Automated Generation of Construction Schedules Based on the IFC Object Model

Processes in civil engineering consist of a huge amount of different tasks with complex dependencies between them. Currently, the specification and adaption of construction schedules are supported insufficiently. To provide a more efficient and comprehensible planning support, within a research project several methods and algorithms have been developed to allow semi-automatic generation of construction schedules including different construction alternatives. This allows handling and comparing construction alternatives as well as the reuse of schedules created previously. This paper introduces a novel approach for the generation of construction schedules using Industry Foundation Classes. It facilitates project managers to extract information from a building information model for scheduling and leads to a quick visualization via 4D simulations without further user interaction.