The Conceptual Model of Information Managementin Infrastructure Lifecycles
Koji Makanae11Professor, School of Project Design, Miyagi University, 1-1 Gakuen, Taiwa-cho,Miyagi 9813298, Japan; PH (022) 377-8368; email: makanae@myu.ac.jp
ABSTRACT: This paper summarizes the schema of information models in the author’s
previous studies, and discusses the management of information and knowledge forinfrastructure lifecycles. The information schema for infrastructure lifecycles can be
expressed using the abstract-to-concrete information pyramid in the spatiotemporalframework. The information technologies in the pyramid are divided into eightcategories. Much information is generated and processed by many individuals
throughout an entire lifecycle, and “information management” is a key factor inlifecycle management. The layer structure of information management, which includes
data scheme, data management, applications, process, and individuals/organization, isshown. The latter two layers, process and individuals/organization, will become more
important in the next decade. The value of the abandoned information is also discussed,
including the consideration and the decision by which the information is abandoned aremade of human knowledge and wisdom. Further, the model of “swelling of knowledge”
is shown as an information connector in the pyramid schema.
INTRODUCTION
In the past decade, building information models (BIMs) have been focused anddeveloped to model the information of buildings and infrastructure. In accordance withthe development of BIMs, the information technologies that support each process in thelifecycles of building and infrastructure have become advanced, especially in threedimensional design. However, the current BIMs target only the building of physicalmodels, not entire information systems including ideas, concept, and politics. The
author discussed the significance and role of information in the infrastructure lifecycle,
including the pyramid scheme of construction information and the spatiotemporalmodel as its expansion (Makanae 2010, 2012). Moreover, the information propagationin highway design was also discussed (Makanae 2014). In this paper, the authorsummarizes the conceptual information model for infrastructure lifecycle from theprevious studies. Then the next stage of information schema, which can support
information and knowledge management, is discussed.

Page 1PYRAMID SCHEMA OF CONSTRUCTION INFORMATIONIn the initial stages of the construction process, highly abstract information is first
defined such as the concept and objective of construction. Then, information turns lessabstract in the planning and design phases to more concrete information for projection
into actual space. Although there are few studies about information schema inconstruction, Eastman (1999) represented design information as a cone with abstract
and concrete information at the top and on the bottom surface, respectively. In thisstudy, pyramid-schema design information is assumed (FIG.1. (a)).
Information is produced while obtaining various types of external information
including actual space information, and abstract information is related to concrete
information in the pyramid scheme. In this paper, the pyramid conceptually representsa schema expanding downward from the top regardless of the shape of its base.
The relationship between the pyramid scheme and time is considered here. FIG.1.
(b) shows the relationship in the spatiotemporal framework. Information is related toeach other in the thinking and projection processes in the design and construction
phases, respectively. In these processes, information is produced while information in
actual space is being obtained. The time efficiency of the construction process isrepresented by the inclination of the entire pyramid.
Abstract information becomes concrete over a few to decades of years although theperiod varies according to the type and scale of the infrastructure. The natural and social
environments around the schema vary during the period and information varies
accordingly. Information variations may cause the information pyramid scheme tocollapse. Continuity from abstract to concrete information should be ensured in theconstruction process of a schema.

(a) pyramid schema(b) relationship between the pyramid scheme and time

FIG 1. Pyramid scheme of construction information

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As the most abstract information in the pyramid scheme, “policy” is positioned.
The process from abstract to concrete in the information space corresponds to theprocess of thinking from policy to plan, design and construction plan. Finally,
information is projected from information space into actual space, or the schema isconstructed. At the completion of a series of structures planned in accordance with apolicy, the functions designated in planning as objectives are provided. Then, theinfrastructures enter the maintenance phase. Information on structures in actual spaceobtained by using sensors or conducting inspections alters information in information
space. Rebuilding the information schema is required below the point of change at thehighest level. The results are projected again into actual space. In planned maintenance,
the point of information alteration is determined as planned. The point of information
alteration is corrected based on the information obtained in actual space by monitoring.
When the point is actually reached, the information schema is rebuilt as planned andthe information is projected into actual space. The process of rebuilding the information
schema and projecting information is equivalent to the repair of an infrastructure. The
more abstract at the point of information alteration, the greater the scale of repair. Thissuggests that a life cycle exists for each level of abstractness.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE INFORMATION PYRAMID
The relationship between the infrastructure-information pyramid and information
technology is discussed. FIG.2 shows the relationship between a model obtained bysimplifying the multiple connected model based on FIG.1 and information technology.
Information technology here is divided into “acquisition”, “expression and processing”,“prediction”, “projection (construction)”, “life management”, “operation”,

FIG.2. Infrastructure lifecycles and information technology

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“information exchange with people and society” and “information management”.
These components are not fully independent of one another but coordinate with one
another to create a more refined system”.
STRUCTURE OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT“Information management” is the dominant technology in the hierarchy shown in
FIG.2. In this section, we discuss the importance of information management and how
to apply it toward infrastructure lifecycles.
As mentioned above, much information is generated during the infrastructure
lifecycle. At the design stage, a designer processes the surveyed data comprising terrain,geology, climate, and habitation data, and generates new design information forconstruction. The generated information is recorded as two/three-dimensional plans in
CAD files and documents, including in digital format, in the conventional method. At
the construction stage, a contractor processes the design information and generates
more detailed design and process information for construction, and receives more
feedback from on-site construction. At the maintenance stage, a facility manager
processes the design and construction information and generates maintenanceinformation based on the on-site maintenance and facility usage data. “Informationmanagement” is a key factor in lifecycle management, and an important subject is themanagement and maintenance of the long-term digital information of infrastructure
lifecycles.
In order to share the information with each organization and individual for the longterm, the standardization of information is required. The recent efforts in BIMs, suchas industry foundation classes (IFC) developed by buildingSmart, are representative of
the attempts to standardize information. Though the concept of BIMs aims to define
information models which can support the entire lifecycle, the practical applications
currently focus only on three-dimensional design. For the future utilization of BIMs,
we have to build the information management system with the goal of not only thestandardization of information format, but also the standardization of organizations.
The layer structure of information management is shown in Table 1.
Table. 1. Layer structure of information management
Layer
Layer 1: Individuals/ Organization
Layer 2: Process
Layer 3: Applications
Layer 4: Data management

Layer 5: Data scheme

Subject
Individuals (instruction and education)
Organization and systems
Process of information management
Application which supports design,construction, maintenance, and wholelifecycle)
Data management(multimedia data and archive format, storage
location, naming, data linkage inspatiotemporal framework)
Data and information modeling scheme

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We divided information management into five layers. The basement layer (layer 5)targets the “data scheme”, which includes data and information modeling such as IFC.
The next layer (layer 4) is “data management”, which includes multimedia data andarchive format for CAD data, documents, images and movies, storage locations, thenaming of files, and data linkage among the data of each stage in the spatiotemporalframework. The next layer (layer 3) targets “applications” which support the whole
infrastructure process. The current stage of information management will be in layer 5
to 3, but whole lifecycle support in the spatiotemporal framework is not considered.
The upper two levels are important for information management. The second layer(layer 2) is “process” of information management in whole lifecycles. The dominantlayer (layer 1) is “individuals/organization”. “Individuals” have important roles inplanning information management, and instruction and education for them are very
important. “Organization” who manage all of the information in the infrastructure
lifecycle is the most dominant element.
In this stage, only a few organizations recognize the importance of informationmanagement, but it will become more important in the next decade.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN THE INFORMATION SCHEME
In the proposed pyramid information scheme (FIG.1), the root and generated
information must connect to the constructed object in the actual space. However, in
real cases, some of the generated information will be abandoned. For example, in thecase of highway design, many routes are proposed as candidates after the origin and thedestination are defined, but only one route will be selected for construction; theinformation of unselected routes will be abandoned. The issue is whether the abandoned
information has any real value. In the above case, the highway designer was supposed
to consider the alignment of each route using his intellect; however, the final route wasdetermined by multiple individuals through the comparison of various factors. Thisdecision was made using human knowledge and wisdom. From this point of view, theabandoned information should be retained so that others can see how and why adecision was made. In the area of knowledge management, the scheme of DIKW
pyramid (data-information-knowledge-wisdom) was proposed (Rowley 2007, Wallace2007). The information scheme in this study targets only data and information; however,knowledge and wisdom should be included in the scheme as well.
The information connection, including definition, is depicted as FIG.3. Each
information connector has a swelling of knowledge. In the swelling, the design anddefinition system are included. Furthermore, the wisdom is expected to be abstracted
from the collection of the swelling, which would equal knowledge.

Page 5a) original modelb) swelling of knowledgec) abstraction of wisdomfrom swellings

Swelling
abandoned

abandoned

knowledge

wisdomabandoned

Swelling
selected

selected

Swelling
knowledge

abandoned

selected

Swelling

wisdomselected

FIG.3. Knowledge swelling in the information pyramid

CONCLUSIONSThis paper summarizes the schema of information models from the author’s
previous studies and discusses information and knowledge management for
infrastructure lifecycles. The conclusions of this paper are described below.
1) The information schema for infrastructure lifecycles can be expressed using
abstract-to-concrete information pyramid in the spatiotemporal framework. The
information technologies in the pyramid can be divided into eight categories.
2) Much information is processed and generated by many individuals during anentire lifecycle. “Information management” is a key factor in lifecycle
management. The layered structure of information management, which includes
data scheme, data management, applications, process, individuals/organization, isshown. The latter two layers, process and individuals/organization, are expected
to become more important in the next decade.
3) The value of the abandoned information is discussed, including the considerationand the decision by which the information is abandoned are made of humanknowledge and wisdom. The model of knowledge swelling is shown as an
information connector in the pyramid schema.
The author has proposed the conceptual model for infrastructure lifecycles; itshould be verified and applied to practical cases in the next stage. Furthermore, themethod of information and knowledge management should be considered and madesophisticated in future works.

Page 6ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 24560569.
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Eastman, C.M. (1999). Building product models: computer environments supporting
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Makanae, K. (2012). " Development and Analysis of Time-Spatial Information Modelfor Infrastructure Lifecycle Management", Proc. 14th International Conferenceon Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, Moscow, Jun.
Makanae, K. (2014). "Optimization of Highway Geometric Design Process for
Computer-based
Design",Computingin
CivilandBuilding
Engineering(ICCCBE2014), 1376-1383, ASCE, Orlando, 2014.
Rowley, J. (2007). "The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy”,
Journal of Information and Communication Science, 33 (2): 163–180.
Wallace, D. P. (2007). Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross-Disciplinary
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