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“Construction Platforms for Asia: Thoughts on the DfMA Journey in Asia-Pacific”.
We are interested in realising the environment within which one or multiple solutions can be developed and operate together.. To date we have focused on scoping each stage of the process and developing a demo version of how a digital planning process would operate.The demo version is a series of dashboards showing how sets of interoperable data will enable the planning process at its various stages; which elements can be automated and which will require human intervention; and where we can connect with existing solutions.. Standardising and digitising the rules and datasets will enable us to move from demo to reality.. As said earlier, this is not a question of starting from scratch (or reinventing the wheel): the data already generated through the use of BIM and 3D modelling will form the basis of this process.
Established formats such as BCF already allow for rich data sharing (although they are not always used to achieve this).The task that lies ahead – and the project that will fundamentally reshape the landscape – is to define shared underlying rules that will allow the existing parts to connect, and facilitate the creation of new applications to plug the gaps and create onward connections.. Impact on key planning roles.A digitised planning process will not replace humans with computers.
Creating standardised data or the means of standardising existing data across the planning process will enable us to automate those elements which are machine-readable (eg to assess whether standard information supplied by the architect/designer is complete and compliant), and then transparent decision-making by planners.(And by extension – this can encompass building control, health and safety and other types of compliance checking.).
This degree of automation will not remove the requirement for human judgement and discretion in planning decisions.
The purpose of digitisation is to facilitate the process by reducing the burden on those people of large amounts of admin and tedious, repetitive tasks that can be done better by machines than humans.. Benefits for architects:.The same brackets are used consistently and they are colour-coded.
This makes it easy to teach people how to do the assembly and they become very quick at doing it.However, the beams and columns can be any length.
Spans can be specific to particular clients, but to the operative on site, it's the same yellow bracket, requiring the same torque wrench and two bolts.Platforms enable us to get down to a much more granular level and simultaneously open the door for continual improvement and variability going forward with respect to supply chain choices, material choices and so on.. Maximising value with construction platforms.