Establishing Formalized Representation of Standards for Construction Cost Estimation by using Ontology Learning

Construction cost estimation for tendering is important for both tenders and bidders in construction projects and needs to be strictly complied with corresponding standards so that quantities and prices from different bidders are comparable. In the view of flexibility and extensibility, ontology is regarded as a promising technology for formalized representation of the standards for construction cost estimation (cost standards for short hereafter) in computer programs. In order to automate the processes of construction cost estimation for estimators. However, the manual establishment of ontology for construction cost estimation (cost ontology for short hereafter) is labor-intensive and time-consuming for software developers, not to mention that there are numbers of standards for different types of construction projects in different regions. In order to solve this problem, a semi-automatic approach based on the framework of cost ontology that authors established previously is proposed to establish the cost ontology by using ontology learning technology. Firstly, the data sources, i.e. the cost standards are analyzed and the corresponding relations between information in cost standards and the elements in the framework are summarized. Then based on the corresponding relations, the approach is designed, in which concepts, relations and rules are extracted by natural language processing and domain lexical analysis to fill the framework. The approach lays a foundation for the practical use of ontology for automating construction cost estimation.