CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS AUTOMATION SYSTEM (CBAS)

By Dong - Eun, Lee., Ph.D.Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Shi

Fall 2004

PUBLICATIONS:

• Dong-Eun, Lee. (2004). “Construction Business Automation System (CBAS)." PH.D Thesis, Illinois Institute of Technology.• Jonathan Jingsheng Shi, Dong-Eun Lee , and Erhan Kuruku (2004). "Task-Based Modeling Method for Busienss Process Automation."

submitted to ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. • Dong-Eun Lee and Jonathan Jingsheng Shi (2004) "A Construction Business Automation System (CBAS)." submitted to ASCE Journal

of Construction Engineering and Management. • Dong-Eun, Lee. (Accepted 2004) "Probability of Project Completion Using Stochastic Project Scheduling Simulation (SPSS)". ASCE

Journal of Construction Engineering & Management.• Dong-Eun Lee and David Arditi (2004). "Automated Statistical Analysis In Stochastic Project Scheduling Simulation." submitted to

ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.• Dong-Eun Lee and Jonathan Jingsheng Shi (2004). "Statistical Analyses For Simulating Schedule Networks." (Invited paper) To appear

in the Proceeding of the 2004 Winter Simulation Conference.

RESEARCH PURPOSE

• To develop Construction Business Automation System (CBAS), which automate construction business processes modeling and execution.

• by developing construction management tasks as Workflow Distributed iNternet Applications (DNAs).

• by reusing software components (i.e., task components).

• by simplifying process modeling, and automating business processes based on Workflow and Object technologies.

METHODOLOGIES AND TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPED

• The development of the prototype has resulted the following technologies

• The Object-Oriented reusable component technology for modeling construction management tasks.

• The Construction Business Process Modeler (CBPM) implementing the Task Based Modeling (TBM) methodology.

• The Request Navigator (RN) implementing Request Driven (RD) methodology for raising business requests and instantiating corresponding process models.

• The Workflow Technology (WT) for interacting with a commercial workflow engine (e.g., i-Flow) for executing instantiated business process models.

MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND

• to fulfill the industry wide demand to identify, document, implement, and execute thousands of construction business processes so as to achieve improved efficiency (ISO 9001; 1994, ISO 9000-1; 1994; ISO 9000-2; 1993, Hoyle, D; 1998).

to decompose business systems or procedures into atomic processes so as to achieve information sharing in a virtual enterprise setting, by using Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Automation (BPA) (Hassan and McCaffer; 2002).

to achieve expected coordination and communication between organizational functions and processes in the construction industry (Ahmad et al; 1995).

WHAT IS WfMS ?

• A Workflow Management System (WfMS) is a centralized Client/Server architecture base middleware and groupware system. It is empowered by a workflow engine, which manages the flow of a process among participants according to the process definition consisting of a sequence of tasks (Hales & Lavery, 1991; Ellis & Nutt, 1996).

A WfMS is distributed application that defines, executes, coordinates, and maintains business processes (Hollingsworth; 1995; Wang and Sun; 2001; Wang; 2001).

An ERP system is data centric, but a WfMS is process centric. It enables a separation of an enterprise application’s flow logics from its data (Cardoso. Jorge. et al.; 2003).

THE CBAS PROTOTYPE ARCHITECTURE

3

Workflow ApplicationProgram Interface (WAPI)

WorkflowEngine

CBPM(Construction Business

Process Modeler)

Creating a Process Model

Database Adapter

Creating a processmodel

4 Finding a processModel

Instantiating aprocess instance

Processes ModelRepository

Workflow System Database

Processes InstanceRepository

Data processing in legacy DBs

Material.mdb

personnel.mdb

Equipment.mdb

5

PODD(Process-Oriented Database Design)

Creating process model

Instantiating processinstance

Database processing incustom DBs

Legend

Finding a correspondingform for the request

Requestforms

Instantiating andfilling out the form

RN(Request Navigator)

Raising a request

2Form

1st Tier

(Clients - GUI)

2nd Tier

(IntelligentManagement Server

- WfMS)

3rd Tier

(Central DBApplication)

3 tier C/S

Cycles Process Model Design Time Process Instance Run Time

Platform: Microsoft 2000 Professional(+ IIS, FTP, SMTP, etc)

Microsoft 2000 SQL ServerEnterprise ed.

Task Library1

DesignTimeTask

Comps.C

*

A

B

3

RunTimeTask

Comps.

A

B

C

*

Workflow DNA

2

Workflow Management System(WfMS)

1

4

THE OBJECT-ORIENTED REUSABLE COMPONENT TECHNOLOGY (DESIGN TIME)

• Defining task components with OOP requires mapping the defined syntax, i.e., Verb_method_object [what, whatElse] to an object.

As shown in Figure 3, the task component has five controls: Task ID, Location, Table, Conditions, and Logical Connection. The task component define an instruction in a standard syntax as follows:

Delete [(Equipment_Number = `Equipment_Number` ) AND (Equipment_Code = `Equipment_Code`), (Reservation), (C:\AAA\SchDB\SearchDBServer\Equipment.mdb)];

Figure 3 “Delete” Task Component

THE OBJECT-ORIENTED REUSABLE COMPONENT TECHNOLOGY (RUN TIME)

• The “Delete” task component for run time is an invisible JAVA component located in server side. It converts the instruction into standard SQL statement, and deletes a reservation record in an existing database (e.g., equipment.mdb) by using the instruction created in defining task stage.

The instruction is used by task component for run time.

THE TASK BASED MODELING (TBM) METHODOLOGY

TASK

Activity_IDRolePlayer TaskComponentName XCordinats YCordinats Width Height FigureType

Arrow_ID StartX StartY EndX EndYPredActivity_ID FigureType

ARROW

SuccActivity_ID

COMPONENT

1:1

1:M

1:M

ARROW

Arrow_1 sX sY eX eY1 ArrowFigure2

Y

0

164

W

101

101

H

64

64

FigureType

TaskFigure

TaskFigure

X

284

284

TaskComponentName

START_

Delete_

RolePeople

Project_Engineer

System

Activity_ID

Activity_1

Activity_2

TASK

COMPONENT LIST

Item_No Activity_ID TaskComponentName What WhatElse

1 Activity_1 CancelFrm[(`a`), (Equipment_Code = `b`),(Cancellation_Date = `c`), (Project_ID = `d`),(Request_by = `e`)]

“null”

2 Activity_2 Delete_DELETE * FROM Equipment WHERE (Equipment_Number = `Equipment_Number`and Equipment_Code = `Equipment_Code`)

C:\AAA\SchDB\SearchDBServer\Equipment.mdb

(0, 0)

2

X = 284

Y = 164

H = 64

CBPM Screen

Data Structure

TBM Modeling Example

Activity_ID Task_Name What WhatElse

1

Arrow_ID StartX StartY EndX EndYPredTask FigureTypeSuccTask

(sX, sY) = (Start X, Start Y)

(eX, eY)=(End X, End Y)

W = 101

THE TASK BASED MODELING (TBM) METHODOLOGY - Representation of Process Model

When a task component is added to the process model, it must be properly defined through the Dialog Box prompted by the task component for design time as a generalized template with eight attributes as follows:

Task [(Activity_ID), (RolePlayer), (TaskComponentName), (X), (Y), (W), (H), (FigureType)];

where, Activity_ID - a unique identification number for the task; RolePlayer - assignee for carrying out the task; TaskComponentName - name of the task; X, Y – coordinates of the left-top corner of the task figure on the screen (Figure 4); W, H - wide and height of the task figure (e.g., rectangule box) on the screen; FigureType - type of the shape used for modeling the task.

THE TASK BASED MODELING (TBM) METHODOLOGY - Automated CBPM

• The CBPM was developed to implement the TBM methodology for modeling construction business processes.

The CBPM Environment - CBPM is an automated tool to create and modify a model for a construction business process. It is a module to create a process model in a visual environment by detailing task components. The detail design and implementation are presented in the thesis.

2

3

1

CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS PROCESS MODELER (CBPM )

THE REQUEST DRIVEN (RD) METHODOLOGY- Representation of Request

FormObjectName [(‘var_0’), (control_1 = ‘var_1’), (control_2 = ‘var_2’), (control_3 = ‘var_3’), ……, (control_N = ‘var_N’)];

A request is defined as a data object using the template FormObjectName [(KEY), (Variable = `Value`)] as follows:

where, • FormObjectName - name of the form;• var_0 - a String object containining the primary key; • control_X - a String containing the name of a text field in the request form; • var_X - a variable which will be initialized after a form is filled out by a user (e.g, requester).

THE REQUEST DRIVEN (RD) METHODOLOGY - Example of Request Modeling

the request can be described by an equipment cancellation request form shown in Figure 6. The request form can be used to model a request as follows:

CancelFrm[(`Equipment_Reservation_Cancel_Request_`), (Equipment_Code = `BackHoe`), (Cancellation_Date = `12/23/2003`), (Project_ID = `CE03231`), (Request_by = `PM001`)] ;

Figure 6 The Equipment Cancellation Request Form

THE REQUEST DRIVEN (RD) METHODOLOGY - The Request Navigator (RN) with JAVA

The Request Navigator (RN) with JAVA - The RN is a client side module developed for quick access to needed forms. It is implemented as a JAVA application as shown in Figure 7. The text box at the bottom is used for searching an appropriate form in demand. The detail design and implementation are presented in the thesis.

A tree structure is created to organize these forms. The request forms are created in tailor made fashion in current CBAS. However, if the system were incorporated to an automated form designer module, it would be highly desirable. It would support process-oriented database processing by using the data controls of a request from.

THE REQUEST NAVIGATOR (RN)

THE WORKFLOW TECHNOLOGY FOR EXECUTING PROCESS MODEL

A commercial workflow engine (i-flow; 2002) is adopted as a simulation engine for executing process models. All task components in a process model are executed through the three interfaces of the Workflow Reference Model (WFMC-TC-1003 1995) defined by WfMC.

WfMS invokes task components assigned to management tasks by using a standard invocation mechanism embedded in itself. Then, it waits until the program is completed. Task components are invoked according to the sequence defined in the process model. When all the task components in a process model complete the execution, the process completes the execution.

The Workflow Reference Model has five functional interfaces (IF1 to IF5) for supporting standard workflow service. However, the three interfaces are used for executing process models as follows:

• IF1 is used to transfer process models (definitions) as an interchangeable process definition from CBPM to WfMS.

• IF2 is used to manage work items and process instance. • IF3 is used to control external applications and information exchange. It allows executable

software components to be plugged in WfMS as activity implementation.

RD methodology Working Procedure

Navigating the RN(User’s browsing behavior is captured)

Returning a form name & querying(Equipment_Reservation_Cancel_Request_Form)

Send_email(CDr or PMr)

A corresponding form exist ?

Instantiating the form(Form prompted to the user)

Non-existExist

Filling out the form(Data object modeling: a request)

Finding out a process model(Querying if one exist in PMR)

A process model exist ?

Executing a process after instantiating

Exist

Non-exist

Executing Task Components

End

Start

0

1

2

4

5

6

3 7

8

9

CONCLUSION

CBAS prototype is based on a 3-tier Client/Server architecture. Basic management tasks are developed as building blocks with JAVA. For a greater flexibility, flow logics (e.g., process models) are separated from functional logics at run time. Network distributed technologies are adopted in this research for developing task components.

The contribution of this research may be summarized in the following areas:

• the object-oriented reusable component technology for modeling basic management tasks,• the task-based modeling technology for creating business process models, • the request-driven technology for raising business requests and instantiating business processes, and• the supporting technology for integrating the developed technologies with a commercial Workflow Engine (i-Flow) for automating business processes.