Automating hierarchical document classification for construction management information systems

The widespread use of information technologies for construction is considerably increasing the number of electronic text documents stored in construction management information systems. Consequently, automated methods for organizing and improving the access to the information contained in these types of documents become essential to construction information management. This paper describes a methodology developed to improve information organization and access in construction management information systems based on automatic hierarchical classification of construction project documents according to project components. A prototype system for document classification is presented, as well as the experiments conducted to verify the feasibility of the proposed approach. D 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.