Construction Management Research Paper 2022

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
By Name
Course
Instructor
Institution
Location
Date

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DIGITAL ENGINEEERING: PERSONAL REFLECTION
Purpose/Context
With the fast advancement in technology, it is realized that in the current world, engineers should
not only acquire isolated technical and analytical knowledge and skills during their training, but
they should be prepared to integrate these skills, how to apply them in practice, how to apply
them when working with other multidisciplinary teams, and to develop these skills and all others
that are required. The engineering competencies which are required can be described as follows.
The university engineer must have an academic levels in all competencies. Four areas can be
distinguished: learning competencies, professional competencies, civic competencies and career.
This paper will focus in informing the reader about the digital skills and knowledge required
currently specifically Building Information Modelling and how it can be used to enhance the
overall performance in the Civil Engineering Industry. BIM is the management of information
through the entire life cycle of the construction project. To be considered a digital engineer the
Joint Board of Moderators (JBM) has identified the following qualities which makes a competent
digital engineer:
The ability to find out the tasks in design, analysis them and manage them for which the
computers are used.
The ability to reflect on the efficiency and validity of specific processes and techniques
The ability to calibrate the digital data with all the data captured from the real life situation.
Should have knowledge of the basic standardized digital procedures and processes.
The ability to co-ordinate and interact with other team members through digital technology.

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This paper summarizes all the digital skills and knowledge which I have learnt in the
University. The information will be presented in terms of the digital software which I have learnt
about. The information will include; (Hardin, 2015, p. 67)
The general description of the tools, the examples where they have been used and how it was
used. Through that I will be able to show the skills I obtained and how they have assisted me to
be a better digital engineer.
AutoCAD
AutoCAD is a computer-Aided tool which is used for creation of many designs. The tool allows
the designer to come up with a variety of designs and drawings, it helps the designers to develop
their designs in a much more quick way as compared to hand design. AutoCAD also offers many
easy, quick and useful tools to be sued during design (Mahdjoubi, et al., 2015, p. 99)
Auto CAD is used in the development of 2D drawings and 3D models or construction details that
can be drawn by hand. AutoCAD also allows the designer to layer or group objects, keeps
different objects in a database for future use, and manipulates properties such as shape, size and
location. I used AutoCAD to draft different engineering drawings while in school and during my
Industrial based studies. The use of AutoCAD has greatly helped me to develop drafting skills in
a much faster and accurate way which is an important attribute in digital engineers. The figure
below shows a fully detailed AutoCAD drawing for a staircase.

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Autodesk Revit
Autodesk Revit is a Building Information modelling software. This software allows the designer
to deign with drafting and parametric modelling elements. Revit offers a full bi-directional
associativity i.e. During the design a change made to the design makes changes to the entire
design instantly without necessary the user updating the design manually.
Autodesk Revit has an underlying relational database architecture which contains the full life
cycle of the building, from the design concept to the actual construction to decommissioning.