Construction Business Automation System

Abstract

This paper introduces a system prototype, the construction business automation system, for modeling and automating construction business processes by using workflow and object technologies. Construction management tasks are developed as distributed internet applications for supporting reusability of software components, simplifying process modeling, and automating business processes. The development of the prototype has resulted in the following technologies: (1) the object-oriented reusable component technology for modeling construction management tasks; (2) the construction business process modeler based on the task based modeling methodology; (3) the request driving methodology for raising business requests and instantiating corresponding process instances; and (4) the supporting technology for interacting with a commercial workflow engine (e.g., i-Flow) for executing business process instances. A purchasing process is used as an example to illustrate these related topics and the applicability of the methodologies in construction business automation.