IMPROVING THE UTILITY AND VALUE OFCAD SOFTWARE FOR DECISION-MAKING ANDDESIGN OF STRUCTURAL FRAMES

摘要

Three-dimensional modeling and visualization software is increasingly being used byrnbuilding designers to represent structural frames and communicate design informationrnupstream to their clients and downstream to suppliers/manufacturers. Although designrnprocesses and design management have been explored extensively per se, the upstream,rnheuristic decision-making stages of design in relation to 3D software appear to be under-researched.rnThis is understandable because the human side of the process is complex andrntherefore less straightforward to map. Nevertheless, decisions made early in the project, suchrnas the choice of structural frame, are critical to the project's overall success. Studies ofrncurrent practice indicate that such decisions tend to be based on heuristic decision-makingrnprocesses rooted in subjectivity and qualitative reasoning. This paper reports therndevelopment of an objective, transparent and systematic selection process that operatesrneffectively within a 3D modeling environment. An innovative framework for simultaneouslyrncomparing the performance of a range of structural options against agreed criteria wasrndeveloped, using the two measures, Importance (I) and Performance (P), which can be usedrnto calculate a Performance Weighted Score (PWS). This framework is a means of assessingrn'soft' factors, alongside the conventional cost and time parameters now used in 4D modeling.rnIt thus provides a useful example of a methodology for integrating 'soft' decision making inrnan otherwise 'hard' software environment.