Construction Parts in Building Projects: Definition and Case Study

Abstract

In contrast to the manufacturing industry, value added per work hour has not increased over the last 5 years in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. One of the major causes is the limited understanding of production processes formalized from a shared unit among construction project participants. To improve the understanding, the definition of a construction part was formulated for a fundamental unit of building input products as a common denominator. To focus on the value added by construction crews and to allow cross-project comparisons, this definition was formulated to be consistent, value-focused, and quantifiable. This paper discusses the consistency and quantifiability of the definition and decomposition method for construction parts, as illustrated through a case study. Future work will concentrate on building ontologies to further establish the construction part concept and represent production processes formalized from the concept.