Harnessing the power of simulation in the project management / decision support aspects of the construction industry

This paper reviews the history of construction simulation systems in light of their graphical representation of complex scenarios. The simulation of construction operations has been a growing field of research over the last several decades. Since the introduction of the first simulation system, which was based on the activity cycle diagram paradigm of modeling, numerous additional tools have been introduced, each building on and expanding the modeling and analytical capabilities of previous approaches. However, despite such rich body of knowledge, which by now is expanding into areas such as visualization, animation, and virtual reality applications for construction project management, the beneficial application of simulation in practice has been marginal. This paper describes both historical and practical reasons for this situation and presents an ontology-based approach that can harness existing information in construction project management, especially the scheduling function, and has the potential to significantly improve its operational planning and optimization.