Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Alcantara, Primo T.
URN	etd-01172009-063354
Title	Development of a computer-understandable representation of design rationale to support value engineering
Degree	PhD
Department	Civil Engineering
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title de la Garza, Jesus M. Committee Chair Bandy, M. Committee Member Beliveau, Yvan J. Committee Member Jones, Dennis B. Committee Member Showalter, W. Eric Committee Member Vorster, Michael C. Committee Member
Keywords	facility life span
Date of Defense	1996-07-14
Availability	restricted
Abstract The life span of facilities produced by the Architecture-Engineering-Construction industry is typically 25 years or more Several distinct phases characterize the life span of a facility. Each of these phases involve numerous participants from different professional disciplines. These participants generate and use a lot of information about the facility. Current methods used by the industry to convey this information are drawings and specifications. However. these drawings and specifications retlect only a summary of the information generated and used by the project participants This summarized information only describes the product. Information about the process of generating these information becomes implicit in the drawings and specifications. Rationale is the collective term for this set of implicit process information. The main issue addressed by this dissertation is the need to communicate design rationale information. Design rationale is a subset of the entire rationale generated for a facility Design rationale refers to information about the design process. Explicitly stating design rationale information reduces the chance of misinterpreting design drawings and specifications. The primary objective of this dissertation is to detine a data structure capable of representing design rationale information. This data structure also allows a computer system to perform analytical tasks on the design rationale data. Examples of analytical tasks a computer system can perform on design rationale data include: generating a parameter dependency network and resolving data conflicts :This dissertation defines this data structure as two separate but complementary modules. The Knowledge Representation Module assists in gathering project-specific product information The Rationale Storage Module assists in capturing project-specific process information This dissertation discusses each of these two modules in detail.Design rationale refers to information about the design process Explicitly stating design rationale information reduces the chance of misinterpreting design drawings and specifications. The pnmary objective of this dissertation is to detine a data structure capable of representing design rationale information. This data structure also allows a computer system to perform analytical tasks on the design rationale data. Examples of analytical tasks a computer system can perform on design rationale data include: generating a parameter dependency network and resolving data conflicts.This dissertation defines this data structure as two separate but complementary modules. The Knowledge Representation Module assists in gathering project-specific product information The Rationale Storage Module assists in capturing project-specific process information This dissertation discusses each of these two modules in detail.
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