Levitt, R E; Kartam, N A and Kunz, J C (1988) Artificial intelligence techniques for generating construction project plans. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 114(3), pp. 329-343. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Enhancements to the theory of network-based planning techniques invented in the late 1950s, along with improved hardware and software environments, have resulted in elegant and powerful tools for planning today’s construction projects. However, a fundamental limitation of these traditional planning techniques is that they are able to manipulate only the data generated by the planning process, not the knowledge used in generating the project plan. Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques provide the means to generate plans, and to reason with, and provide explanations from, stored knowledge. However, the weak methods, employing little domain knowledge, originally used in AI for planning, proved inadequate for complex real-life problems such as project planning. As a result, more recent research adopts the knowledge engineering methodology as an efficient approach for developing planning systems. This paper highlights the limitations of existing project planning tools, illustrates the power of AI techniques in the construction planning domain through a summary and critique of previous and current research in AI planning, and concludes with a suggested approach to developing AI-based project planning techniques for construction.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Index terms: | hardware, construction planning, artificial intelligence, planning process, critique, planning technique, methodology, construction project, project planning |
| Subjects: | project controls, research methods, production management, urban planning, artificial intelligence, construction planning, evaluation and assessment methods, computer hardware, control systems |
| Topics: | Project Management, Research Practice, Governance, Digital Applications, Site Management, Time Control |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here