The development of web-enabled knowledge based (WBK) systems for the South African construction industry

It is becoming evident that a significant proportion of international Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industries are adopting Web-enabled Knowledge Based (WKB) product Life Cycle Development (LCD) approaches to meet the needs of the global information economy. The WKB approach is fast becoming the new paradigm for designing client orientated product development systems. This paper examines the status quo on the Life Cycle Development (LCD) process in the construction industry, as well as new approaches, showing its principles, goals and benefits. It also introduces ORBIT, a WKB system, which provides a platform for the implementation of the new approaches and concludes with a presentation of a conceptual model of the system.