Formalized knowledge representation for spatial conflict coordination of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems in new building projects

• A formalized schema to capture design coordination knowledge is presented.
• Coordination knowledge is classified into four categories.
• The schema is developed to be easily incorporated into current work practices.
• The schema provides a formalized structure for clash management and knowledge reuse.

Due to the complexity of system configurations, distributed expertise requirements and various constraints, coordination of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems is considered by many construction professionals one of the most challenging tasks in the delivery process of construction projects. MEP coordination is an iterative and experience-driven process, which entails considerable time and human resources. While this process is repeated in every project, there is seldom a systematic way to capture and store the information produced in the process to formalize lessons learned and to support future decision making. This paper presents a formalized schema that can be used to capture clash features and associated solutions during MEP coordination. This representation schema provides a formalized structure for clash documentation to support management of coordination and, more importantly, to capture experiential knowledge to support future decision making. The presented schema integrates findings from previous research, observations from two field studies and a laboratory experiment. The results were validated using project data.