Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM
eMasterCraft
© iStockphoto
eMasterCraft

Benefit from Electronic Processes

The »eMasterCraft« project aimed for an increase of the penetration of the building sector with electronic data exchange and computer aided processes in the skilled trades.

© iStockphoto

Processes in the Construction Branch

Project eMasterCraft

Compared to manufacturing, the construction industry lags significantly behind in the usage of electronic processes. This  creates competitive disadvantages, high costs, inefficient processes, and leads to poor planning.

The »eMasterCraft« project was sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Economics in the context of the »Mittelstand-Digital« initiative. It was a multi-disciplinary research project that aimed to increase the penetration of the building sector with electronic data exchange and computer aided processes in the skilled trades, but more importantly, for the communication among themselves as well as with architects and planning offices.

Goals

The first step, above all, was to implement standards: for master data, data exchange formats, and processes. The small enterprises are not able to develop or maintain this on their own, but must rely on industry standards. The skilled trades will only be moved to a stronger focus on EDP processes if it does not hurt their bottom line.

 

Cost-Benefit Analysis Tool by ITWM

We developed in eMasterCraft a cost-benefit analysis tool that enables a comparison of the costs of electronic processes with the company-specific benefits of their use. It generates a comparison of the actual company processes to target processes in a simulation. The basis of the simulation is »Scheduler«, an optimization component, which plans realistic time schedules for scarce resources. The ability to calculate realistic deadlines based on existing  resources and contracts is a huge advantage for a trade enterprise. The cost-benefit tool provides these advantages in a monetary evaluation context.

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