Distilling and managing engineers' experience in construction projects using a pattern approach

Construction management requires engineers to acquire effectively and efficiently management experience. Most experience management (EM) in the construction industry focuses on explicit experience (such as writing reports and documents). Furthermore, tacit experience is usually more difficult to acquire than explicit experience. This study proposes an After the Issue Review (AIR) approach to acquire experience from engineers involved in construction projects, and effectively enhance experience sharing through a web-based platform. Moreover, an AIR Construction Pattern (AIRCP) scheme is proposed and utilized to codify and edit the acquired experience. The web-based experience management system presents a user-friendly interface of an experience-sharing platform, through which engineers learn valuable tacit experience derived from previous projects. Finally, a case study involving tunnel construction for expressway projects in Taiwan is utilized to validate the proposed approach and demonstrate the effectiveness of experience acquisition and management in construction.