CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY BUSINESS PROCESSES MODELED WITH OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH Chian-Hsueng Chao † , Ahmad Hadavi †* , Wei Lo ‡ , and Raymond J. Krizek † † Department of Civil Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA ‡ Department of Construction Engineering, National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, ROC * a-hadavi@northwestern.edu Abstract: For the construction industry, the demands for optimization and greater efficiency become particularly urgent when the flow of project information extends beyond the borders of organizations. Driven by the need to attain even greater corporate competitive advantages, many business philosophies advocate the use of “the power of information technology to radically redesign business processes.” However, the adoption of IT in organizations and the configuration of IT in direct support of their business is a very complex process. As one step toward a solution, this paper focuses on the development of an Object-Oriented model for construction practices. An Object-Oriented approach is used to map the corporate business process with IT in terms of a series of reusable business objects, which encapsulate complex business rules. The major advantages of this approach are (a) the tedious redesign efforts of information systems can be waived and (b) applications can run on different platforms through Internet/Intranet connectivity. In contrast to an isolated IT system, this approach allows the construction business process to permeate different organizations, and communication in this system becomes process-to-process oriented. Keywords: IT (Information Technology), BPR (Business Process Reengineering), OMT (Object Modeling Technique), UML (Unified Modeling Language), CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) 1. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Due to its fast pace and tight schedule, the construction industry is always very competitive, and this is especially true in a volatile economic environment. Construction projects are characterized by their inherent complexities and diversities and by the non-standardized nature of their production process. Thus, when introducing modern computer technology into this industry, the focus must be on the integration of cost and scheduling systems, because there are the key to improving the quality and efficiency of a project and shortening its duration [1, 2]. Although some studies have been directed toward the integration of diverse managerial functions (engineering, contract administration, quality control, accounting, commercial transactions, and reporting) on major projects, no satisfactory general solution has emerged due to the complexity of the interactions and the inflexibility of the methods used by diverse groups on different projects. Accordingly, information technology (IT) has, in effect, tended to fragment in the construction industry, because different organizations are at the different stages of IT implementation and simply cannot “talk” to each other. The reason is that the software architecture has thus far been designed in an ad hoc fashion primarily to perform individual business functions, such as scheduling, cost estimation, purchasing, inventory management, or financial accounting. In many construction companies, such function-oriented applications gave rise to an unmanageable maze of system components, and data could not be easily transmitted to other partners. This required that interfaces be developed to link the various applications. This problem was compounded by the fact that, once instituted, function-oriented structures could not be transformed into process-oriented structures; as a result, companies sacrificed flexibility and the ability to introduce change. This phenomenon, which is characterized by a high degree of internal integration with very loose or non-existent external connections, is called “Islands of Automation.” [3] Current economic forces and heightened competitive pressures are steadily driving companies to adopt a new type of agile, responsive, and