Technical Challenges for Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions in Civil and Building Engineering

Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) are defined by CIB as follows: “Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions use collaborative work processes and enhanced skills, with integrated data, information, and knowledge management to minimize structural and process inefficiencies and to enhance the value delivered during design, build, and operation, and across projects.” (CIB, 2009). Conceptually, the development of an extensible infrastructure for IDDS appears to be a straightforward matter, made difficult by the sheer size of the information needs of the domain. To that extent, there are few current implementations in existence, and the majority of those that do exist are bespoke developments which support a restricted number of processes and analyses. This paper characterizes the variety of technical challenges which are faced by those delivering on the promise of integrated design and delivery solutions. Alongside each of these challenges it identifies current approaches to supporting IDDS, both at a commercial level, and from the viewpoint of researchers working on future improvements to the IDDS ideal.