Modeling of Building Construction Activities Using Forms

In the course of improving the efficiency of building construction activities, the application of discrete event simulation tools may be extremely beneficial. Simulation is used to evaluate construction scenarios and allows the construction manager to evaluate between alternatives. Selection of an optimum mix of equipment and crews may also be studied. However, the practice of simulation in building construction has not been popular for a variety of reasons. Perhaps a major reason is the investment in time and cost needed to develop the simulation model and program the corresponding code is simulation language. The situation is further aggravated by the lack of training in simulation in most undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula. This paper reports on on-going research aimed at simplifying the development of simulation models. The construction manager will select equipment and crews from a library of resources and then specify the interaction of these resources in an intuitive mode with no programming. With the advent of object-oriented modelling and programming, simulation entities may be described in a format that encapsulates their characteristics and capabilities. The user will be capable of changing the number and/or mix of equipment with little or no change to the underlying simulation code. In this paper we will develop a non-network based methodology for specifying the interaction between construction resources and explains an approach for mapping to an object-oriented simulation language. The utility of this approach will be demonstrated in a building construction application.