An E-Commerce Platform for Industrialized Construction Procurement Based on BIM and Linked Data

Abstract

Industrialized construction has raised the requirements of procurement methods used in the construction industry. The rapid development of e-commerce offers efficient and effective solutions, however the large number of participants in the construction industry means that the data involved are complex, and problems arise related to volume, heterogeneity, and fragmentation. Thus, the sector lags behind others in the adoption of e-commerce. In particular, data integration has become a barrier preventing further development. Traditional e-commerce platform, which considered data integration for common product data, cannot meet the requirements of construction product data integration. This study aimed to build an information-integrated e-commerce platform for industrialized construction procurement (ICP) to overcome some of the shortcomings existing platforms. We proposed a platform based on Building Information Modelling (BIM) and linked data, taking an innovative approach to data integration. It uses industrialized construction technology to support product standardization, BIM to support procurement process, and linked data to connect different data sources. The platform was validated using a case study. With the development of an e-commerce ontology, industrialized construction component information was extracted from BIM models and converted to Resource Description Framework (RDF) format. Related information from different data sources was also converted to RDF format, and Simple Protocol and Resource Description Framework Query Language (SPARQL) queries were implemented. The platform provides a solution for the development of e-commerce platform in the construction industry.

Optimizing Smart Factories: A Data-Driven Approach

“…Participation is included in the varied scope of industrial manufacturing, from factory assemblies to comprehensive lifecycle process assessments. Studies have usually served customers with platform requirements, such as within construction industry (He et al, 2018).…”

Integration of Industry Foundation Classes and Ontology: Data, Applications, Modes, Challenges, and Opportunities

“…IFCOI in the construction phase is mainly applied to monitor and manage quality, schedule, cost (mainly for quantity extraction [66,70]), and safety. Table 7 shows some examples of IFCOI applications during the construction phase.…”

“…Monitoring and management of quality, schedule, cost, and safety IFC data; construction specification; on-site records [26,57,70,73,81,85,89,95,112,133,135,[158][159][160] Operation and maintenance phase Building energy management, culture heritage maintenance, defect detection, etc.…”

Data-Driven Construction Safety Information Sharing System Based on Linked Data, Ontologies, and Knowledge Graph Technologies

“…In AEC contexts, linked data and graph-based technologies can boost digitalization and knowledge creation [ 40 ], and a few studies have explored these potentials. Research efforts have developed semantic web- and graph-based applications to improve processes in quality management and defect prevention [ 16 ], construction procurement [ 41 ], asset management [ 42 ], building energy performance management [ 43 ], knowledge management [ 44 ], and look-ahead planning [ 45 ]. While linked data have been used to improve interoperability and link across domains in AEC research [ 46 ], scholarly efforts have barely delved into the potentials for construction safety information sharing.…”