PM-3 Material Selection, Specification and Procurement

The recent growth of Internet product information sites has not improved the situation at all, because the only method of search is by keyword, which seldom provides enough information to make an intelligent selection within a reasonable time frame. In addition, there are few software tools that attempt to provide assistance in material selection, mostly because the process is so data-intensive and third-party management of the data is too expensive to be practical.

E-commerce in the construction industry is hampered by the myriad ways different manufacturers index or identify similar or identical products. This is more of a problem in construction than in retail or consumer industries because construction is custom work and competitive bidding/pricing is required on each project more often than not. Lack of a standardized way to state product requirements requires unique, custom-prepared documents for each bid or pricing event.

Expected Benefits: Material specification, selection and procurement processes cross over all disciplines of architecture, engineering and construction. All the current software products that implement parts of these processes will benefit from an analysis of the overall process. At the micro level, individual applications should be able to use the analysis to improve their capabilities. At a slightly higher level, they should be able to more effectively exchange information with related applications. At the highest level, new software tools that utilize standardized product information would improve the overall process, lessen the time required, and improve accuracy.

E-commerce would be greatly facilitated by this standardization. Purchasers would more easily find equivalent products, increasing competition and allowing smaller organizations to compete more effectively. For the IAI, this project should draw the interest of the many new companies involved in business-to-business commerce via the Internet.

Several aecXML Working Groups intend to develop standardized data identifiers ("tags") for many of the items of information covered by this project's scope. These Working Groups include: "Catalogs" (for Product Information), "Procurement," and "Design, Specification, Schedule, Cost." aecXML constitutes both "data structure" and a data portion (the names of tags). The data structure proposed by the working groups should correspond to the Ifc property set structure. The data portion should be coordinated with a standard set of terminology.

• Selection of products (materials and equipment) from the universe of commercially available products.
• Specification of products for competitive bidding.
• Specification for purchasing by constructors.
• Procurement processes that involve similar information needs.

1. analysis of the process and its information transmission needs,
2. identification of tdata interfaces (documents) required by use cases,
3. design of IFC's to carry the information, and
4. description of additional information needs related to these processes (other than detailed material property information).

Material Selection:

The process by which a person chooses the product appropriate for a particular application, resulting in a match of requirements to properties; an iterative process, in which requirements are commonly modified based on available properties.

Specification:

A statement of the required properties of a product used for a particular purpose. In the context of a construction contract, the term specification also means the whole document that describes the product, its installation, and applicable administrative requirements.

Product Information:

A description of the actual properties of a real product. (Not to be confused with a specification.)

Procurement:

The process of acquiring the products required for construction.