TR115: Integration and Automation of Pre-Project Planning Through Circle Integration with a Shared Project Mode

This report investigates integration and automation of Pre-Project Planning
(PPP) by linking otherwise fragmented specialty analysis processes through a shared project model. The shared project model provides a computer interpretable representation of a project that can be analyzed by software services capable of performing the various specialty analyses necessary for PPP (e.g., market analysis, site analysis, planning, cost analysis, financial analysis). We link the software services end to end in a circle composing an integrated PPP analysis system. This report describes a prototype integrated PPP analysis system, called the Facility Alternative Creation Tool (FACT), that performs automated PPP analysis for fast food restaurants. The integrated
analysis system performs rapid automated PPP analysis providing inherent version control and a consistent basis for evaluating alternatives. Testing and experimentation with FACT reveals two important limitations of the current state of the art of integrated and automated PPP. First, there is a need for a PPP ontology to support knowledge and data sharing among the specialty PPP analysis software tools. Second, there is a need for circle integration mechanisms to define and operationalize the linking of applications and
the automating of the integrated analysis process.