Decision support systems in building construction – an Axiomatic Design approach

The introduction of Industry 4.0 leads to new decision-making scenarios in the construction industry. The construction sector still hesitates to adopt emerging technologies and many construction companies require support in the field of digitalisation and automation of processes. One way to support this sector is the use of decision support systems that perform a careful assessment of the feasibility for replacing traditional systems with automated ones. However, the design and the development of decision support systems is a complex and time-consuming task. In this work we apply Axiomatic Design to define design guidelines for the development of decision support systems in construction equipment selection. The needs of the construction industry for decision support in these scenarios are derived from existing literature in the field of construction and the key characteristic of decision-theoretic expert systems. These needs are analysed and translated into functional requirements. Then, through a mapping and decomposition process, the design solutions for the development of a decision support system are deduced. Functional requirements and design solutions are transformed into design guidelines that support the systematic development and implementation of decision support systems for the construction phase of a building.