Fusing data from multiple sources to support project management tasks

Capturing project data and storing it in an integrated way during construction is important not only for project monitoring, but also for reuse of project historical knowledge in upcoming projects. Various data items need to be collected at a job site and integrated to support decisions during and after construction. There are issues associated with utilization of these data items as these data items typically come from a variety of data sources, are stored in multiple databases and might not be at the level of detail required for a specific decision. To be able to fully take advantage of a variety of data that is being collected, these issues need to be addressed. This paper overviews a multi-data source fusion approach and describes a set of mechanisms implemented to support production rate related decisions of cost estimators and productivity analyses of project managers during construction.