Construction Parts in Building Projects : Definition and Case Study

In contrast to the manufacturing industry, value added per work hour has not increased over the last 50 years in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. One of the major causes is the limited understanding of production processes formalized from a shared unit among construction project participants. To improve the understanding, the definition of a construction part was formulated for a fundamental unit of building input products as a common denominator. To focus on the value added by construction crews and to allow cross-project comparisons, this definition was formulated to be consistent, value-focused, and quantifiable. This paper discusses the consistency and quantifiability of the definition and decomposition method for construction parts, as illustrated through a case study. Future work will concentrate on building ontologies to further establish the construction part concept and represent production processes formalized from the concept.