A knowledge-based electronic meeting system for implementing value management in construction briefing

This thesis describes the development and evaluation of a knowledge-based electronic meeting system (EMS) for implementing value management (VM) in construction briefing. This research is driven by two forces: (1) difficulties encountered in the VM practice and the briefing practice jointly pose the challenge of efficiently conducting VM studies in construction briefing; and (2) there is a growing desire to take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance the efficiency of briefing. Three specific research objectives have been established: (1) to develop a knowledge-based EMS for implementing VM in construction briefing; (2) to investigate whether the EMS can facilitate the implementation of VM in briefing; and (3) to investigate whether the case-based reasoning (CBR) feature can facilitate the implementation of functional performance specification (FPS) in briefing. To achieve the research objectives, three research tasks: literature review, system development, and system evaluation, are conducted. The EMS is designed to increase process gains and decrease process losses in briefing workshops through four contributing mechanisms: process structure, process support, task structure, and task support. With respect to the difference between the objectives for which they are designed, the EMS and the CBR feature are evaluated separately. The performance of the EMS is then evaluated through two field studies and an experimental study. The system evaluation results illustrate that the knowledge-based EMS can facilitate the implementation of VM in briefing through providing progress structure, process support, task structure and task support. Two methods are used to evaluate the CBR feature: (1) technical analysis in terms of case base coverage and (2) expert evaluation in terms of the percentage of problem solving successes and the performance of recommendations. According to the evaluation results, the CBR feature has big potential to be helpful in the function analysis phase and the performance specification phase. This research contributes to knowledge from three perspectives: (1) this research leads to new knowledge of using EMS to implement VM in construction briefing; (2) this research leads to new knowledge of developing performance-based briefs; and (3) this research contributes knowledge of using CBR in construction briefing.