Harvesting and Managing Knowledge in Construction : From Theoretical Foundations to Business Applications

A successful construction business is a knowledge business. And knowledge must be managed effectively to be used efficiently, especially in a complex project-oriented business such as construction, where skills acquired and lessons learned on one project need to be applied to the next.

A holistic approach to knowledge management (KM) is taken in this book to incorporate all of the relevant themes, tackling technological, socio-cultural and organizational issues, with the creation of value as a focus throughout. Information is drawn from a broad range of sources to explain core theories and provide guidance on practical application. Topics covered include:

• changing business relationships in a knowledge economy
• knowledge creation processes and theories
• data, text and knowledge mining techniques
• the learning construction organization
• future technology for knowledge management.

Written by the authors of the first EU-funded KM research project in the field of construction, this textbook is uniquely well-researched, and is the perfect introduction to KM for students across the built environment. It is also a crucial guide to the topic for practitioners.

Yacine Rezgui is an architect by profession, with a PhD in Computer Integrated Construction. He was involved in early developments of product models for construction including STEP while at the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB) in France. After conducting research on areas relating to knowledge management and collaborative working at Salford University, he joined Cardiff University in 2008, where he is currently affiliated. He is also the Building Research Establishment chair in Sustainable Engineering in areas related to building resilience and adaptability.

John Miles graduated from Manchester University in 1972 as a civil engineer. After some years spent in industry, he obtained his PhD at Birmingham University before being recruited by Cardiff University, where he is currently joint head of the Institute of Machines and Structures. His research there has been in the area of applying artificial intelligence and computational intelligence to the sort of decision-making challenges that routinely arise in engineering and other complex domains.