A FRAMEWORK FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF DESIGN CONSTRUCTABILITY

摘要

The traditional approach to construction process that is commonly practiced in the construction industry has created a lot of constructability problems. This is due to the fact that the design has been separated from the construction. Constructability problems that are encountered during construction are normally associated with design deficiencies. It has been said that design constructability could be improved if proper consideration is given on the aspects of constructability during the design process. This paper describes a framework to assess design constructability of a design element such as beam, column or wall. It consists of two main parts, the first part being the level of application constructability factors while the second part is the design constructability assessment. This framework enables constructability assessment model to be developed using appropriate tools. Six design phase constructability principles, which are considered to be very important by engineers/architects in the construction industry, have been used in the framework. Methodology of measuring the level of application of constructability factors under each principle and assessment of design constructability is explained. This paper also reviews the various contructability improvement methods that are intended to improve constructability of project designs. In this context, three types of improvement methods are investigated: guidelines, computerised systems and manual systems. Comparisons between the improvement methods are made and common weakness among the systems is identified. The outcomes of the review form a basis for the development of the constructability assessment framework. This study is part of an ongoing research work to develop a model of design constructability assessment.