Experiences in developing prototype expert systems for modelling the construction management task

As construction projects become increasingly complex, the problem of identifying the many tasks that need to be done and the responsibilities for their execution will grow, unless a method is evolved to identify the total number of key tasks, and their interrelationship and sequence within the whole process is found. The earlier this can be done, the greater is the chance of significantly improving the management of the project. The availability of AI computing techniques has enabled the potential development of a sophisticated program capable of displaying the complexity of, this, the construction management task. So far, only the basic concepts for construction and design activity have been coded, but already it is possible to demonstrate the potential in these two separate programs. The basic framework is in place and the next stage is to develop the enhancements, either in the form of nested expert systems or interfaces to already established programs.