Integrating design and construction through vi英文文献.doc

Integrating design and construction through virtual prototyping 1.Introduction A comparison of productivity data between manufacturing and construction industriesis interesting and revealing.For example,Fig.1 indicates that within last 40 years,the non-farm industries,which primarily refer to the manufacturing industry as it has a dominant share of over 80%,have made approximately 10% incremental annual improvements while the construction industry continuously declined. this phenomenon is observable in almost every country,and it may be explained by the following three differences between the two industries: 1.the construction industry does not have an effective platform to Captureand re-use knowledge generated in design and construction stages; 2.the construction industry does not have a flxed production line; and 3.the construction industry does not have the ability to try before build. It is necessary to note that the above differences are identified through authorsown experience and knowledge.It is expected that these can generate further research interests and discussions within the research community. The manufacturing industry adopts a decomposition model in which an artifact is decomposed into basic components which can be designed in isolation. These basic components are frequently defined as shapeable blocks and stored in element libraries in graphical modeling systems. A new design is therefore a hierarchy of components which are modified to fit new requirements.The production process of the new design is also a slight modification of the existing process.In other words,the manufacturing industry is able to capture and re-use its knowledge indesign and production.New design and production processes are obtained through incrementally improving existing versions.The construction industry,however,does not have this capacity.A design process in construction typically starts from a blank sheet of paper.Although certain components and building details may be r