Week 6: Uses of Databases in Construction Firms

Databases are very useful in keeping an organized record of information and there is a vast range of types of information that can be stored in these databases. Construction firms many times look to keep record of their construction equipment, designs, construction members within designs, previous projects, clients’ contact information, materials and/or their costs and manufacturers, elevations of a construction site, rainfall data of a subject area, and lots of other valuable information they may look to store away for later use. A lot of times a database is put together for information that is no longer of urgent use but that may be of value to access at a later date in time.

In addition to simply accessing the raw data that is stored into a database, certain programs are able to use these databases to analyze the data and output referenced analyses. Programs such as ArcGIS are able to use databases in order to spatially analyze the data and create maps that show the stored information in ways that can be useful for the needs of the user. For instance, a construction firm could use a database that has the addresses or coordinate locations of material manufacturing plants to find the closest plant to their construction site and even find the quickest, shortest route from the plant to the site. Another example could be analyzing a database that has the cost information for specific types of a common construction material over time. With a database of this information, one could find the trend or growth rate of the cost for these materials and come up with an estimate for the price of the material in the future when a project will actually enter the construction phase.

I found it interesting in Issa’s post (http://ae-510-ay12-13.blogspot.com/2013/02/databases-in-construction-firms.html) to see that databases have been in use since the 1970’s and I too have seen first-hand at some of my co-op’s the transition from paper to electronic copies of files. The progress that has been made over the years is vast and much room is left for advancement in the use of these databases and how we can implement them to our advantage in construction.


Source:
http://pmbook.ce.cmu.edu/14_Organization_and_Use_of_Project_Information.html