Faculty: Dr. Ian Flood

Foresight is a new graphically-based approach designed for modeling construction processes. It is designed to operate horizontally across a project integrating information from all parties including designers, estimators, suppliers and contractors/subcontractors. It is also designed to operate vertically within an organization, integrating information across all projects including those on-going, planned, and unknown. Foresight can, in principle, be integrated with nD-CAD to act as the framework for a BIM based representation of project information. Foresight is designed with the goal of providing the simplicity in use of the critical path method (CPM), the visual insight of linear scheduling, and the modeling versatility of construction simulation.

Sample references:

• An introduction to Foresight showing how it can be applied to problems that more traditionally have been modeled using construction simulation, linear scheduling, and CPM:
  Flood, I. 2010, ‘Foresight: A Structured Graphical Approach to Constraint-Based Project Planning’, Second International Conference on Advances in System Simulation, Nice, France, IEEE, 16-21.
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• A comparison of Foresight to construction simulation (specifically Stroboscope) in terms of both the complexity and visual insight of the resultant models:
  Flood, I. & Nowrouzian, V. 2014, ‘Discrete-Event Simulation versus Constrained Graphic Modelling of Construction Processes’, Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building Conference Series, 2 (1) 13-22
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• A demonstration of how Foresight can be used to model manufactured processes and include interactions from supply lines. This includes a comparison with the CYCLONE simulation system:
  Flood, I. 2014, ‘Modeling Construction Manufacturing Processes Using Foresight’, 2014 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC 2014), Savannah, Georgia, IEEE, 3331-3340.
  Access here!