Application Framework for Development of Simulation Tools

Development of specialized construction simulation tools is a time-consuming and complex operation. This has hindered the effective and wide use of simulation in the construction industry. An object-oriented application framework is a promising software engineering principle, which can help in overcoming this obstacle. Application frameworks encapsulate reusable code as well as common design patterns for a specific class of applications so that development of new tools is greatly simplified. This paper describes this new principle and applies it to the development of a construction simulation object library. A case study performed to compare the efforts between framework- and nonframework-based simulation tool development revealed that productivity can be dramatically improved.