Semantic process modelling and integration for collaborative construction and infrastructure development

Knowledge is one of the most valuable assets. The harnessing and use of knowledge is the cornerstone of modern sustainable construction. Due to the growing number and conflicting interests of stakeholders, the increasing demands for context sensitive solutions and sustainable development, and the fast-growing complexities of interdependencies, coupled with the emerging opportunities of process-based collaboration and knowledge sharing; there is a need for process and knowledge-based collaboration between project stakeholders. Knowledge-based collaborative development aims at integrating the work processes across various stakeholders, disciplines, and projects to assure consistency in design, coordinated construction, consideration of sustainability, and better handling of interdependencies. Web-based collaborative tools (such as workflow automation tools) are means of supporting process-centered collaboration. However, existing tools have not fully addressed the challenges of domain-wide knowledge-based integration. Most of these tools are founded on semantically-poor, proprietary-based, and static models. Such models are not suitable for representing the diverse and dynamic domain knowledge. In this regard, ontologies have emerged to facilitate the modelling of knowledge. An ontology is a common vocabulary of terms, definitions, and interrelationships with explicitly defined and machine-understandable semantics. However, the development of a single ontology to serve the whole domain is not feasible given the multidisciplinary parties that are involved. The development of ontology merging techniques, therefore, becomes an essential component of semantic systems. Ontology merging is the process of deriving a new ontology based on two or more existing ontologies in order to facilitate ontology interoperability. This research developed a knowledge-based collaborative portal for supporting enhanced communication, coordination, and collaboration among various disciplines and stakeholders within the infrastructure and construction domain. The portal is founded on two main pillars: a domain process ontology for facilitating semantic process representation, and an ontology merger for allowing knowledge-based process integration. The portal aims at offering an efficient value-adding collaboration platform through multi-dimensional process integration for producing a common workflow that goes beyond listing of processes to a knowledge-enabled view. The ultimate goal is to support integrated coordinated decision-making in an efficient manner, leading to an enhancement in the construction business performance in terms of time, cost, quality, safety, and sustainability.