Workflow re-engineering of design-build projects using a BIM tool

The use of design-build delivery methods and building information modeling (BIM) tools in the construction industry has been growing rapidly in recent years due to the increasing demand for more efficient construction project management. The successful implementation of these?tools by engineering firms on projects, however, is still not being achieved consistently. This paper shares the experiences of the implementation of an in-house BIM tool by a large engineering, procurement, and construction firm that has an extensive reputation for design-build projects. A new workflow was proposed that takes full advantage of the BIM tool to both enhance the construction management performance and to minimize the impact on the firm’s existing workflow. The development of a new workflow was conducted by interviewing key personnel in various departments of the firm and by carefully examining probable impacts of the BIM tool’s introduction into the firm’s business processes.     

Constructing gazetteers from volunteered Big Geo-Data based on Hadoop

Traditional gazetteers are built and maintained by authoritative mapping agencies. In the age of Big Data, it is possible to construct gazetteers in a data-driven approach by mining rich volunteered geographic information (VGI) from the Web. In this research, we build a scalable distributed platform and a high-performance geoprocessing workflow based on the Hadoop ecosystem to harvest crowd-sourced gazetteer entries. Using experiments based on geotagged datasets in Flickr, we find that the MapReduce-based workflow running on the spatially enabled Hadoop cluster can reduce the processing time compared with traditional desktop-based operations by an order of magnitude. We demonstrate how to use such a novel spatial-computing infrastructure to facilitate gazetteer research. In addition, we introduce a provenance-based trust model for quality assurance. This work offers new insights on enriching future gazetteers with the use of Hadoop clusters, and makes contributions in connecting GIS to the cloud computing environment for the next frontier of Big Geo-Data analytics.     

Workflow Automation: Overview and Research Issues

Workflow management systems, a relatively recent technology, are designed to make work more efficient, integrate heterogeneous application systems, and support interorganizational processes in electronic commerce applications. In this paper, we introduce the field of workflow automation, the subject of this special issue of Information Systems Frontiers. In the first part of the paper, we provide basic definitions and frameworks to aid understanding of workflow management technologies. In the remainder of the paper, we discuss technical and management research opportunities in this field and discuss the other contributions to the special issue.     

Quick‐and‐clean article figures with FigureJ

We created FigureJ a new ImageJ plugin dedicated to scientific article figures preparation. Building a convincing figure is a demanding task that covers different steps ranging from content acquisition to figure assembly in editing software. Notions of image processing are required when it comes to even simple tasks such as cropping or resizing images and assembling them in a single figure. Scientific images are typically well handled in dedicated software but poorly supported in software used for laying out the final version of a figure for submission to review process.     

A framework for smart workflow services in agricultural environments

To improve work efficiency and productivity in agricultural environment, which may naturally be protean, unpredictable and laborious, many researchers have made attempts to apply information technology in the field of conventional agriculture. Especially, they have great concern toward a reasonable and reliable service control model or architecture to control agricultural works automatically and smartly. This article proposes a framework to support context-aware or smart services in agricultural environments, based on a context-aware workflow model and USN/RFID. The suggested framework is focused on supporting autonomous agricultural services in the fields of growth control, protection against disease and insects, and the output control of the agricultural computing environment using a workflow model which is one of the successful service automation models, using contexts from various sensors in agricultural fields. The proposed framework, based on a context-aware workflow, can be greatly helpful in the development of smart applications or work automation in the field of agriculture.     

纸盒加工数字化流程的发展前景

随着数字化技术在包装印刷业的不断渗入,纸盒加工过程数字化的实现将倍受瞩目.文中从包装结构计算机辅助设计(CAD)技术、纸盒样品CAM系统、JDF技术等方面全面分析了纸盒加工数字化流程,阐述了纸盒加工数字化流程的发展前景.     

Challenges and opportunities for productivity improvement studies in linear,repetitive, and location-based scheduling

Despite theoretical advancements in alternative project planning methods the extent of their practical implementation varies strongly; it has been limited especially in the US construction industry. The family of linear, repetitive, and location-based scheduling techniques holds significant but barely substantiated promise by containing multiple variables of interest for integrated analysis and optimization. Yet it is necessary to provide empirical evidence that using such techniques can improve productivity to increase credibility and acceptance by practitioners, because claims of conceptual superiority are only sporadically supported with detailed measures. An analysis is performed to identify relevant decision-making variables, extract challenges that currently limit the corpus of quantitative productivity studies on alternative scheduling to its insufficient size, and reveal opportunities to expand it in breadth and depth. Variables are categorized by their relevance to time, activity, resource and location, as well as the managerial approach. Challenges include the diverse definitions of productivity itself, issues related to achieving generalizability, and the detailed steps of data collection, preparation, and analysis. Opportunities include the guidance from existing but rare studies and well-established research methods such as case studies that can be applied. This is illustrated with a sample project of a high-rise apartment building in Brazil. If alternative methods can be proven to be measurably better for specific applications, there might be a paradigm shift from merely defaulting to traditional but problematic network-based scheduling toward consciously choosing the planning method based on its potential benefits for a project.     

近红外分析网络共享平台中复杂工作流实现算法

近红外分析共享平台中的采集工作流是一个以数据为中心的工作流。对系统中复杂采集工作流的跳转执行过程进行了详细分析,针对自由工作流跳转造成的数据和状态不一致性的问题,提出了一个任务执行优先关系算法,计算采集工作流中各个活动任务执行次序关系值,并构造一个执行次序关系树,记录各任务活动的状态信息;在流程回退、撤销、跳转时保证了数据和状态的一致性,较好地实现了跨任务活动的跳转。应用结果表明,此算法能够正确高效地实现复杂流程的跳转。     

A framework for variable content document generation with multiple actors

ContextAdvances in customization have highlighted the need for tools supporting variable content document management and generation in many domains. Current tools allow the generation of highly customized documents that are variable in both content and layout. However, most frameworks are technology-oriented, and their use requires advanced skills in implementation-related tools, which means their use by end users (i.e. document designers) is severely limited.ObjectiveStarting from past and current trends for customized document authoring, our goal is to provide a document generation alternative in which variants are specified at a high level of abstraction and content reuse can be maximized in high variability scenarios.MethodBased on our experience in Document Engineering, we identified areas in the variable content document management and generation field open to further improvement. We first classified the primary sources of variability in document composition processes and then developed a methodology, which we called DPL – based on Software Product Lines principles – to support document generation in high variability scenarios.ResultsIn order to validate the applicability of our methodology we implemented a tool – DPLfw – to carry out DPL processes. After using this in different scenarios, we compared our proposal with other state-of-the-art tools for variable content document management and generation.ConclusionThe DPLfw showed a good capacity for the automatic generation of variable content documents equal to or in some cases surpassing other currently available approaches. To the best of our knowledge, DPLfw is the only framework that combines variable content and document workflow facilities, easing the generation of variable content documents in which multiple actors play different roles.     

一个支持协同过程的动态模拟算法

工作流管理是复杂企业过程协同工作的关键技术。传统的工作流控制系统通常采用CS架构,只能为整体过程操作提供单一的工作流服务。基于EPMS系统设计一个模型驱动工作流模型解决企业过程协同问题,提出一个动态关键路径选取算法。从而实现系统的多业务协同调度。