance of managing knowledge for ES benefits realization, systematic attempts to conceptualize KM-structures have been few. Where the adequacy of KM-structures is assessed, the process and measures are typically idiosyncratic and lack credibility. Using the ‘KM-process’, itself based in sociology of knowledge, this paper conceptualizes four main constructs to measure the adequacy of KM-structures. The SEM model is tested using 310 responses gathered from 27 ES installations that had implemented SAP R/3. The findings reveal six constructs for KM-structure. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates the application of KM-structures in the context of ES using the Adaptive Structuration Theory. The results demonstrate that having adequate KM-structures in place, while necessary, is not sufficient. These rules and resources must be appropriated to have greater positive influence on the Enterprise System. Furthermore, the study provides empirical support for knowledge-based theory by illustrating the importance of knowledge use/re-use (vs. knowledge creation) as the most important driver in the process of KM.

A Framework of Issues in Large Process Modelling Projects

As process management projects have increased in size due to globalised and company-wide initiatives, a corresponding growth in the size of process modeling projects can be observed. Despite advances in languages, tools and methodologies, several aspects of these projects have been largely ignored by the academic community. This paper makes a first contribution to a potential research agenda in this field by defining the characteristics of large-scale process modeling projects and proposing a framework of related issues. These issues are derived from a semi -structured interview and six focus groups conducted in Australia, Germany and the USA with enterprise and modeling software vendors and customers. The focus groups confirm the existence of unresolved problems in business process modeling projects. The outcomes provide a research agenda which directs researchers into further studies in global process management, process model decomposition and the overall governance of process modeling projects. It is expected that this research agenda will provide guidance to researchers and practitioners by focusing on areas of high theoretical and practical relevance.