An information system for the management of changes during the design of building projects

Design is an important stage in a project's life cycle with the greatest impact on the overall performance and cost. For several reasons, changes introduced by design participants are imminent. Despite the importance of coordinating these changes among the different participants during the design stage, current practice exhibits severe information transfer problems. Since corrections to finalized designs or even designs at late stages in the process are extremely costly, it is less costly to spend the effort in managing changes and producing highly coordinated and easily constructible designs. To support this objective, this paper presents an information system with a built-in database for representing design information, including design rationale and history of changes, to support the management of changes during the design of building projects. The components of the system are discussed and possible future extensions to the present study are presented. This research is expected to help engineering and design-build firms to effectively manage design changes and produce better coordinated and constructible designs with less cost and time.