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OPIS: An Object Model–Based Project Information System
Author(s) -
Froese Thomas M.,
Paulson Boyd C.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
computer‐aided civil and infrastructure engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.773
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1467-8667
pISSN - 1093-9687
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8667.1994.tb00358.x
Subject(s) - computer science , software engineering , system integration , information model , systems engineering , project management , database , engineering
Future computer‐aided project management (CAPM) software will be greatly improved through the technologies of project modeling—the rich, general‐purpose representation of the project in the computer—and system integration—the sharing of computer models among applications. Our approach is to achieve system integration by establishing standard models that all applications can adopt and share. This requires a standard data model that specifies the general data‐representation approach, a standard domain model that provides a schema or language for representing construction information, and a project model or database for information about a specific project that can be shared among multiple computer applications. This paper reviews these standard models and then describes our prototype integrated system called the object model–based project information system, or OPIS. OPIS uses a shared object–oriented database as the central unifying core of an integrated project planning system that includes an interface to an intelligent CADD program, a plan‐generation expert system, an estimating application, and a scheduling application. OPIS demonstrates the feasibility and power of using standard object‐oriented project models to achieve CAPM system integration.