Daily Report Module for Construction Management Information System

Yan-Chyuan Shiau, Wen-Chian Wang

Chung-Hua University, Department of Construction Engineering

30 Tung-Shiang, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, 300, R.O.C.
ycshiau@ms22.hinet.net

ABSTRACT: The profit of Construction Industry has been tremendously reduced for recent years in Taiwan. In
order to survive in this difficult environment, “Management” becomes the key issue to achieve company’s target.
We need a powerful tool that can help us to handle complicate process such as estimation, bidding, purchasing
and site-management in the life-circle of a construction project. In this research, we develop a Daily Report Mo-
dule for Construction Management Information System. In this module, we use Object Oriented concept to mi-
mic project schema by dividing each item into building-floor-room hierarchy. In this system, all constructed
items will be calculated and converged into money request data. This will heavily save the key-in time and pre-
vent human mistakes from multiple-input. Through the help of this tool, we can effectively calculate the cash
flow for a construction project and accurately control the amount that we can claim from owner and pay to sub-
contractors. It can also provide warning message to prevent overcharge or overpayment in construction operati-
on. Through the help this system, we can integrate construction data and transport site information to the head
quarter through world-wide-web immediately. This can help us to improve administrating capabilities, increase
competition and make profit for construction companies.

KEYWORDS: Cash Flow, Construction Management, Daily Report, Object Oriented, and Site-Management

1. INTRODUCTION
This study is mainly aimed for developing the
The poor atmosphere of the construction business Daily Report Module, Estimation And Pricing
in recent years is putting a lot of local contractors System, Design Modification Control System and
into severe competition; improvement of man- Project Accounting System so as to compile the
agement so as to uplift competitiveness is neces- daily site management information into the current
sary for survival. While on the construction site engineering value estimation, for the solution of
side, there are indeed a lot of improvements that problems of inaccurate input of site logs,
can be reached by refining the managing layers repetitive works, high human errors in typing,
and cutting down costs; such as, via computer, a over estimates or under estimates of engineering
lot of manpower and man-hours can be saved. In value etc. It is also for recording work items and
welcoming the information-prompt age of net- quantities resulting from the design modification
works, the construction industry must be able to activated by the client or designer, as well as the
follow the pace so as to compile a great amount of finalizing quantity and amount of each project, so
information into useful information in a short as to control the actual costs of projects.
time, and so that competitiveness can be created.
Therefore it is a necessary trend that the construc- 3. FUNCTION REQUIREMENTS
tion industry be informationized.
The System Structure of CMIS consists the
2. OBJECTIVE following items (Fig. 1):

In [1], we have constructed the Basic Database, 1. Basic data structure for building up the system:
Budget Module, Procurement Module, Price Cal- database used is categorized into large, medium
culation Module, and Settlement Management and small items.
Module for CMIS-I. In this research, we use Ob- 2. To develop a Budget System program, to be
ject Oriented concept, Visual Modeling tech- able to generate project budget automatically.
niques with Delphi and ER/Studio environment to
develop following modules for CMIS-II.

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3. To develop a Purchasing And Contracting Relationship) Model; by defining the relationship
System program, to be able to screen between the databases, the substantial database is
subcontractors and execute contracting. then built up and becomes the actual relationship
4. To develop a Fund Auditing System program, database (Fig. 2)
to be able to place alarm for items exceeding
the budget. (Above items have been completed
in 2001.)
5. To develop a program of Daily Report System,
to be able to record daily site work items,
quantities and use of manpower and materials.
6. To develop a Estimation And Pricing System
program, to be able to compile, from site daily
log, quantities of the current finished items.
7. To develop a Design Modification Control
System program, to be able to record items and
quantities of every design change.
8. To develop a Project Accounting System
program, to be able to control the finished
items, costs and income, and expenditure for Figure 2. Database Structure Diagram
each project. (Items 5-8 are for the study of the
present year.)
After establishing ER/Model, the user can, with
the tools provided by the program, translate the
database structure into a Script File which can be
retrieved by the general database systems (Fig. 3)
so that Database Console loads the data list of the
system, fields of the data list and the attributes of
each field, as well as the relationship between the
Primary Key and Foreign Key needed for the sys-
tem database.

Figure 1. System Structure Diagram of CMIS

4. DATABASE STRUCTURE

4.1 Analysis of Database Structure

The structure of the database is the core of the

whole system, should the structure be wrong, or
the database be insufficient to meet the need, the
whole data flow will cause error and result in
outputting unexpected data, therefore it is
extremely important to build up a suitable Figure 3. Script File of the Database Generated
database structure. by ER/Studio

Accompanying advances of information 4.2 Construction Site Daily Log Flowchart

technology, the database system has developed
from the conventional Relational Database to the Site Daily Report, the record of daily work done
Object-Oriented Database (OODB), which is now and events occurred on the site, is the center of
the mainstream of the development of database site managing. Information gathered through daily
control systems [2]. This study uses ER/Studio events, by proper compiling and analyzing, can
tools to establish an ER Diagram, then, in the deliver reports on the cost, progress and quality of
same mode, according to user need, makes the the construction [3].
data flow chart and establishes the E-R (Entity-

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Site Daily Report, the record of daily site events, on work items; therefore the item in the pricing
records a variety of occurrences around the site; system derives directly from the work items com-
this study categorizes the event information into piled into the pricing list. Yet in reality, some pro-
engineering info, engineer info, manpower, jects are subdivided into several subcontracts and
equipment, material, quantity accomplished, loca- are separately carried out by different subcontrac-
tion of work, test item, site event, and form filling tors in different scheduling. If this is done in terms
etc. of work items, the quantity in the log will not be
able to combine with the item, and this can cause
The site daily report is not only a daily report disputes when the subcontractor applies for pay-
sheet; it shall be used together with other forms ment. This is the reason that in this study we add
such as climate record, engineer progress sched- the building-floor-room structure, so that subcon-
ule, daily work-hour, equipment use record, steel tracting is done according to work item and work
bar use quantity, concrete poring quantity, quan- location, and the work accomplished can combine
tity of form, earthwork quantity etc., and most im- with the work item input and can be translated into
portantly, the engineering progress schedule and pricing and estimation.
the work flowchart.
4.5 The Building-Floor-Room Structure
4.3 Process of Daily Report
The study incorporated the Building-Floor-Room
This system constructs data structure of the daily Structure [5], as described above and that is shown
report [4] as shown in Fig. 4. The system retrieves in Fig. 5, and combined with items in the project
items from the basic database and translates them database. Items in the system contain work
into “Project Work Items”; by combining with the locations, in case of different subcontractors with
daily activities logged in the report system and different prices, this system is able to simulate the
other related data -such as “manpower and actual fulfillment by the said structure, which
material analysis database” and “contractor makes the information control more appropriate
basics”-, information for project work items are for work items. Formulas 1 to 3 are the
compiled; in a building-floor-room format, the relationships between building-floor-room and the
work items are entered according to their work work item; room works are compiled into floor
site locations and are compiled and output as the work, and floors into building. Final summation is
site daily report. This log can be further compiled indicated as the accomplished quantity of the work
for set period of dates as the monthly log that item.
provides information for pricing the estimation
system.

Figure 5. Room-Floor-Room Structure Diagram

n1
Vfloor = ∑V
i =1
room --------------------------------- (Formula 1）
n2
Vbuilding= ∑V
i =1
floor ------------------------------------- (Formula

2)
n3
Figure 4. Daily Report Data Structure
VSum of work item = ∑V
i =1
building---------------------(Formula 3)
4.4 Process of Pricing Estimation
Vroom: Quantity of work of each room, n1: number
of rooms on the floor.
Pricing Estimation is closely related to procure-
Vfloor: Quantity of work of each floor, n2: number
ment and tender process as well as the daily log.
of floors in the building.
The study finds that items of the procurement pro-
Vbuilding: Quantity of work of each building, n3:
grams in popular software on the market are base
number of buildings in the project.

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V sum of work item: Quantity of the work item in the Daily Report System consists of 3 modules-
project Project Info (Fig.6), Work Item Info (Fig. 7), and
Daily Report Input module (Fig. 8) –to record site
5. SYSTEM STRUCTURE AND CONTENT events and work items accomplished; it also
OF WORK provides input of work location info. Besides,
through company intranet via Client/Server
Following completion of the Basic Database, structure, input can also be made by way of the
Budget System, Procurement and Subcontracting browser input to upload daily log info to the main
System, and Cost Accounting System of the “Ob- system at the headquarters.
ject Oriented Visualization-Simulated Structure of
Constructional Information Compiling System System developed in the study provides 2 input
(I)”, this study continues to develop the following methods: Direct Input (Intranet, shown as Fig. 8)
subsystems: and input through browser (Internet, as in Fig. 9)

A. Daily Report System

B. Estimation And Pricing System
C. Design Modification Control System
D. Project Accounting System

5.1 Daily Report System

Figure 8. Daily Report Input Screen

(Client/Server Version).

Figure 6. Daily Report System Dialog

Figure 9. Daily Report Input Screen (Browser

Version)

5.2 Estimation and Pricing System

Estimation and Pricing System compiles info col-

Figure 7. Daily Report Input -- Building-Floor- lected in the Daily Report, sums up to be used as
Room Screen the info and amount for pricing and estimation. By
setting up the building-floor-room structure, the
study handles work item quantity by summing up
room work quantities in the floor and floor work
quantities in the building, so as to get the com-
piled quantity of the work item.

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 time, quantity, and price and its payment term or
every change in complete details, so that a better
control of design change can be achieved.

This system added a Version field to the Project

Info as one of the Primary Keys. When there is a
need of design change being brought up by the
client or architect in an Engineering Meeting, a
new project version will be added (as in Fig. 12)
to alter and record the changed item and quantity
of each version.

Figure 10. Dialog of Project Estimation And

Pricing System

After selecting “Project” and “range of pricing and

estimation date”, the system compiles daily report
info and translates into the Estimation and Pricing
Database (as in Fig. 10, Screen Of Project Pricing
And Estimation System, and Fig. 11, Project Pric-
ing And Estimation System – add in and change
the period of pricing and estimation); after enter-
ing the period of pricing and estimation, press the
“OK” button and the system will translate the info Figure 12. Design Modification Control System
into and for the use of the Estimation and Pricing
System. 5.4 Project Accounting System

Generally, by the end of the project, the contractor

has difficulties in effectively handling the essen-
tials of the project operation, which are the actu-
ally accomplished quantities, contract items and
contract prices; only rough estimations can be
worked out to approximate “tentative” profit or
loss; in this environment that is more and more
difficult to make a profit, it is truly needed to have
complete control of the operation.

The system in this study can, coping with the De-

sign Modification Control Module, control and
Figure 11. Project Pricing And Estimation trace the contracted quantity, subcontracted quan-
System -- add in and change the period of pricing tity and the finalized quantity etc., so that the op-
and estimation erator can effectively control the relevant info and
make necessary adjustments at all stages, as well
5.3 Project Modification Control System as present the relative data at the end of the project
to be used for project review and as references (as
There is always a need to change in every project. shown in Fig. 13, 14) to future project tenders, in
Whether due to functional requirements of the cli- the expectation of improving company managing
ent or stipulations of the architectural regulations, ability and operating strength.
because of the need of construction interface or
purely due to design requirements, changes on
plane setup, height, material, size and equipment
etc. are needed. The Project Modification Control
Module is meant to record and trace the item,

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 D. To develop a Fund Auditing System program,
to be able to place an alarm on items exceeding
the budget.
E. To develop a Daily Report System program, to
be able to record daily site work items,
quantities, and use of manpower and material.
F. To develop a program of Estimation And
Pricing System, to be able to compile, from
site daily log, quantities of the current finished
items.
G. To develop a Design Modification and Control
System program, to be able to record items and
Figure 13. Project Accounting System quantity of every design change.
H. To develop a Project Accounting System
program, to be able to control the finished
items, cost and income, and expenditure for
each project.

6.2 Contributions

Through results of this study, contractors can exe-

cute the above mentioned compilation of construc-
tion information by using the “Construction Man-
agement Information System” and achieve the fol-
lowing effects:

A. By using computer software and log input

interfaces, the system simplifies repetitive
input tasks to simplify figure inputs.
Figure 14. Project Balance Report B. Provides estimation and pricing period
selections, which compiles from the Daily
6. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Report System and applies payment from the
client; it can also serve the subcontractor in the
The domestic construction atmosphere is generally same manner.
low at the moment and contractors are facing C. Builds up the “building-floor-room” structure
enormous competitive pressure. Reinforcing com- into the database structure and solves the
petitive ability is the one and only method for a inconvenience of being unable to subcontract a
construction company to survive. The Construc- single itemized work item.
tion Management Information System developed D. Project Accounting System provides control of
in this study has built up a Basic Database, Budget actually accomplished items in the project; this
System, Procurement And Subcontracting System, uplifts site management efficiency.
Cost Accounting System, Daily Report System, E. Reduces waste in use of equipment resources
Estimation and Pricing System, Design Modifica- by way of resource integration, so as to lower
tion Control System and Project Accounting Sys- costs and increase competitiveness.
tem in the expectation of attaining the following
effects: 6.3 Suggestions

A. To build up a basic data structure and present Subsequent study of this research can extend to
the system in the database categorized into combine the “Progress Control Software” (such as
large, medium and small items. MS-Project, P3 etc.) to achieve automatic
B. To develop a Budget System program, to be compilation of the construction progress, update
able to generate project budget automatically. the Daily Report info into the Schedule Control
C. To develop a Purchasing And Contracting Software so as to achieve real-time integrated
System program, to be able to screen construction management.
subcontractors and execute contracting.

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7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to show my

appreciation to National Science Council, Execu-
tive Yuan, for its support of the study. Project No.:
NSC 91-2211-E-216-018。

8. REFERENCES
1. Yan-Chyuan Shiau, Ming-Teh Wang, Tsung-
Pin Tsai, Wen-Chian Wang, ”Developing A
Construction Integrated Management
System”, ISARC 2002,September 23-25
Washington D.C., USA.
2. Jiang Duan-Shiang, “The Control of
Estimation”, Construction Engr.,2001/09.
3. Yang-Wang-Jing, “The Application of Object-
Oriented in Project Cost Control”, Master
Thesis of Civil Engineering,National Taiwan
University,1998.

4. Wang Wen-Chian, 「 CMIS,The Study of

Estimation System 」 ,Master Thesis of
Construction Management Dept., Chung-Hua
University,2003.
5. Yan-Chyuan Shiau and Wang Wen-Chian,
“The Study of Integration between Estimation
System and Site Report System for
Construction Integrated Software“,
Construction Engr., 2003/05.
6. Yan-Chyuan Shiau, Ming-Teh Wang, Tsung-
Pin Tsai, Wen-Chian Wang,，「Developing
A Construction Integrated Management
System」，ISARC 2002，September 23-25
Washington D.C., USA.

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