June 29, 2009 - Seminar - Koshy Varghese Ph.D.
Seminar - Design Structure Matrix: An Overview of Concepts and Applications
Presented by:
Professor KOSHY VARGHESE, Ph.D.
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T) Madras
Monday, June 29, 2009
10:00 - 11:00 am
Room 2355 GG Brown
ABSTRACT:
To meet shorter project delivery times, numerous schedule compression strategies have been used. Fast-tracking- the overlap of design and construction phases was one of the initial strategies implemented. The success of fast-tracking pivoted on effectively planning and controlling the information exchange at the design-construction interface. To further shorten the project duration, the design phase can be compressed by overlapping of design activities. For successful implementation of this strategy it is critical to understand the information interfaces between the various design activities and plan/manage the overlaps appropriately. As design is a complex, inter-disciplinary, iterative process with a myriad of parameters, the identification, and representation of the information dependencies and subsequent analysis of the information flow to arrive at an optimal overlapping plan is a complex task.
The presentation will provide an overview of the issues in planning design and how the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) approach can be used to represent and analyze design information flows. In addition, recent work on extension of DSM to develop Drawing DSM will be presented and the lessons learned on the application of DSM approach to two live projects will also be discussed.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Koshy Varghese is a Professor with the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM). Dr. Varghese earned his Doctoral Degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 1992 and worked as a post-doctoral fellow with the Construction Industry Institute, USA for a year after which he joined IITM. Dr. Varghese has been a Visiting Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin and a Visiting Eminent Scholar at the Del E. Webb School of Construction Arizona State University.
As one of the pioneers in the area of construction engineering and management education in India, Dr. Varghese was involved in establishing and coordinating an industry supported Masters’ program which has been a model program for Industry-University collaboration in India.
Dr. Varghese’s research is in the area of Computer Integrated Construction. He has coordinated a number of research projects and published widely in refereed journals and conferences. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Automation and Robotics in Construction (AUTOCON).