Consulting services in general and engineering consulting in particular, are not yet taking full advantage of the available ICT technology as many problems are still open related to these activities in the ICT framework. In the AEC (Architectural, Engineering and Construction) field, civil engineers and consultants use daily ICT tools mainly for information and technical data exchange missing in many cases the opportunities that such technology can offer to foster new ways of working, and new business opportunities. In other words the opportunity of establishing new business models. This may be due to the fact that professionals usually provide high level services that require a clear defined relationship between the client and the consultant also from the legal and contractual points of view. For instance, recognizing the remote consultant’s responsibility relative to the results of the consulting assignment would be crucial in order, for these new working paradigms, to be accepted in real life design & construction projects. Moreover, an acceptable level of quality should always be guaranteed and demonstrated.

Geodeco participated in a European funded project eHUB's related to ebusiness in the engineering domain under the IST Programme.  More detailed information about the eHUB's Project are also available.

Role of Geodeco in eHUB's:

Based on the developed e-Hubs’ functional architecture and generic e-engineering services, a set of working e-engineering services dedicated for the seismic engineering demonstrator have been developed by Geodeco. The aim of this study is to explore and demonstrate how these, and eventually a larger set, of dedicated e-engineering services could be integrated with the core project planning services that an e-Hub offers.

Such development leaded to the deployment of the eRiskZone. 

The eRiskZone portal is aiming at putting in contact engineering consulting companies with potential clients (mainly structural engineers and architects) seeking design advices. A practical on-line software (called AESP: Automatic Engineering Service Provider) available on the portal requests all the information necessary to perform a simplified seismic risk analysis, provides preliminary results to the user and offers more accurate investigations on demand, to be carried out off-line through a human-based activity, at the central design office.

Published papers related to the project:

Mangini, M, (2002), "E-Commerce and engineering consulting services", Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Process and Product modelling (ECPPM): eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, Turk & Scherer (Eds), Slovenia, September, ISBN 90 5809 507 X.

For more information on Geodeco's research and development activities please contact Mauro Mangini, M.S.