1. Semantic Modeling of Building Lifecycle Information
Saeed Karshenas
Department of Civil Engineering
Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI 53233
Mehrdad Niknam
EnTech Engineering
New York, NY 10004

2. Information Exchange Requirements
Supplier Organization
Sub-Contractor Organization
Contractor Organization
Owner
Organization
Architect
Engineer Organization
Information is stored in
heterogeneous sources.
Difficult to integrate information
from different sources.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

3. Current Information Sharing Approaches
BIM
IFC File
Plugins
IFC and MVDs
Manual
Cost Estimating
Scheduling
Supply Chain
…..
Cash flow
Material ordering
…..
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

4. The Main Problems
Different domains create and use models whose underlying conceptualizations and/or intended semantics are implicit.
Modeling languages used do not support explicit semantics and conceptualizations.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

5. How to Solve the Problem
Perform an in depth ontological analysis of AEC-FM domains.
Develop ontologies to make domain semantics explicit.
Represent and save data using open data standards from W3C.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

6. A Monolithic Ontology - Difficult to develop - Difficult to maintain
- Difficult to use
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

7. Separately Developed Domain Ontologies
- Each domain has its own vocabulary
- Difficult to map domain ontologies
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

8. A Shared Ontology Approach
- Each domain extends the shared ontology.
- The shared ontology serves as the mapping
mechanism among domain ontologies.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

9. Shared Ontology Content
The shared ontology should include all building element types common to buildings.
Uniformat II is included in OmniClass which follows ISO Organization of Information about Construction Works.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

10. Domain Ontologies Extend Shared Ontology
Design
dp1
Shared ontology serves as the foundation for building
other ontologies. Each AEC domain extends the
shared building ontology for creating its domain ontology.
Shared Ontology
dp2
dpn
Estimating
Scheduling
ep1
Shared Ontology
Shared Ontology
sp1
ep2
sp2
epn
spn
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

11. Design Domain Ontology
The design domain ontology contains
specific knowledge related to the design
of building elements.
Design ontology uses QUDT
and FC ontologies.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

12. Schedule Domain Ontology
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

13. Estimating Domain Ontology
Uses ontologies such as QUDT, FC, and Organization.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

14. Combine Design and Schedule Data
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

15. Automated Update of Estimating Knowledge bases
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

16. Product Offering (GoodRelations) Ontology
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016

17. Summary and Conclusions
Sharing and exchanging information among organizations involved in a building project is necessary for efficient completion of the project.
Developing ontologies for various AEC-FM domains and using open data standards are the first steps for tackling the construction interoperability problem.
A shared ontology approach simplifies ontology development and alignment of vocabularies for various AEC-FM domains.
Karshenas and Niknam
6/21/2016