Lee, G; Lee, G; Chi, S and Oh, S (2023) Automatic classification of construction work codes in bill of quantities of national roadway based on text analysis. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 149(2): 04022163, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
The construction work classification code is a crucial index for consistently collecting unit cost data from the bill of quantities (BOQ). Appropriate classification codes assigned to detailed construction work item descriptions are required to verify project cost and for quality control. However, the codification system is complicated and time consuming for estimators to follow. This study proposes a framework to recognize the text of detailed construction work item descriptions in the BOQ and automatically assign the most similar work classification code. The automatic assignment algorithm was designed to score the similarity of the tokenized words in the work item description based on whether they contain the same word. The framework was experimented with using the national roadway BOQ; this BOQ is used for the procurement process in South Korea. It transformed work item descriptions from unstandardized BOQs into standardized data with more than 91.12% accuracy. The results of this study can be used as a prerequisite step for standardizing construction life cycle cost data and the automatic generation of BOQs.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | bill of quantities; construction work classification code; string matching |
| Index terms: | life cycle cost, procurement process, bills of quantities, estimator, text analysis, construction work, unit cost, quality control, project cost, accuracy, South Korea |
| Subjects: | profession, financial and cost management, Geography, analytical methods, professional development, operations management, research methods, project delivery, contractual arrangements, economics |
| Topics: | Procurement, Geographical Context, Quality Management, Research Practice, Information Management, Cost Management, Project Management, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
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