Williams, R E (2000) Using a new paradigm to evaluate urban infrastructure models. PhD thesis, University of Florida, USA.
Abstract
Within the domain of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is the sub-speciality of FM (Facilities Management), which is further subdivided to include the urban infrastructure facilities, utility FM; water, waste water, gas and electric. While the span of GIS development has been long and the body of knowledge has grown to be extensive and rich, utility FM is a relative newcomer with a near dearth of extant literature. The reason for this lack of literature is that historically the development of utility FM systems were the purview of large utility organizations; the systems were developed in-house by the staff of the utility and the systems were kept closed and propriety. Most existing utility FM systems have been developed on systems that were designed to perform other functions, mainly GIS or CAD (Computer-Aided Design). The piggybacked utility FM system is usually compromised by the underlying model of the GIS or CAD system. This research attempts to fill the literature void by developing a new paradigm by which urban infrastructure models can be evaluated. A baseline connectivity model is developed that is as free of limitations as possible and introduces a minimal number of artifacts. Using this connectivity model, an abstract model is developed for the infrastructure of each of the urban utilities. The connectivity model, and GIS functionality are implemented in an object-oriented, integrated FM/GIS system. The abstract utility infrastructure model is implemented using the object-oriented FM/GIS system. The implementation of the abstract urban infrastructure model using a object-oriented, integrated FM/GIS system is compared to similar implementations using IBM's GFIS, ESRI's ArcFM and Autodesk's AutoCAD.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Zwick, J F A P D |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | computer-aided design; facilities management; urban infrastructure; utilities |
| Index terms: | functionality, artifact, urban infrastructure, utility infrastructure, connectivity, facilities management, information system, body of knowledge, computer aided design, utilities, implementation, paradigm |
| Subjects: | education and knowledge transfer, management, information systems, infrastructure and transport systems, sociology, networking, computational design, construction type, contractual arrangements, knowledge management, design features |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Urban Studies, Design Practice, Construction Technology, Information Management, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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