A Web Services Implementation of a User-Centered Knowledge Management Platform for the Construction Industry

The research described in this paper aims at specifying and developing an open model-based infrastructure and a set of tools that promote consistent knowledge management within collaborative environments in the construction sector. The specified solution emerged from a comprehensive analysis of the business and information/ knowledge management practices of four construction organizations and makes use of a construction-specific ontology for specifying adaptive mechanisms that can organize documents according to their content and interdependencies while maintaining their overall consistency. The proposed Webbased infrastructure includes services allowing the creation, capture, indexing, retrieval, and dissemination of knowledge. It also promotes the integration of thirdparty services, including proprietary and legacy tools. The Web-services model is used as the underlying middleware technology that supports the solution. The research is sponsored by the European Commission under the Framework V Programme (Information Society and Technology).