A procurement and material management (PMM) system based on the fully integrated and automated project process (FIAPP)

Over the last decade, the Fully Integrated and Automated Project Process (FIAPP) has emerged as a model for integrating construction project participants and improving project development efficiency. FIAPP's potential, however, has yet to be realized, in part, because particular information and management systems remain undeveloped. One of the missing pieces is a procurement model to support FIAPP during the building construction procurement process. Moreover, the impacts of a FIAPP-based system on traditional project delivery—DBB (design-bid-build)—for building construction has been difficult to quantify. Therefore, this research fills these two voids. First, a prototype procurement and materials management system, called 3DPMM, was developed and tested in practice. 3DPMM is used in conjunction with a 3D model to enable a project team to visually record and retrieve information related to the procurement of material. For instance, one feature of 3DPMM is its material-status monitoring system where 3D objects are “color-coded” according to their procurement status. The system was successfully tested and evaluated during three case studies in New York City. Second, a simulation model was constructed to quantify the impacts of 3DPMM when applied to the procurement of fabricated materials on the DBB process for building construction. This model quantified the cycle time and process cost of traditional and 3DPMM procurement processes. The research shows that the benefits attributable to 3DPMM are significant. Implementation of the 3DPMM and FIAPP based technology can result in significant improvements in efficiency, automation and project collaboration as well as time and cost savings on the design, bidding, and construction processes.