Construction automation has shown the potential to increase construction productivity after years of technical development and experimenting in its field. Exactly how, and the possible benefits and ...challenges of construction automation, though is unclear and missing from current research efforts. In order to better understand the comprehensive potential of construction automation for increasing construction productivity and the associated possible ramifications, an objective and data-driven review of the use of automation technologies in construction was done. The review was accomplished by using text mining methods on publically available written documents, covering a wide range of relevant data including scientific publications and social media. The text mining software VOS Viewer and RapidMiner Studio were used to determine the most promising areas of research through the analysis of scientific publications, and the main areas of concern of industry through the analysis of text on social media, respectively. These research areas and concerns are summarized in this paper, and based on them suggestions for industry are made to help advance the uptake of automation in construction.
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•Text mining provides an unbiased way to review the trends in construction automation.•Both social media and scientific publications are systematically analyzed.•Text mining provides clusters and association patterns for better interpretation.•Suggestions are provided to address benefits and challenges of implementation of automation.•Industry and academic efforts are aligned to advance construction automation.
Although automation has been actively and successfully used in different industries since the 1970s, its application to the construction industry is still rare or not fully exploited. In order to ...help provide the construction industry with an additional incentive to adopt more automation, an investigation was undertaken to assess the effects of digital fabrication (dfab) on productivity by analyzing the cost and time required for the construction of a robotically-fabricated complex concrete wall onsite. After defining the different tasks for the conventional and robotically fabricated concrete wall, data was collected from different sources and used in a simulation to describe the distribution of time and cost for the different construction scenarios. In the example, it was found that productivity is higher when the robotic construction method is used for complex walls, indicating that it is possible to obtain significant economic benefit from the use of additive dfab to construct complex structures. Further research is required to assess the social impacts of using dfab.
•Digital fabrication (dfab) has great potential to advance the construction industry.•Productivity is higher when dfab is used for complex structures.•No additional cost from robotic fabrication if the complexity of the wall increases•Dfab will transform current roles in the planning and execution of projects.•Further research is required to assess the social impacts of dfab.
Introduction: In pursuit of sustainability goals, many cities are introducing measures to increase the usage of bicycles as a means of transportation. City planners aim to ensure that this increase ...does not lead to an increase in crashes, but must make corresponding infrastructure decisions with limited information. Sufficient data to perform a statistical analysis of location-specific crash frequencies is rarely available. For example, only approximately 10% of all bicycle crashes are reported to the police (Shinar et al., 2018). Therefore, urban planners often rely on expert opinion, which may lead to suboptimal prioritization and realization of infrastructure improvements. Method: This paper demonstrates how surveys on bicycle crashes can be used to aid urban planners in making infrastructure decisions. In addition to confirming the location and characteristics of reported crashes, surveys can uncover characteristics of crashes that are not reported to the police, situations in which a crash almost occurred, and locations perceived by cyclists to be dangerous. Surveys also allow urban planners to investigate non-infrastructure related causes of crashes, such as the frequency with which individual cyclists use other modes of transportation. Practical Applications: The usefulness of surveys in the determination of urban cycling safety is demonstrated in this paper through analysis of survey results from the city of Zurich in 2018.
Disruptive events, such as earthquakes, floods, and landslides, may disrupt the service provided by transportation networks on a vast scale, as their occurrence is likely to cause multiple objects to ...fail simultaneously. The restoration program following a disruptive event should restore service as much, and as fast, as possible. The estimation of risk due to natural hazards must take into consideration the resilience of the network, which requires estimating the restoration program as accurately as possible. In this article, a restoration model using simulated annealing is formulated to determine near‐optimal restoration programs following the occurrence of hazard events. The objective function of the model is to minimize the costs, taking into consideration the direct costs of executing the physical interventions, and the indirect costs that are being incurred due to the inadequate service being provided by the network. The constraints of the model are annual and total budget constraints, annual and total resource constraints, and the specification of the number and type of interventions to be executed within a given time period. The restoration model is demonstrated by using it to determine the near‐optimal restoration program for an example road network in Switzerland following the occurrence of an extreme flood event. The strengths and weaknesses of the restoration model are discussed, and an outlook for future work is given.
Accurate as-built information is required to operate, maintain, and adapt existing buildings. Scan-to-BIM has become a feasible approach for collecting and modelling 3D as-built information and has ...three phases: (1) scanning, (2) registration, and (3) modelling. This paper focuses on the modelling phase, which can currently be conducted either manually or semi-automatically. As-built conditions of a building are surveyed, and the geometry is modeled in a series of modelling scenarios. For each trial, geometric dimensions of the BIMs are compared to ground truth dimensions. This paper assesses the impact of levels of automation and modeller training on the accuracy and precision of generated BIMs. Quantitative models are developed for modelling scenarios using empirical datasets. Lastly, the impacts of degrees of accuracy are discussed. This study provides insight into the dimensional certainty of BIMs generated by Scan-to-BIM and helps decision-makers assess the risk of decisions made based on this information.
•Accuracy and precision of scan-to-BIM is investigated for manual vs. automated techniques•Quantitative models are used to estimate the level of dimensional certainty for generated BIMs•Modeller training (i.e., standardizing the modelling approach) can improve accuracy by up to 260%•Primary building objects (e.g., walls) can yield larger errors in scan-to-BIM than for secondary objects (e.g., pipes)•The industry needs a unified system for certifying the level of accuracy in scan-to-BIM
Purpose
Building information modelling (BIM) and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies have been extensively explored to improve supply chain visibility and coordination of material flow ...processes, particularly in the pursuit of Industry 4.0. It remains challenging, however, to effectively use these technologies to enable the precise and reliable coordination of material flow processes. This paper aims to propose a new workflow designed to include the use of detailed look-ahead plans when using BIM and RFID technologies, which can accurately track and match both the dynamic site needs and supply status of materials.
Design/methodology/approach
The new workflow is designed according to lean theory and is modeled using business process modeling notation. To digitally support the workflow, an integrated BIM-RFID database system is constructed that links information on material demands with look-ahead plans. The new workflow is then used to manage material flows in the erection of an office building with prefabricated columns. The performance of the new workflow is compared with that of a traditional workflow, using discrete event simulations. The input for the simulations was derived from expert opinion in semi-structured interviews.
Findings
The new workflow enables contractors to better observe on-site status and differences between the actual and planned material requirements, as well as to alert suppliers if necessary. The simulation results indicate that the new workflow has the potential to reduce the duration of the material flow processes by 16.1% compared with the traditional workflow.
Research limitations/implications
The new workflow is illustrated using a real-world-like situation with input data based on expert opinion. Although the workflow shows potential, it should be tested on a real-world site.
Practical implications
The new workflow allows project participants to combine detailed near-term look-ahead plans with BIM and RFID technologies to better manage material flow processes. It is particularly useful for the management of engineer-to-order components considering the dynamic site progress.
Originality/value
The research improves on existing research focused on using BIM and RFID technologies to improve material flow processes by showing how the workflow can be adapted to use detailed look-ahead plans. It reinforces data-driven construction material management practices through improved visibility and reliability in planning and control of material flow processes.