THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY'S EFFORTS TOWARD COMPUTERIZATION OF BUILDING SPECIFICATIONS AND THE TECHNICAL DATA HAVE MADE A HUGE VOLUME OF INFORMATION MORE MANAGEABLE AND EASIER TO USE.

THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY'S EFFORTS TOWARD COMPUTERIZATION OF BUILDING SPECIFICATIONS AND THE TECHNICAL DATA HAVE MADE A HUGE VOLUME OF INFORMATION MORE MANAGEABLE AND EASIER TO USE. THE DESIGN PROFESSION WOULD BENEFIT FROM A SIMILAR ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP SOME CONSISTENCY AMONG THESE SPECIFICATIONS AND THEIR LEGAL COUNTERPARTS, THE MODEL BUILDING CODES. DEVELOPMENT OF A PRELIMINARY KEY WORD INDEX/THESAURUS FOR CODE SEARCHES WOULD BE A TOOL FOR PROMOTION OF CONSISTENT CODE INTERPRETATION AND DEVELOPMENT, AND IS THE MAIN COMPONENT OF THIS RESEARCH EFFORT. THE PROJECT REQUIRES THE COMBINATION OF TWO AREAS OF INTEREST: ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH AND COMPUTER EXPERTISE. THEREFORE, "BISON CORPORATION" AND "COMPUTER SYSTEMS RESOURCE", TWO SMALL BUSINESSES, ARE WORKING TOGETHER TO INVESTIGATE COMPUTER APPLICATIONS OF THE MODEL BUILDING CODES. PHASE I WILL BE A PILOT PROJECT AND WILL CONSIST OF SIX PARTS: PRELIMINARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT; DEVELOPMENT OF A THESAURUS FOR LANGUAGE CONSISTENCY; DEVELOPMENT OF A DATA BASE; TEST PROJECTS; TECHNICAL REVIEW PANEL; AND FUTURE PLAN DEVELOPMENT. PHASE II WILL BE ADJUSTED IN SCOPE TO INCLUDE ADDITIONAL CROSS-INDEXING OF MODEL CODES AND AN EXPANDED THESAURUS.