Telepresence in concurrent lifecycle design and construction

Construction projects usually involve transient ‘virtual organisations’ made up of members of a project team (involving several disparate disciplines) working together on the design and construction of a facility. Team members are often non-co-located, particularly at the early stages of the design process, and tend to work independently while taking decisions that affect others. The adoption of concurrent engineering principles by the construction industry is increasingly being seen as vital for reducing the problems posed by the industry's fragmentation, and enhancing its competitiveness. An important aspect of concurrent engineering in construction is the need for an effective communications infrastructure able to transmit project information between members of the project team and across all stages in the constructed facility's lifecycle. This paper describes the development of such a communications infrastructure that is based on the concept of Telepresence. The intention is to create a persistent space to support interaction between project personnel throughout the design and construction phases of projects. The paper first highlights the key communications issues that need to be addressed, introduces ‘Telepresence’ and describes an initial prototype system. The approach being adopted in the development of an advanced Telepresence environment for construction project teams is also presented. The Telepresence environment is intended to help people who cannot be together to work together.