建筑巨型项目是复杂的事业，容易范围爬新利18备用网址行，时间表和成本超支。配置管理（CM） - 项目信息的详细记录和更新 - 可以帮助组织一个Mega项目并抵御成本超支。CM建立了项目基准，对项目职责和纸质工作流的更清晰的定义以及跟踪和监视项目更改以防止范围蠕变的方法。数据分析的新进展可以通过挖掘文本和数值构造数据来自动确定CM系统中的构建项目问题和问题，以获取信息并从该数据中得出结论。

As senior researcher at the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation at Rutgers University I’ve worked with PACO Technologies, a Configuration Management consultant and the provider of a web-based Configuration Management system. Frank Otero, PACO founder and chairman, taught me the power of using CM to reduce change orders and schedule slippages. The CM system gives a way to log, manage and approve all project changes. Construction documents are scanned into the CM system to provide a paper trail of project activities, which is useful on long-term projects where personnel change over time. I learned that CM works best when it is established at the initiation of the project, where a baseline defining the project can be established and then compared to later project changes to insure that scope creep is not occurring. I worked on a project early in my career that ended two years late. I realize now that if we’d applied proper CM, all the problems encountered could have been prevented.

具有文档管理功能的CM系统可以为增加构建中数据分析的使用提供平台。可以使用情感分析（一种文本挖掘技术）来检查配置管理系统中包含的项目电子邮件和文档。情感分析确定了“不良”单词的出现，这些单词表明构建问题，例如“变更顺序”或“伤害”，并自动提醒经理使用他们的使用。这可以实时完成，因为文档和电子邮件流入CM系统。此外，聚类算法可以自动对电子邮件和文档主题进行分类。

还有许多其他类型的数据分析解决方案，例如数据可视化和文本可视化，可以应用于配置管理系统中捕获的文档。随着我们收集越来越多的数据并将其存储在文档存储库中，数据分析的应用将在建筑行业中增长，并可能比目前可用的更好地了解建筑项目问题。

建筑行业是关注适应ion of BIM, but CM tools are already available to help manage complex projects, and they will become more powerful as data analytics are incorporated in them. The use of CM in the construction industry has been sporadic. More construction companies should use CM to better control complex projects. It also befits the construction industry to become more familiar with data analytics to use its power to find new meaning in the data collected in CM systems.

威廉姆斯is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the construction management program at Rutgers University.