Expectation to Advanced Use of CIM
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| Part 2 Expectation to Advanced Use of CIM |
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| Diverse Activities Relating to Technologies on Roads and Pavement Expertise Accumulated through Developing Road-Management Database, kind of prototype of CIM Paroway Tec (Minato City, Tokyo) was founded in March 2011. Paroway Tec aims at collaborating with a broad range of engineers and others across industries, governments, and universities in order to promote research and development that has a direct effect on technological innovation and enhancement for environmental-friendly and sustainable road and pavement. It also aims to spread maintenance technologies for road and pavement facilities, and awareness about them. Its works include:
While working in Paroway Tec, Mr. Inagaki has also been committing himself to external activities, such as being a former chairperson of Sub-committee for Pavement Performance Evaluation under Pavement Committee in Japan Road Association. He was also involved in development and operation of "MICHI", a road management database (DB) system to cover information about basic road assets, when he was Information Technology Director in former Road Management Technology Center (dissolved in 2011). "To put it in extreme terms, in those days we had already made something similar to CIM (, which would draw attention in recent years)." However, while BIM deals with individual structures, the road, which he specializes in, is composed of different structures independent of each other, such as a retaining wall or a bridge. Thus, in developing DB for road management, he and others assumed its basic difference in stance from BIM. Instead of considering the individual structure independently, they regarded the object as a "plane (or a line having a certain width) that contains various kinds of structures within a certain section of a road. As a result, it has been made practice that "finally the pavement sector keeps the road plan (pavement data)" for managing the concerned road section". In the mean time, an attempt to succeed and utilize valuable expertise and technical accumulation led to organization of Paroway Tec.
Objects of CIM Shifted from Individual Structures to "Planes" Increased Advantages Such as Prevention and Mitigation of Disasters Expected CIM utilizes ICT (information and communication technology) in a series of processes from research and planning of a public project to design, construction, maintenance, and replacement (or renewal). It aims to improve efficiency of the entire system of construction production by introducing 3D models that contain pieces of different property information within 3D shape information from the early stage of a project, sharing and utilizing (linking and developing) the related information unitarily across different phases. It draws a vision of building up a novel system of construction management to realize diverse effects, such as comparative review and consensus building on the design stage, improvement of workability, and advancement of maintenance. "Conventionally (or in the conventional approaches), (if it is the case with a tunnel construction project for instance), (mechanism of) CIM is used as the design aid for constructing a tunnel." That is, here the main focus is mainly on CIM's function to aid the design for constructing a tunnel as an independent structure, in the viewpoint of "How easy is it to use in the worksite?" or "Does it help to work efficiently?" However, as Mr. Inagaki says, if the use 3D models bring about a great deal of effects, the objects should not be limited to the concerned structure. It came up with him that a certain section of a road including a tunnel should be regarded as a "plane", and the components comprised in it should also be considered three-dimensionally. By doing so, it was expected that possibilities of supporting prevention and mitigation of disasters using CIM would increase, such as making simulation of tsunami or inundation in an area as an object, where there are limitations in only treating individual structures. This requires development of a database for capturing a "plane" three-dimensionally. It will be necessary to obtain not only the map of the concerned area but also the data about underground such as caverns and buried objects. "Instead of using CIM only for design aid, I wondered if we can adapt it so that it can help saving tens of thousands of people's lives by strongly developing the (simulation) capacity for prevention and mitigation of disasters." He expressed his attachment to CIM like this, showing his willingness to realize his idea he has been brooding over since the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in 2011. "(In this sense, the above-mentioned) 'MICHI' data are all individual data, which are connected by the pavement data. Therefore, (I think) (such DB can be created) by (modeling) the pavement data in 3D." To realize this, he assumed that the basic individual data could be collected from the mechanism of CIM that is currently planned. The question is, how to connect these separate data, and how to represent the connected data. That is, instead of merely simulating a phenomenon, he wants to reflect human behavior pattern in addition to individual structures. This also requires incorporation of a cultural anthropological approach. In an attempt like this, it can be said that it is a key to success to make it clear who will profit by doing this. It is all the more necessary to devise a completely new approach that can gain people's understanding towards next era.
Challenges Towards Evolution of CIM and his Own Actions While expecting advanced use of CIM, Mr. Inagaki mentioned the importance of receiving wider recognition of CIM from the concerned people in order for CIM to evolve. To realize this, it is his challenge how to create opportunities for general engineers to get interested in it. At the present stage, he is committing himself to writing for technical magazines such as "Hoso (Pavement)", issued by Kensetsu Tosho, in which he has been writing a series of 'Pavement Technology Course' since January this year, as well as "Doro Kensetsu (Road Construction)", issued by The Japan Road Contractors Association (JRCA), publication of related books, and public relations activity through seminars etc. hosted by Paroway Tec. In addition, as an approach to materializing CIM, he focused on the possibilities of using the free app for smartphone (iPhone) "Acceleration sensor logger" (by REGREX), which is for experimentally measuring the action of the 3 -axis acceleration sensor; and "Highway damage information system", of which concept was developed by him and the product by FORUM8. Regarding the former in particular, he made an experiment by himself by installing the app in the iPhone last year, wondering if it could be used for measuring IRI (International Roughness Index) based on "Whole inspection operation guide (Plan) <Pavement>" (issued by MLIT in Feb. 2013). He said its usability was actually felt. We are willing to make CIM a tool for handling the serious task of "prevention and mitigation of disasters" that Japan faces, by building up mechanism for linking all the data about roads including human behavior in an organic way. On this point, it is the road users that he emphasizes. "Without this point of view, no design concept can be true, I think."
(Written by Takashi Ikeno) |
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