Applying multimedia technology to project control

Construction project control and documentation require an accurate, complete, and efficient way of collecting, storing, and retrieving project information. This information contains construction experience and knowledge which are omnipresent yet difficult to capture at the project site. Many problems and innovative solutions cannot be effectively documented because of the lack of proper tools to collect and organize information during construction. During claims or disputes, many issues involving site conditions cannot be thoroughly analyzed because of the lack of information. Project information during construction may exist in diverse formats such as text (reports, daily logs), sound (meeting recordings, discussions), and video (site walk-through, inspection records). Using multimedia technology, these diverse formats of information can be integrated with project scheduling and control systems to provide an environment not only to control and document project information but also to elicit and study construction experience and knowledge. This paper presents the operation of a multimedia project control and documentation system (MULTROL) under development at the University of Illinois and Construction Engineering and Research Laboratories (CERL). This system allows users to document and retrieve project information in the form of text, sound, image and video associated with construction activities. The current version of MULTROL is developed for the PC platform and runs under Microsoft Windows^TM operating environment. This system uses a graphical user interface for all operations, creating a user-friendly environment for construction personnel. The retrieval of project information is further assisted by user-definable queries to support various needs of construction management.