Selden B5 - Databases in Construction

Databases are incredibly useful in almost every industry. What started as piles of drawings, or invoices in a filling cabinet, has now evolved with the continued expansion of technology, to well organized, accessible information.
The construction industry is one that has extensive amounts of information, although a good portion of it is very similar from a case-to-case basis, which makes the creation and use of the database somewhat simpler.

Known Usages 

Just from what we've discussed in class, heard from our guest speakers, and general knowledge, I have compiled this list of database usages in construction firms:

• Past project info
• Duration, total cost, daily operations, etc.
• Typical product information/labor pricing
• Used for more accurate estimating
• (Depending on the type of firm) Contact info for subs, etc.

The most valuable of those listed would most likely be the information from past jobs. This would obviously only be as extensive as the firm wants to make it, but the more extensive the better. It would be the most helpful when it comes to scheduling; seeing what errors/delays happened in the past in order to both prevent them, and provide more accurate bids. This information may also be needed after construction, during the operation of the structure (to say, figure out why a beam in a bridge sheared straight through...).

The next useful, and pretty close to tied, is the database for estimating. This seems to be the most common means of producing an accurate estimate, and rightfully so; how else would you know it was accurate if not from assessing past information?
Then contact for subs is really more like an address book really, but it can be useful to keep track of which ones were good and you'd like to use again, and which ones weren't as good.

Researched Usages 

A few more types of stored information I found from Carnegie Mellon [1] of important stored information (that wasn't previously mentioned above) is below:

• quality control and assurance records,
• legal contracts and regulatory documents.

Naturally your mind probably doesn't jump to these more complicated types of information, but they are equally as useful and necessary as the others.

Of these two, although both necessary, the legal documents might be of the most use. In construction there are often legal disputes, and when multiple parties are involved, it is very useful to know exactly what you were responsible for - even ten years down the road. 

Quality assurance does tie into this a bit, again being able to prove that expectations/standards were met for a specific project. Or I guess to hold the firm responsible if the required quality wasn't met.

Comments 

Egla - This was a very interesting read and I hadn't heard of SQL before. I like that you listed why it's important to understand, because most people (myself included), see it as a behind the scenes kind of deal, where they are mainly interested in the end product. I agree that the user needs to have a certain amount of knowledge of the system in order to use it to its full potential - something I'll be talking a fair bit about in my term paper!

Maissoun - I liked your use of visuals; I know trying to figure out exactly what a database does/is doing is hard to wrap your head around. After reading through your thoughts on downsides to relational databases, it seems like it will either need to update the way its structured to keep up with growing data demands, or will be replaced by a more efficient/capable manner of storing information.

Drew - I find it amusing that you mention how dry these subjects can be, I completely agree. I actually had to take an IT for Engineers class as part of my concentration, and some of these visuals about relationships are bringing up flashbacks. I was surprised to read that a database would be capable of incomplete information. I feel like there should be a sort of fail safe that would prevent this from happening, or at the very least notify the user when it had occurred (I can only imagine how difficult this would be to resolve if you didn't know when it occurred).

Sources 

[1]http://pmbook.ce.cmu.edu/14_Organization_and_Use_of_Project_Information.html