Computer-Aided Project Management (CAPM) offers ever-increasing potential to improve project management practice, and yet the acceptance of computers within the construction industry remains slow. This dissertation explores new computer technologies that can significantly increase the power of CAPM for construction while simultaneously addressing the accessibility of the software for the typical user. The technological focus is on the complementary areas of project modeling—the rich, general-purpose representation of the project in the computer—and system integration—sharing the computer model among applications (from local to industry-wide).

The premises of the dissertation are that CAPM programs create models of construction projects inside the computer, that standard forms of these models should be established, and that systems then can be integrated by requiring all applications to adopt these standard models. There are three specific elements to these standard models. For each one, the dissertation identifies and develops a supporting area of technology:​

1. A Data Model is a formal methodology for representing information in general. This dissertation proposes an object-oriented data model, reviews the emerging technologies of object-oriented programming and object-oriented databases, and develops the SO L object-oriented data model that could standardize data representation for integrated CAPM programs.
2. A Domain Model or schema expresses relevant project management and construction concepts in the data model. This dissertation proposes standard domain models as a technology for enabling communication among software programs, and it develops the GenCOM domain model that combines both the requirements of typical CAPM applications and the fundamental concepts that make up construction. The domain model presents a series of object-oriented class definitions that can become the software components for building CAPM programs and serve as the universal language for communicating project data and knowledge among integrated applications. GenCOM incorporates thirty-six classes that span most of construction at a high level, and describe cast-in-place concrete work at a more detailed level.
3. A Project Model or database collects actual project data stored using the data and domain models. This dissertation uses a common project database as the mechanism for sharing data and controlling information flow in an integrated CAPM system. Tests of this approach involved developing a working prototype system, called OPIS, that combines CAD product data, a plan-generation expert system, an estimating program, and a scheduling application around a shared object-oriented project database.

While these technologies—object-oriented data models, data communication through standard domain models, and information sharing through common databases—may be useful individually, they are most promising when blended to form a cohesive approach for developing powerful, highly integrated CAPM software systems. Such systems both increase the capability of the system to support project management and improve the accessibility of the traditional and advanced applications.

This research proves that a standard models approach to system integration is possible and that the resulting system offers extreme flexibility and significant integration. The prototype offers the combination of knowledge-based reasoning with traditional applications and demonstrates capabilities not available in traditional CAPM software such as data inheritance and immediate constraint checking. Future work indicated by this dissertation includes the acceptance of general object-oriented data modeling standards, an industry-wide effort to establish standards for construction information, and research into new applications made possible by the system’s integrated project model.