Coordinating measures: the Prozesshaus (Process House )

A comprehensive body of rules for harmonising civil engineering measures that get in each other’s way

The bearers of measures, such as planning agencies, construction companies or line operators, conduct their approval processes for civil engineering measures via the online service BauWeiser. However, what happens when two measures come into conflict with one another? When, for example, a line operator wants to refurbish supply lines and pavement is to be renewed at the same time in the same area?

The basis of BauWeiser

This is where the body of rules of the Process House come into play. “The Process House basically provides the organisational foundation upon which the BauWeiser sits”, explains Doreen Schillbach, who is responsible for the Process House as a sub-project manager in the DigITAll project. The Process House is a set of processes, a compendium of rules, which one can imagine like decision diagrams in the sense of software programming, a comprehensive process routine that is repeatedly structured by when/then decisions.

Coordination and cooperation

Coordination, for example, between two projects that overlap in terms of location and time takes place in the context of project coordination, in that, for example, one of the measures is rescheduled. Both bearers of measures even work together in the context of project cooperation. In the given example, highly simplified, the line operator and the LSBG, which wants to renew the road surface, would work together and tender the one-time excavation work jointly. The line operator would then renew the lines and the LSBG would lay down a new road surface.

Another task that always presupposes the Process House as mandatory is traffic coordination. The impact of the measure on the traffic flow is examined to this purpose. Should the construction measure result in the unacceptable impairment of traffic, alternative scenarios are formulated and suggested.

The functionality of the Process House has already been evaluated In a pilot project. In the process, Hamburg Wasser, Gasnetz Hamburg, Stromnetz Hamburg, the LSBG and telecommunications providers work together and ensure new water, gas, power and telecommunications lines, as well as the renewal of the surface of a major street in the context of a cooperative measure.

Into the future with an intelligent system

The Process House is still purely a body of rules but will be digitalised in future and enhanced with artificial intelligence. “The system will then make initiative-taking suggestions. It points out to the measure bearer that the measures could result in a synergistic cooperation”, Doreen Schillbach explains.

ADVANTAGES OF PROZESSHAUS:

• More efficient work, time saved

• Less impairment of road traffic

• Reduced burden for residents

• Cost synergies with project cooperation

• Improved communication between applicants, processors and approvers

• Greater authoritativeness in the project