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Journal Papers

• Osman, H. and El-Diraby, T.E.(2006) “Ontological Modeling of Infrastructure Products and Related Concepts” Transportation Research Record. (In Press)

  The large number of infrastructure renewal projects taking place along congested urban transportation corridors pose several challenges for all project proponents. As such, closer integration of processes among all stakeholders is required throughout the project lifecycle. This integration can be accomplished through enhancing inter-organizational information interoperability. This paper presents an emerging tool that is gaining momentum in the computer science field and has great potential to facilitate knowledge sharing and interoperability: Ontologies. The paper presents a 4-layer distributed ontology for representing infrastructure products and related concepts. The root level is a representation of the abstract super-classes (entities and supporting concepts) upon which the next levels use to construct their semantics. The following 2 levels are considered ontologies specific to the domain of infrastructure products but are created at different levels of detail to maintain consistency with other ontology development efforts. The final level is the application ontology which utilizes the core knowledge defined at the domain level to create sets of task specific ontologies. In this paper, an urban infrastructure design coordination ontology (UIDC-Onto) is presented. The ontology was then used to build a collaborative GIS-based system to support design coordination of utilities along urban transportation corridors. The system demonstrates how ontologies can be used to streamline the utility design coordination process among utility companies and municipalities.

• El-Gohary, N., Osman, H., and El-Diraby, T.E. (2006) "Stakeholder Management for Public Private Partnership" International Journal of Project Management. (In Press)

  Various problems have been encountered on presumably successful public private partnership (P3) initiatives around the world that have eventually led to project failure. Stakeholder opposition has been reported as the main reason for failure in several instances. As such, capturing and addressing stakeholder input is crucial to the success of P3 projects. Stakeholder involvement (SI) is an interdisciplinary domain that spans many disciplines within the social sciences (sociology, psychology, marketing, etc…). The fragmented nature of knowledge in this domain is impeding project managers from leading successful SI programs. As such, this paper presents a semantic model and taxonomy that represents the key concepts underlying stakeholder involvement in P3 infrastructure projects. The model has the potential to act as a core for knowledge representation, sharing and reuse in the multidisciplinary domain of SI. A portion of the model is implemented in a knowledge-base that can be used to recommend the most suitable set of stakeholder involvement tools to be utilized on a particular project. The recommendations provided by the system can act as a ‘short-list’ of potential tools to the inexperienced SI coordinator.

  Keywords: Partnerships, Stakeholders, Managing Projects, Information Technology, Implementing Strategy

• Osman, H. (2005) “Risk-based Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Privatized Infrastructure” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. No 1924, TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C. pp 192-196.

  One of the main shortcomings to the use of life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) for analyzing long-term infrastructure projects is the uncertainty in value of the LCCA parameters. Probabilistic LCCA incorporates these elements of uncertainty by assigning probabilistic values to cost and performance parameters. Studies that have performed probabilistic LCCA in the infrastructure domain propose a probability-based framework for alternative comparison. Although such frameworks convey a wealth of probabilistic information, they are not well suited to decision-making. This study proposes a risk-based framework that is similar to techniques used in portfolio risk management. To illustrate the use of such a framework, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to perform probabilistic LCCA for a highway project. Two highway investment opportunities with varying risks and returns are analyzed. The decision framework is used to compare the simulation results with some common investment opportunities in the market. This framework enables private-sector investors to assess the relative risks and returns of alternative infrastructure projects. The fact that similar frameworks are used in the financial investment domain makes this approach suitable for the economic analysis of privatized infrastructure.

• Osman, Hesham M.; Georgy, Maged E.; Ibrahim, Moheeb (2003) “A hybrid CAD-based construction site layout planning system using genetic algorithms” Automation in Construction, Elsevier Science, 12 (6), 749-764. 

  The efficient layout planning of a construction site is a fundamental task to any project undertaking. In an attempt to enhance the general practice of layout planning of construction sites, the paper introduces a novel approach for producing the sought layouts. This approach integrates the highly sophisticated graphical capabilities of computer-aided design (CAD) platforms with the robust search and optimization capabilities of genetic algorithms (GAs). In this context, GAs are utilized from within the CAD environment to optimize the location of temporary facilities on site. The functional interaction between GAs and CAD and the details of the GA-based layout optimization procedure are presented. A fully automated computer system is further developed to demonstrate the practicality of the chosen approach. In order to evaluate the system's performance, a local construction project with a 24,000m2 site is used. The automated system produced highly satisfactory results and showed notable flexibility through its CAD-based input/output media.

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• Osman H.M. ,Georgy M.E. and Ibrahim M.E. (2002)  “Integrated CAD-Based Model for Construction Site Layout Planning" Al-Azhar Civil Engineering Research Magazine 24(3), 1035-1051.

  One of the important project resources that has been overlooked during the planning phases of most construction projects is site space. In some projects, site space can be as crucial as any other construction resource. Researchers have attempted to put together models that perform or assist planners in site layout planning. This paper presents a newly developed model that integrates the powerful graphical capabilities of CAD systems with the intricate search and optimization abilities of genetic algorithms for the purpose of solving the site layout problem. The model is capable of dealing with irregular site shapes as well as considering site obstacles and permanent facilities. Modeling the continuously developing construction site is made possible via dynamic site layout planning. Instead of creating a single layout that will inevitably become obsolete after some time, the model deals with several layouts that change over time as construction progresses.

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conference presentations

• Osman, H. and El-Diraby, T.E. (2006) "Interoperable Decision Support Model for Routing Buried Urban Infrastructure" Joint International Conference on Computing i& Decision Making in Civil and Building Engineering. Montreal June 14-16.

• Osman, H. and El-Diraby T. (2005) "Subsurface Utility Engineering in Ontario: Case Studies & Lessons Learned". 1st Infrastructure Technology, Management and Policy specialty conference at the 33rd Canadian Society of Civil Engineering annual conference, Toronto, June 2-4, 2005.

• Osman, H. and Georgy, M. (2005) “Layout Planning of Construction Sites Considering Multiple Objectives: A Goal-Programming Approach”. ASCE Construction Research Congress, San Diego, April 5-7, 2005.

• Osman H.M. ,Georgy M.E. and Ibrahim M.E. (2003) “An automated system for dynamic construction site layout planning” 10th International Colloquium on Structural & Geotechnical Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, 22-24 April.

Thesis

• Osman, Hesham M. (2002) “CAD-based dynamic layout planning of construction sites using genetic algorithms” .  M.Sc. Thesis, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University.

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