C-SanD Project

Project outline

The construction industry needs to place more emphasis on knowledge issues if it is to achieve its targets of more sustainable processes, materials and products. Within certain projects knowledge about sustainability is being developed continuously, but there is little understanding of the best ways to foster the creation of this knowledge, less about how to capture such knowledge, and even less about how to ensure that knowledge is available quickly and easily to other individuals, companies and projects. Some of this knowledge comes in the form of good practice, standards and enhanced process models, but to make sustainable construction more general across the industry requires the informed understandings by professionals of how these codified elements can be used in practice.

Against this background, the aims of the C-SanD project are to develop, test and implement:

• software tools which allow  capture and retrieval of relevant knowledge:
• to embed these tools in working methods that both enable the creation of new knowledge about sustainable construction – that is allow the reflection upon project experience by the teams drawn from different professional interests and companies- and for accessing and incorporating such knowledge into ongoing activities;
• such an approach, driven by knowledge, requires architectures for the sharing of knowledge within companies, and also for the controlled sharing of knowledge between companies.

To achieve these ends the C-SanD project draws upon the experience of professionals in the partner companies, reflecting their current practices and needs, and sets this alongside current research in construction management, knowledge management, information systems development and allied fields. The project makes use of modelling approaches (problem structuring methods) to interpret the different understandings of key issues (including the varied meanings of sustainability itself), and uses these models to stimulate discussions to provide a robust basis for software design.

The resulting prototype processes and software will be used on live projects to both support their sustainability objectives as well as to refine the knowledge processes and the software tools.

The tools, methods and architecture produced by C-SanD are intended to be of use to both large companies with more extensive IT structures and smaller specialist sub-contractors who often have a sophisticated knowledge base but a less sophisticated IT structure. As sustainability issues relate to both the construction process and the facility in use, the outputs of the project will be of use to clients, consultants and construction companies.

The project is funded by the EPSRC and includes staff from Loughborough University, LSE and Salford Universities and involves leading construction client, contracting and consulting organizations. The project runs from 1 July 2001 for three years.