Coordinating and customizing design information through the internet

The presence of incompatibility errors in design information is a major problem for the construction industry. An analysis of the generation and documentation process of this information reveals that propagation of design changes constitutes a main source for incompatibilities. The large amount of design data that is generated within the typically multidisciplinary design environment makes coordinating this information a very challenging task. Adding to the challenge is the fact that the involved design disciplines are, in most cases, spatially separated. This paper presents a developed architecture for an information model that aims to use the Internet technology to overcome this problem. The approach to develop the model is not to automate the currently used coordination techniques, rather to re‐engineer these techniques using the unique capabilities of computers and the Internet over those of humans. The model contains as well a component that enables the generation of customizable and multimedia construction documents. Such type of documents present many advantages over paper‐based documents and may ultimately replace them.