Social network visual simulation for process reengineering of construction change management under building information modelling technology

Abstract

Construction change management is an important part of construction project management. Previous studies usually focus on the various steps of construction change control: analyzing the causes of change, avoiding the risk of change, tracking the process of change, management and feedback of change. This study focused on improving the information flow and organizational relationship of the participants in the process of construction change management, which was reengineered with the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology for better information integration. As BIM technology provides technical means for information transaction and management, a reengineered construction change management process based on BIM technology was proposed to form a more effective way of putting forward, examine, issuing, updating and archiving the information. Both the workflow and the organizational units involved in each work step were reengineered to improve the information flow. To verify the effect of process reengineering, Uncinet, a visual analysis tool for Social network analysis (SNA) was applied to quantitatively analyze and compare the traditional and BIM based organizational structure. The research results demonstrated that BIM was helpful to strengthen organizational coordination and information exchange in construction change management process.

Keywords

Construction change management process reengineering building information modelling visual analysis social network analysis

1 Introduction

There are many causes that may initiate a construction change, including that the owner’s new design modification requirements, design change due to original design errors, change of engineering environment, change of implementation plan caused by new technology and knowledge, adjustment of contract objectives or modification of contract clauses [1]. For decades, researchers and engineers were devoted to efficient construction change management for reducing the negative impact of construction changes on construction period, cost and construction quality. Research on construction change has a long tradition, traditional construction change control research generally focuses on the various steps of construction change control: analyzing the causes of change, avoiding the risk of change, tracking the process of change, management and feedback of change [2 –4]. There are growing appeals for many construction projects to introduce Building Information Modelling (BIM) design in the design phase for three-dimensional modeling, or simulation construction, pipeline collision detection, engineering measurement, etc., to improve the design quality, which may reduce construction changes in the construction process [5]. However, in the process of project implementation, there are uncertainties in the site construction environment, or uncertainties changes from the owner or the contractor. This is why construction change is inevitable to a certain extent. Researchers in the field of project management have spent a lot of energy exploring the use of information technology and modern management ideas to manage engineering changes [6, 7].

Construction change management is an important part of construction change controlling. It is a management process of collecting information of the change order, reviewing the contents of the change report, updating corresponding drawings, adjusting the project schedule and material supply planning, then implementing construction changes, and updating the cost data caused by the construction changes [8]. In this process, multiple parties participated and conducted multiple information interactions and feedbacks. Therefore, the research emphases of construction change management in this study were the organizational relationship management of the participants involved in the management process, and the flow of information management between the parties.

BIM technology provides technical means for information transaction and management. It is the technology of modeling the whole construction project through one or more building information databases [9]. Some BIM visualization systems even as Web-BIM platforms provides a powerful tool for the participants working together more efficiently [10]. In the process of an engineering project, construction changes occur from time to time. Taking advantage of the convenience of BIM technology in information exchange and integration, it is helpful to speed up the exchange and feedback of information, improve the efficiency of reporting, feedback and implementation of construction changes, and thus improve the efficiency of project management [11]. In this regard, the focus of this paper was the research on information flow in the process of construction change management, and how to use BIM technology to reengineer the management process of construction change. The workflow and information exchange pattern in a traditional construction change management practice were analyzed and reengineered using BIM technology. From the point of view that the organizational units in engineering projects have various connections through workflow, the organizational relationship in traditional pattern and with BIM technology was qualified and compared by using the social network model [12]. The status and role of each organizational unit of each social network were also identified. The research results demonstrated that BIM was helpful to strengthen organizational coordination and information exchange in construction change management process. Then the special roles of the important organizational units in construction change management were also studied for strengthening the control of important organizational units, and improving the efficiency of construction change management.

2 Methodology

As a technology of building information creation and management, BIM can link the management of construction change with the building information model, take the model as the assistant means of project management, and interact with other information systems as much as possible to realize information sharing to the greatest extent [13]. Understanding the advantages of BIM, construction change can be better tackled by establishing a more efficient organizational relationship between project units basing on the efficient transmission and interaction of information [14].

For the multi-participated complex organizations of engineering construction, project control is more dependent on the organization control, that is, the identification, analysis, management and control of key organizations and key relationships. The establishment and analysis of social network model can make the solution of key issues of complex organization control clearer [15]. For example, the parameters of density and centralization indicate the degree of closeness of links between units in social networks, the definition of power and central figures makes the focus of organizational control clearer, the analysis of factions helps to identify the organizational units of key control, and the analysis of structural homogeneity helps the managers and engineers of both the owners and the contractors to do the position design, classification management and system design [16].

From the point of view that organization units in construction change management have various connections through workflow, this research utilized the advantages of the information platform of BIM technology, integrated several steps in the workflow, and optimized the management process of construction change. Then, a quantitative analysis of the organizational structure of construction project was conducted by using social network model, and comparing the organizational structure with traditional pattern and with BIM technology. The research method mainly consists of three steps.

The first step was to establish the construction change management workflow under the traditional mode (non-BIM mode), extract the organizational unit relationship from the process, analyze the various work steps related to information transfer and sharing in the engineering process. Then, taking advantage of the information integration advantages of BIM technology, some work steps could be integrated and optimized, thus establishing construction change workflow under BIM technology and corresponding organizational unit relationship.

The second step was to apply the social network analysis (SNA) method to model the organizational relationship network under the conditions of BIM and non-BIM.

The third step was to analyze the results of the SNA model, discuss the status and role of each organizational unit in the construction change management under the BIM and non-BIM conditions, and then studied the important organizational units and the important roles in the organizations. Using the research conclusion of SNA modelling, this research analyzed the organizational relationship and process reengineering in the construction change management, and put forward to strengthen the organizational management and coordination, strengthen the control of important organizational units, and improve the efficiency of workflow.

3 Process reengineering of construction change management

3.1 Analysis of the main participants

In this paper, the widely used project organization relationship in China’s current construction industry was studied, where the relationship is a joint participation of owner, contractor, designer, supervision company, quantity surveyor for cost controlling, and material supplier. Figure 1 illustrates the organizational structure of the main participants in construction change management.

Fig. 1

Organizational structure of the main participants in construction change management.

3.2 Analysis of traditional construction change control workflow

With this organizational relationship, the traditional management process of construction change can be divided into nine steps.

1) Put forward the construction change application report, providing the reasons for change and relevant drawings.

2) The supervision company examines the necessity and feasibility of the construction change, examines the cost of and the impact of the construction change on schedule, and signs the audit comments; the designer examines whether the relevant drawings of the construction change meet the design specifications, whether they meet the original design requirements, and signs the audit comments.

3) The owner exams the construction change according to the supervision company and the designer’s feedback.

4) The project manager of the owner shall issue the approval opinions of the construction change to the supervision company, and specifying whether the change is carried out. If the construction change was proofed, the supervision company issues the notice of construction change.

5) Designer follows up drawing modification work.

6) The constructor prepares for the construction change, and the detailed constructing contents, quantity, construction technology requirements, quality standards, schedule of the project, and related material supplement plans are specified.

7) The contractor reports the cost adjustment caused by the construction change.

8) The budgeted cost of the construction change is audited by the quantity surveyor.

9) The budgeted cost of the construction change is determined and proofed by the owner.

Figure 2 shows the workflow of the traditional construction change management and the organizational units involved in each step. Each organizational unit was connected by a line with the work step it involved.

Fig. 2

Traditional construction change management workflow.

3.3 Reengineer the management process of construction changes

In the traditional implementation interface of construction change management, the business process is decentralized, the information integration is insufficient, and the project collaborative management is weakened. In this management process, participants from different project units take part in the work steps of the construction change. Information transmission and interaction in these work steps.

Management process reengineering was based on BIM technology for reengineering information transmission paths at various stages and parties, to make up for the deficiencies of traditional business processes and improve workflow conversion efficiency. As BIM technology provides the possibility of some work steps’ combination and some participants’ cooperation in the process of reporting, reviewing and issuing construction changes [17]. Therefore, the construction change management process and the participants’ relationship in the BIM mode can be optimized to the form shown in the figure below, where the information goes on in a more effective way of putting forward, examine, issuing, updating and archiving the information. Figure 3 shows the reengineered workflow of the change management under BIM technology, and the organizational units involved in each step. Each organizational unit was connected by a line with the work step it involved.

Fig. 3

The reengineered construction change management workflow.

4 Social network modelling

SNA method originated from the social econometric analysis and graph theory in the 1930 s, and was established by Harvard University in the 1960 s [18]. SNA is a kind of structural analysis method which uses data, graph theory, mathematical model and software analysis to study the relationship between actors, actors and their networks, and between one network and another network. SNA has a wide range of applications, including social sciences, engineering and other fields of organization and management research, as well as the medical field of virus transmission and so on [19].

The main elements of social network analysis are nodes and lines. Nodes represent the elements within a set, or members of a group. A line represents the relationship between nodes. SNA analyzes the connection and structural characteristics of social entities through graph theory and matrix [20]. A matrix describing the relationships among members of a group can be transformed into a graph connected by nodes and lines. The model parameters of SNA include density, centrality, centralization, etc.

4.1 SNA modelling for construction change management

In the view of work breakdown and workflow, the network technology of transforming a Two-mode network into a One-mode network was applied to model the relationship between organizational units.

Two-mode network is used to describe the network relationship between different kinds of actor sets. Two-mode network was set up in section 3 as Figs. 2 and 3, describing the relationship between organizational unit and work step. The steps of construction change management in these figures are defined as work steps. As two different types of actors, the participating organizational units and work steps become the nodes in the network. The “participating” relationship between the organizational units and work steps is the line segment of the connecting nodes, thus forming the corresponding network.

One-mode networkis consist of nodes (representing units) and lines (representing the relationship between units), expressing the relationship between the various units within a certain set. The organizational units in Two-mode network are corresponding to the units in One-mode network, and any two organizational units sharing a work step in two-mode network are connected by a connecting line. In this study, a visual analysis software called Ucinet was applied to generate the SNA model. UCINET is a social network analysis program developed by Steve Borgatti, Martin Everett and Lin Freeman. It is a comprehensive package for the analysis of social network data [21]. If two organizational units were sharing a work step, the relationship value of these two units was 1, otherwise, the relationship value of these two units was 0. Thus a relationship matrix could be input to the Ucinet, then, the one-mode network graph could be generated by the Netdraw package of the Ucinet. As shown in Figs. 4 and 5, the one-mode networks were set up by Ucinet, demonstrating the different organizational relationships between the units in a traditional construction change management mode and a BIM-aided mode.

Fig. 4

Traditionalorganizational network of the construction change management.

Fig. 5

Organizational network of the construction change management with BIM technique.

4.2 Parameter analysis

The main concepts of SNA describing the relationship between organizations and units include the parameters that make up social networks and the indicators that characterize social networks [22]. Using the social network model to quantify the organizational structure of construction projects, the relationship between organizational units is extracted from the work flow to form a network. In the network structure of Figs. 4 and 5, the nodes in the network represent the participating units in the construction change management process. The lines connecting the nodes represent the relationship or the information transmission path between the units.

The network relationship between units determines the access to information, and the closeness of such network relationships determines the amount of information acquired and the ease of access. Hence, focusing on the key issues of construction change management, some metrics describing the social networks were analyzed. The parameters were calculated for traditional and BIM networks of Figs. 4 and 5. The results calculated by UCINET software were summarized in Table 1. Network density is a measure of the close relationship between units in the social network. Organization centralization is a metric that indicates the degree of difference of all units in the whole network. The density and organization in traditional network were lower compared to BIM based network (0.4199, and 37.62%, vs. 0.5325, and 46.19%). This indicated that units in a BIM environment shared closer relationships and enjoyed more evenly distributed power. On the other hand, the average distance and number of cliques values were higher than those of BIM based network (1.675, and 11, vs. 1.468, and 6). This indicated that information transmission distance was longer in the traditional network, and there were more small teams in the traditional network, which may cause information blockage and poor flow.

Table 1
The function and value of organization social network

Key issue Metric Metric definition and function Traditional network BIM based network

Organizational cohesion Density (D) Network density is a measure of the close relationship between units in the social network. 0.4199 0.5325

$D = \frac{2 L}{g (g - 1)}$ , where

L: number of the lines

g: number of the nodes

Role analysis of units in an organization Organization centralization (C_OC) The degree of difference of all units in the whole network. 37.62% 46.19%

$C_{OC} = \frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} (C_{UCmax} - C_{UCi})}{\max [\sum_{i = 1}^{n} (C_{UCmax} - C_{UCi})]}$ , where

C_UCi is the unit centrality of node (i), expressing the number of nodes relating to node (i).

Path of information transfer Average distance For each pair of nodes, the algorithm finds the number of edges in the shortest path between them. 1.675 1.468

The average distance between all members is calculated to get the average distance between the members of the whole network.

Small teams in the overall network Number of cliques The number of small cliques in the overall network displayed by SNA tree diagram. 11 6

Key issue	Metric	Metric definition and function	Traditional network	BIM based network
Organizational cohesion	Density (D)	Network density is a measure of the close relationship between units in the social network.	0.4199	0.5325
		$D = \frac{2 L}{g (g - 1)}$ , where
		L: number of the lines
		g: number of the nodes
Role analysis of units in an organization	Organization centralization (C_OC)	The degree of difference of all units in the whole network.	37.62%	46.19%
		$C_{OC} = \frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} (C_{UCmax} - C_{UCi})}{\max [\sum_{i = 1}^{n} (C_{UCmax} - C_{UCi})]}$ , where
		C_UCi is the unit centrality of node (i), expressing the number of nodes relating to node (i).
Path of information transfer	Average distance	For each pair of nodes, the algorithm finds the number of edges in the shortest path between them.	1.675	1.468
		The average distance between all members is calculated to get the average distance between the members of the whole network.
Small teams in the overall network	Number of cliques	The number of small cliques in the overall network displayed by SNA tree diagram.	11	6

SNA has advantages and functions in analyzing the roles of different units in an organization. Thus, besides the network structure, the individual units in each network were also analyzed. Table 2 illustrated some key issues regarding to construction change management and the metric analysis and comparison of two social network structures in the view of units in an organization. Figures 6 and 7 showed the value of Unit centrality and Unit betweenness centrality of each unit in networks of non-BIM and with BIM mode. The value of unit centrality shows the key unit in a net. The greater the centrality of a unit, the more other units are associated with it, and thus this unit is in the central position. In the traditional network, the project manager of main contractor played the role of a key unit in construction change management. While in the BIM based network, the chief supervisor was a key unit as most other units were associating with it. Analyzing unit betweenness centrality showed which unit played an intermediary role in the network’s information flow. Larger value of the unit betweenness centrality indicated the unit’s greater control of the project resources. It was revealed that in a traditional network, the project manager of the owner, chief designer, project manager and cost manager of the main contractor, chief supervisor, supervisory documenter and supervisory quality officer played the intermediary roles, while project manager of the owner was a main intermediary role. In the BIM based network, chief supervisor, the project manager of the owner, project manager of the main contractor and chief designer played the intermediary roles, while project manager of the owner was a main intermediary role.

Table 2

The unit analysis and comparison of two social network structures

Key issue	Metric	Metric definition and function	Traditional network	BIM based network
Key unit in a net	Unit centrality (C_UC(i))	The greater the centrality of a unit, the more other units are associated with it, and thus this unit is in the central position.	slash	slash
		C_UC(i) is the number of units relating to unite (node) (i).
		Which unit values the maximum C_UC(i)?	MC1	S1
		The value of C_UC(i)max	16	20
Which unit played an intermediary role?	Unit betweenness centrality (C_UBC(i))	Indicates the ability of the unit to influence the flow of network information.	/	/
		$C_{UBC (i)} = \sum_{j}^{n} \sum_{k}^{n} b_{jk} (i), j \neq k \neq i, j < k$
		Where b_jk is the total number of shortest paths from node (j) to node (k) and b_jk (i) is the number of those paths that pass through node (i).
		Which unit values the maximum C_UBC(i)?	O1	S1
		The value of C_UBC(i)max	29.334	31.967

Fig. 6

Unit centrality of each unit in networks of non-BIM and with BIM mode.

Fig. 7

Unit betweenness centrality of each unit in networks of non-BIM and with BIM mode.

5 Discussions

The traditional construction change management process has many steps, and the management activities of the participants are discontinuous in different links, which leads to a low degree of information integration. The process reengineering of construction change management in this study was based on BIM technology, and aimed to find an optimized information transmission path, shorten the information transmission time and improve work efficiency.

The social network model was used to quantitatively analyze the reengineered management process. For both the traditional and BIM based organizational structure for construction engineering management, the network structure was analyzed and compared. The status of the network and relationship between the organizational units were studied. The results of SNA revealed that, the reengineered BIM based network shared closer relationships between units, enjoyed more evenly distributed power and shorter information transmission distance. Thus, the SNA modelling results showed that the reengineered BIM based network was more efficiency in construction change management.

The important organizational units and important roles in the organization were also studied in the SNA modelling. According to the results of parameter analysis, in the BIM based network, the chief supervisor was a key unit as most other units were associating with it, and it had greater control of the project resources. Thus, in the BIM based construction change management process, the chief supervisor should give full play to the role of management and coordination, and closely contact the owners, general contractors, designers, cost consulting units, material suppliers and other participants, promote information circulation and feedback progress, and improve management efficiency.

6 Conclusions

This study concentrated on the information flow and the organizational relationship of the participants in the process of construction change management, and took the information integration advantages of BIM technology to reengineer the construction change management process. The research contribution to the body of knowledge in change management. SNA was applied to quantitatively analyze the organizational structure of construction change management, extracting the organizational unit relationship from the workflow, analyzing the centrality and network density of the relationship network under the traditional model and BIM technology. And then, the conclusions could be drawn through comparison. The construction change management process with BIM technology enjoys faster circulation and transmission of information, thus the management efficiency is higher in this mode. At the same time, the modeling results of SNA also showed the status and role of each organizational unit. Based on the results of parameter analysis, the following suggestions are proposed: in a reengineered BIM based network, the chief supervisor played an important role in construction change management and management, and should give fully play of the chief supervisor to better coordination in construction change management process.

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