A service collaboration platform for the construction industry

ICT skills of organisations operating in the construction industry are disperse and partners do not necessarily know each other in advance. This paper presents some practical implementations and experiences of a service collaboration infrastructure developed within the OSMOS project. The focus of the platform is to support construction organisations operating as virtual enterprises to deliver a unique product or service. In Finland, from where two of the OSMOS partners hail, Olof Granlund Oy, and VTT - Technical Research Centre of Finland, a service collaboration platform that was compliant with the findings of the OSMOS project, its underlying conceptual models, etc. was developed. Combined with other existing facilities management modules, the overall product is known as RyhtiWeb. RyhtiWeb is based on an object-oriented approach implemented through Active Server Pages (ASP) and XML technologies. The platform in addition to the provision of core OSMOS functionality provides sophisticated services for facilities management in construction.