Setting an Academic Research Agenda for the FIATECH Capital Projects Technology Roadmap Inititaive: An Interdisciplinary Charrette

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

SETTING AN ACADEMIC RESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE FIATECH CAPITAL PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP INITIATIVE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CHARRETTE Abstract The capital projects industry delivers and maintains facilities (e.g., commercial, institutional, industrial, and residential buildings), and also critical civil infrastructure systems (e.g., transportation, energy, water and sewage, and communication systems). FIATECH, formed as a collaborative and non-profit R&D consortium composed of owners in the private and public sectors, engineering, procurement, and construction contractors, research organizations, and a small number of academic institutions, provides an integrating entity to address current challenges, pressures, issues, and opportunities facing this industry. One of FIATECH's primary focuses to date has been the development of the Capital Projects Technology Roadmap, which provides an overarching vision of a highly automated capital project and facility management environment, in which the operations and systems of all project partners and project functions are instantly and securely interconnected and integrated across all phases of the facility life cycle, and within which data, information, knowledge, and experience are available on demand, wherever and whenever they are needed to all interested stakeholders. In this project, the principal investigator, with the assistance from a Steering Committee, targets members of the Academic Community who have not participated in developing the technology roadmap, and engages them to contribute to research and education programs, projects, and activities related to nine functional elements of the vision model of the technology roadmap, and to seven program plans for its tactical implementation. More specifically, the project identifies, invites, and brings together, in a three-day charrette, a select multidisciplinary group of academic experts to (1) present and discuss the functional elements and program plans; and (2) collect, discuss, and record their reactions and in-depth critiques. The principal outcomes of this project include: first, the alignment between the Academic Community and the FIATECH Consortium around the technology roadmap; second, the development of a research agenda for the Academic Community's future involvement in supporting and furthering FIATECH's vision, mission, and goals; and third, a proposal for collaboration in research and education programs, projects, and activities between the Academic Community and the FIATECH Consortium. This project engages academic experts from multiple disciplines, who normally do not have many opportunities to interact with each other (e.g., Construction Engineering and Management, Civil and Environmental Engineering, other Engineering disciplines such as Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, and other affinity disciplines such as Public Policy, Management, Architecture, and Computer Science), in a meaningful and focused dialogue toward strengthening and enhancing the new and bold paradigm of technology for the capital projects industry posed by FIATECH. This paradigm envisions (1) automated systems, processes, and equipment, to drastically reduce the time and cost of planning, design, and construction of facilities and critical civil infrastructure systems in both the public and the private sectors; (2) scenario-based planning systems and modeling tools, to enable rapid and accurate evaluation of multiple project alternatives, to find the best balance of quality, value, performance, productivity, and cost and time effectiveness; and (3) new materials and methods, to reduce the time and cost of construction and greatly extend facility performance, functionality, aesthetics, affordability, sustainability, security, and responsiveness to changing business demands. This active engagement of the academic community in implementing this paradigm not only enhances and strengthens the infrastructure for research and education in the specific knowledge domains addressed within the Capital Projects Technology Roadmap, but more importantly, ensures the delivery, operation, and maintenance of the facilities and the critical civil infrastructure systems that form the U.S. industrial base, supporting both the Nation's economy and the way of life of modern society.