• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.195-205
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• 2022

This paper aims to propose a cost-based mechanical, electrical, and plumbing(MEP) coordination process using building information modeling(BIM). The proposed process can help project participants eliminate identified clashes between the MEP elements, analyze trends relating to MEP costs during the coordination process, and share their findings. MEP quantity-related information extracted through BIM was integrated with the cost database and schedule information. To check the applicability of the proposed process, it was applied to a construction project in South Korea. Through the application of the proposed process, MEP-related cost was reduced.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.776-783
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• 2022

Since Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing(MEP) routing is a repetitive and experience-centered process that requires considerable time and human resources, if automated, design errors can be prevented and the previously required time and human resources can be reduced. Although research on automatic routing has been conducted in many industries, the MEP routing in AEC projects has yet to be identified due to the complexity of system configuration, distributed expertise, and various constraints. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the target subjects for MEP routing automation and the constraints of each subject. The MEP design checklist provided by a CM company and existing literature review were conducted, and target subjects and constraints were identified through process observation and in-depth expert interviews for five days by visiting a MEP design company. The target subjects were largely divided into six categories: air conditioning plumbing, air conditioning duct, restroom sanitary plumbing, heating plumbing, and diagram. The findings from interviews show that work reduction and error reduction has the greatest effect on air conditioning plumbing while the level of difficulty is the highest in air conditioning duct and restroom sanitary plumbing. Major constraints for each subject include preventing cold drafts on air conditioning pipes, deviation in ventilation volume in air conditioning ducts, routing order on restroom sanitary plumbing, and separation distance from the wall on heating plumbing. In this way, subjects and constraints identified in this study can be used for MEP automatic routing.

• Journal of KIBIM
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.70-80
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• 2020

In the MEP(Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing) field, the utilization of BIM-based drawings is lower than in the architectural and structural sectors, and the limited BIM collaboration problem caused by different levels of BIM utilization in each field is becoming a serious problem in adoption and utilizing BIM. Therefore, this study analyzed the current status of BIM application in the field of mechanical equipment in the construction industry and analyzed the practical problems and limitations of adoption and utilizing BIM from a corporate perspective based on Delphi analysis techniques. Based on the results of the analysis, the limitations of the current MEP BIM application were classified into economic, technical, institutional, and social factors to derive detailed items, and, accordingly, the improvement measures were classified as institutional, policy, and technical measures. As a result, the company intends to maximize the value of BIM utilization in the MEP field by presenting improvement plans to activate BIM in the field of mechanical equipment based on the opinions of the company, thereby laying the foundation for BIM in the construction industry by creating a collaborative BIM environment for each sector in the domestic construction industry.

• Journal of KIBIM
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.22-31
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• 2020

Shop drawing tasks conducted after finishing coordinated or engineering design have great influences on the quality and cost of a project. However, despite the development of commercial BIM applications, shop drawings have mainly produced manually in certain engineering fields. Incorrect shop drawings with human errors have occurred various problems such as cost overrun, time delay and reworks. An automated shop drawing publishing from BIM is expected to resolve these problems. Despite attempts for automate shop drawing production, the field of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) is yet regarded challenging due to complexity of components and connection. In this research, we develop a process for automated producing 3D MEP shop drawings in BIM environment as following steps: to analyze conventional MEP shop drawing process, to identify detailed process that can be automated, to classify existing MEP objects and assign codes usable in BIM, and to develop an application. The validation of automated process is conducted against 10 clean room projects in which MEP is more complex and its cost is higher than other projects in terms of productivity and workers' satisfaction. Results show that the number of manpower for shop drawing is reduced by 30%, and the working time is shortened by 31%. Personal opinions of involved practitioners is interpreted as positive as the average rate of agrement on practicability, easy-to-use and necessary retouch tasks is around 66%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.692-698
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• 2016

Recently, the facility extension construction and maintenance market portion has increased instead of decreased the newly facility construction. In this context, it is important to examine the reverse engineering of MEP (Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing) facilities, which have the high operation and management cost in the architecture domains. The purpose of this study was to suggest the Large Point Cloud-based Pipe Shape Reverse Engineering Method. To conduct the study, the related researches were surveyed and the reverse engineering automation method of the pipe shapes considering large point cloud was proposed. Based on the method, the prototype was developed and the results were validated. The proposed method is suitable for large data processing considering the validation results because the rendering performance standard deviation related to the 3D point cloud massive data searching was 0.004 seconds.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.38-45
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• 2016

The objective of this research is to develop a method of improving MEP facility management based on 3D reverse engineering. Recently, 3D image scanning-based reverse engineering has been implemented in the fields of architecture, construction and (manufacturing). In the case where there are many objects and the MEP system is complicated, 3D reverse engineering is applied in semiconductor factories, because facility maintenance works cause the 2D drawing to be different from the original one. The 3D point cloud data obtained from 3D image scanning contains accurate data and can increase the efficiency of complicated MEP facility maintenance works. For this purpose, the present research studied the technology trends and analyzed the process of 3D reverse engineering. Based on the results, a method of improving MEP facility management is established and its effects described.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.188-195
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• 2022

Although issuing change orders is a common practice in the construction phase of any project, non-structural utility subcontractors are struggling and seek to find a way to reduce change orders. Therefore, this paper presents the analysis results on change orders to cultivate possible suggestions and solutions on how to reduce or minimize change orders in mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) works. Change orders in non-structural utility works are analyzed based on six categories such as rerouting and change of location, changes in weight, rejected design by Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, District Structural Engineer, or the Structural Engineer of Record, unforeseen conditions, changed equipment, and owner-initiated change. The analysis findings showed that rerouting and changing location is the most significant cause, followed by unforeseen conditions. The results not only contribute to the existing body of knowledge on change order research area, but also help MEP contractors reduce the time and cost of change orders.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.263-271
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• 2014

Recent AEC industry, is introducing BIM based design process which mainly focuses on collaboration and integration. Since BIM has characteristic of utilizing several design libraries in various fields across the AEC industry, obtaining BIM libraries are essential for introducing and applying the BIM successfully. Thus, creating BIM libraries and guidelines for various fields are needed. BIM libraries can be categorized into disciplines such as architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical industries. Especially, companies in mechanical industry possesses design data for creating BIM library. Due to the fact, we standardized the property information for BIM libraries. And for BIM library production, we have developed a program which uses neutral format to convert 3D MCAD data designed by $NX^{TM}$ into $Revit^{TM}$ Family. Finally, we developed a program that merges property information to Revit Family file.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.155-177
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• 2019

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase is the main contributor to the total lifecycle cost of a building. Previous studies have described that Building Information Models (BIM), if available with detailed asset information and their properties, can enable rapid troubleshooting and execution of O&M tasks by providing the required information of the facility. Despite the potential benefits, there is still rarely BIM with Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) assets and properties that are available for O&M. BIM is usually not in possession for existing buildings and generating BIM manually is a time-consuming process. Hence, there is a need for an automated approach that can reconstruct the MEP systems in BIM. Previous studies investigated automatic reconstruction of BIM using architectural drawings, structural drawings, or the combination with photos. But most of the previous studies are limited to reconstruct the architectural and structural components. Note that mechanical components in the building typically require more frequent maintenance than architectural or structural components. However, the building mechanical drawings are relatively more complex due to various type of symbols that are used to represent the mechanical systems. In order to address this challenge, this paper proposed a symbol recognition framework that can automatically recognize the different type of symbols in the building mechanical drawings. This study applied vector-based computer vision techniques to recognize the symbols and their properties (e.g., location, type, etc.) in two vector-based input documents: 2D drawings and the symbol description document. The framework not only enables recognizing and locating the mechanical component of interest for BIM reconstruction purpose but opens the possibility of merging the updated information into the current BIM in the future reducing the time of repeated manual creation of BIM after every renovation project.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.36-37
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• 2021

OSC(Off-Site Construction) is regarded as a faster and more economical method in the construction industry, and the attention towards the OSC is growing. In the modular construction process, which is one type of OSC, accurate identification of a module is essential. Because the installation position and the MEP(Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) composition are distinct between modules, a defect in the finishing or junction area is likely to happen during the construction process. This study suggested the modular construction process by applying a beacon receiver using BLE(Bluetooth Low Energy) technology on each module. Construction quality management would be improved using the location and assembly data, particularly for a different module in modular construction.