CMA
2 provides a single website where construction management professionals can access training, best practices, and construction management articles to guide their work in the field.
“Our teammates in the field told us they had to spend hours searching multiple websites to find the construction management information they needed for their jobs,” said Jacquelyn Henderson, USACE Headquarters Senior Construction Engineer.
“Even after finding the documents, they couldn’t be sure they found the most recent USACE guidance,” Henderson added. “We developed CMA² tobring them a single point of access for validated information.”
Artificial Intelligence’s Role
To build CMA²’s repository of process resources, the Construction Management Innovation team first needed to identify vetted construction management training and reference documents. After assembling these resources, the team found they had more than a thousand documents to wade through.
“We knew that we had all these disparate information sources,” Henderson said. “We also knew that if we were going to tackle CMA², we did not have the human resources to do it efficiently. So, we leveraged our relationship with ERDC to develop JAQI [Jobsite-Assisted Quality Intelligence].”
According to George “Eddie” Gallarno, an ERDC research analyst who helped develop the tool alongside computer scientist Jaylen Hopson, JAQI is a large-language AI model. This means JAQI can sort through high volumes of information and respond to queries within minutes with a written answer that feels natural to readers. Each query response within JAQI returns source document references so that subject matter experts can quickly review the output.
CMIO staff used JAQI to quickly identify relevant documents about key construction management topics like quality verification or Federal Acquisition Regulations. Staff then use JAQI’s written response and the referenced source documents to write easy-to-read articles that construction management professionals can quickly reference. The articles are housed on CMA², with the source documents included as hyperlinks.
"The AI-powered JAQI tool has saved the CMA² team hundreds of hours of sifting through USACE documents,” said John Travis, a USACE program manager who helped develop CMA². “We were able to really harness the power of AI to efficiently research article topics, giving us a great head start with relevant, accurate, and referenced information. For every batch of CMA² articles, what could have been a months-long development process took just weeks.”
The Construction Management Innovation team showcased the JAQI tool in Kansas City, Missouri at the Construction Management Community of Practice workshop on April 9 – 11.
There, construction management professionals from around the world entered in queries like “excavation safety measures” and “Testing requirements for self-compacting concrete”.
Yukon Curtis, a construction control representative, watched in surprise as JAQI generated a thorough, paragraphs-long response to his query on testing self-compacting concrete.
“I was amazed how quick and efficient it was,” Curtis said. “I think this is going to be hugely beneficial.”
The CM Innovation team is currently focused on using JAQI to build out a comprehensive CM body of knowledge. These articles may form the basis for a future large language model that field staff can query for quick answers and links to relevant articles within CMA².
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Construction Management Innovation Office (CMIO) continues to look for ways to streamline and revolutionize proactive knowledge and process management for construction management professionals. Recently, the CMIO teamed up with the U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently create content within the new Construction Management Administration Application (CMA²).
About the CMIO
The CMIO is charged with establishing a culture of construction management (CM) innovation within USACE, raising the standard of USACE CM practices through the project lifecycle, and getting the latest technology from industry and the research lab into practical use by USACE construction project delivery teams. Innovation projects and initiatives span the construction project delivery lifecycle from project inception through planning, design, acquisition, construction execution, turnover, and warranty phases.