Application of PIP in the Construction Projects for Beijing Olympic Games

Guangbin WANG 11 CIFE, Stanford University

94305-2040 CA USA

Xiaoli YAN2; Wenjuan ZHANG22 SEC, Tongji University Shanghai 200092 China

AbstractInformation technology has played a more and more important role in Chinese construction industry, especially after the emergence of Project Information PortalPIP , which provides a web-based project document management, communication and collaboration working environment for the participants. Taking PIP developed for the Construction Projects of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as a case, this paper introduces its background, objectives, functions and developing process, in an attempt to provide reference for the use of PIP in large projects. (Abstract)

Keywords- PIP, Project management, Project communication(key words)

I. INTRODUCTIONThe construction engineering for Beijing 2008 Olympic

Games is a mega-project consisting of many sub-projects. 37 gymnasiums for competition will be built and 59 for training will be rebuilt. In addition, the city's infrastructure construction projects such as the transportation and electro-communication facilities prepared for the Olympics are included. Problems will be caused if traditional management modes are used in Olympic construction engineering: Great risk and difficulties in objective control exist

because of high capital cost and long duration, Difficulties lie in governments macro control and

supervisory work, Project document problems with communication and

information processing and shared by the parties. Information Technology (IT) is now routinely used in the

construction industry as a tool to reduce the previous problems. The use of IT improves coordination and collaboration between firms participating in a construction project, leading to better communication practices. Its benefits include an increase in the quality of documents and the speed of the work, better financial control and communications, and simpler and faster access to common data as well as a decrease in documentation errors.

Project Information Portal (PIP) is the web-based information technology that best facilitates a collaborative working environment in a construction project. Its use as a communication medium can help information transfer occur faster and more effectively and enable new opportunities for the development of distributed systems that can cross organization boundaries and provide a unique opportunity for

teamwork and workflow automation. The Web can also overcome the incompatibilities of data formats through smart browsers and servers. Therefore, independent project participants using different hardware platforms can share the same system over the Web. PIP is also a platform that can be accessible by project teams located in different organizations. It basically provides a centralized, commonly accessible, reliable means of transmitting and storing project information. Project information is stored on the server and a standard Web browser is used as a gateway to exchange this information, eliminating geographic and boundary hardware platform differences.

In order to meet the requirements of the development, the Chinese construction industry is strengthening its informatization and vigorously promoting the application of information technology. During the past few years, the government and A/E/C firms are increasing their interests in IT applications to facilitate construction projects. The development of PIP for construction engineering of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is an example.

II. OBJECTIVES OF THE PIP DEVELOPED FOR BEIJING OLYMPICS CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

The PIP developed for Beijing Olympics construction engineering is a communication platform between the management departments and the participants of the Olympic engineering. It is also an integrated platform of some of the engineering management application software.

The PIP development should conform to international norms and demonstrate Chinese characteristics, in another word, it should provide both the visualization integrated environment adapt to the international management institution and the engineering management modes suitable for Chineses situation. It should provide secure, convenient, swift and efficient, intellectualized information services to the construction participants of the Olympics. It should provide dynamic and real time working environment for management.

The PIP aims in improving the management technology and efficiency. It enables to collect, grasp and deal with information about the schedule, quality, cost and emergency quickly and smoothly, while provide support for decision. By using PIP, the sub-projects of the Olympics construction are coordinated and controlled systematically, all the related governmental department such as planning, engineering,

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environment, municipal, communication, weather, information, etc. are connected jointly and they can cooperate in managing and controlling the whole project, ensuring the harmonization, integration, efficiency of the Olympics construction. All these provide references for the decision maker.

The application of the PIP can largely reduce the construction cost. More important, it is an important part of the Scientific Games, the Digital Games and will make great contribution for the building of Digital Beijing, also it plays great role in improving and accelerating the informatization of Chinese construction industry.

III. FUNCTIONS OF PIP OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES PROJECTS

A. The Users The first of development of the PIP is investigation of

function requirement and system analysis. During the first step, the developer should take in-depth research into the real construction situation and study different users ideas and requirements. After considering all the factors, a list of the users that will use the PIP is presented in Fig.1.

Fig 1. The users of the PIP analysis

B. Information covered by the PIP Different kinds of information involved in the Olympics

construction engineering include organizational information, management information, technical information and economic information. In detail, there are planning and designing management information, cost, schedule and quality controlling information, safety management information, environmental protection information, conference information, contract management information, risk management, bond and claim for compensation management. The information should be covered generally by the PIP, and may be in different forms of data, files, images and videos.

In another point of view, the core information that constitutes the PIP follows as:

Planning information: Investing information Design information Construction information Procurement information enterprise information human resources information

C. Functions of the Olympic Games projects PIP The functions of the Olympic Games projects PIP can be divided into five function blocks, followed by fig. 2.

Fig.2 Function of the PIP of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Fig 3 and Fig. 4 are some images from the PIP has been developed.

Fig 3. the PIP applied in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

PIP USERS

Dept. of Olympic Organization Comm.,Government depts.,

In. organizations etc.

Owners, Designers,

Contractors, Suppliers

etc.

Investors,

Consultant,

Researcher. etc.

Media, Commun

ity people

etc.

B iji

Function of PIP of

the Beijing 2008

Olympics

Information communication

Document management

Information publication

Collaborative work

Work flow management

Document query

Document editing on line

Public information

Electric bidding

Email

Discussing/videoing on-li

Help on line and training

9LGHRPHHWLQJ

Work flow support

Control versions of doc.

Apply and confirm on line

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Fig 4. the PIP applied in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PIP OF OLYMPIC GAMESThe development of the PIP of Beijing 2008 Olympic

Games needs proper organization, training, software and hardware support, which are the four pillars that uphold the PIP platform.

A. Organization support The organization support includes the organizational

structure and corresponding background, the task dividing principles, management rules, information coding and information system. The development of the PIP needs the following organizational support:

The inner organization framework and management flow are clear and decided,

The mode of project management is confirmed and the program files of project management are established,

The engineering department of the Olympic Organization Committee has designated some people to take part in the whole PIP development process,

The data of the system requirement analysis is acquired, The system design scheme has been censored and

sanctioned, The equipment of the computers, network and related

hardware are provided, The system and software that have been prescribed by

the engineering department of the Olympic Organization Committee in related contracts,

The coordination of the development team and the participants of the whole projects are expedite,

The data collecting has proper guarantee measures including the system guarantee, the agreement guarantee and the censorship mechanism guarantee.

B. Training support Training support includes the training of leaders team,

who decide the direction of the whole organization, the IT training of the project management team, who are familiar in

the field of project management but lack in IT technology knowledge, the project management training of the IT technical team, who are familiar with IT development but need some knowledge about project management.

C. Software support The software support includes: The solution scheme of the platform structure and the

way of the information transmission. The solution scheme that the platform structure adopts is multilevel distributed structure. The first level is the platform of the Olympics Organization Committee, and the second level is the individual project team. The multilevel structure is characterized in capable of distinguishing different management levels management responsibility and scope easily, simplifying the difficulty of the structure system, assigning work with clear interface and operating smoothly.

The integrated data resource scheme. the integration of the database of qualification of the

enterprises and the individuals of the construction ministry, the integration of the database of program files of the

construction ministry, the integration of definition of the dynamic

information of the process controlling and the cost controlling, the integration of the existing information resource

according to the data standard and specification published by the supervising information system of the national construction industry.

The integrated software scheme the software such as P3 can be integrated in the

schedule management field. the software such as CGB(developed by Chinese

enterprises )can be integrated in the cost management field. the software such as Expendition can be integrated in

the contract management field. the data format of the committee working platform is

required to be compatible and to connect with the management system of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee after communication with the technology department. the PIP is sure to integrate with the application

system that specified by the committee and be compatible with them in data format. the PIP can be connected with the contractors and

sponsors system. The data security solution that combines the software

and hardware. The solution considers three sides including the ways to ensure the security in the information lay, the physics lay and the specified web environment.

The solution of the system development technology route. The solution adopts the Microsofts platform and the SUN platform. The structure of the server is Windows + SQL Serveror Oracle,the application

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system is java which includes J2EEJDBCEJBXML, the development tool is IBM WEBSPHEREJBUILDERJSP, etc.

D. Hardware support Hardware support includes the confirmation of the

hardware system scheme and the establishment of the hardware system. The demand draft for hardware facilities includes:

The facility requirement for engineering departments official environment the chief server and related facilities comprise of 3~4

enterprise server providing the serve of document, application, database, backup system and big screen display facility, disk, firewall, etc. the local area network facility for the first level

comprise of two department server,20~30 PC of high performance, and some portable computers.

The second level management level(department). two workgroup server, 3~5 PCs of high performance

Solution of vast area network: FDDI, DDN special line, dial-up, etc.

V. CONCLUSIONS

The PIP is already running in the Beijing Olympics construction now, it has been approved that the PIP has provided the working environment for communication and collaboration among all the participants, including different companies, different departments in the same company, and subsidiary company, which ameliorates the project

management level and improves the efficiency. On the one side, the leader can know about how the projects located in different areas are implementing, makes decision on time and then delivers it right then, on the other hand, the underlings can get the directive from the upper leader in time and then execute it with no delay.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is a mega-project. The application of PIP has greatly improved the working efficiency. The objectives, functions, structure and developing process of the development of the PIP of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are presented in this paper and will provide useful reference for use of PIP in large projects. Basing on the existing use status of PIP, this paper presumes the development trends of PIP in future.

REFERENCES

[1] Shizhao Ding,Yoshito Itoh, Toward the development of a integrated management procedure lifecycle management system for construction project, World Project Management Week, Hongkong,2002

[2] Stephen R. Hagan, PBS Project Information Portal Part One; Part Twoe-newsletter of the Construction Industry Coalition CouncilApril 2004 www.constructionchannel.net/ newsletters/april_2004/ newsletter0404.html

[3] C. Brohn, A. Gayoso, S. Male, D. Mitrovic, T. Hassan, F.Garas, I. Hunter, Large scale engineering in construction, user requirements for ITinitial results, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising ICE97,Nottingham, UK, 1997, pp. 407 419.

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