Enhancing Control of Engineering Worker-hours Using Semantic Analysis Model

Abstract

An engineering firm requires a decent coding system to generate worker-hour accounts in which worker-hours spent on various engineering jobs are categorized. However, most engineering firms use a project number to group worker-hour data, providing little information of value to management. This work develops an enhanced work-time coding system that links worker-hours with engineering deliverables and expertise to support the estimation of costs and the allocation of staff engineers in current and future projects. An innovative semantic analysis model is proposed to evaluate the performance of a coding system, in terms of the completeness of the information it supports, the appropriateness of the information structure, the meaningfulness of coding, and the efficiency of wording. This work also provides in-depth information about coding systems that are currently used by five major engineering firms in Taiwan. A case study of the proposed coding system, including practitioners' feedback, is provided. Finally, the six-step methodology used herein can be utilized to improve other coding systems.

Keywords

• Engineering firms
• Eengineering work
• Ssemantic analysis
• Wworker-hours
• Ttime sheets
• Iinformation classification