•We match core OR-problems with construction industry-specific models.•The literature is categorized; problems and applied techniques are briefly described.•Shortcomings regarding descriptions, techniques, computational tests are identified.•Future research topics including both models and solution techniques are suggested. Quantitative methods and techniques from operations research (OR) are well-accepted in many industries, e.g. the manufacturing industry or the transportation industry. Similarly, numerous applications in the field of construction can be found in the academic literature. This paper gives an extensive overview on a number of popular fields where OR methods are applied in the construction industry. These fields comprise layout and location planning for construction facilities, scheduling of construction projects and problems related to construction cranes. While the first two topics relate to traditional problems in the field of OR, the latter one is motivated mainly by the construction industry. In either case, this review presents a survey of papers in the scientific literature. Each paper is categorized and problem setting as well as techniques applied are briefly described.