Abstract
Background: A site layout plan is one of the important decisions to be made in the planning phase of each construction project as it can significantly impact on-site transportation, construction logistics, and safety. This decision could be complicated owing to the uncertainties inherent in construction projects and the complex relationships between the influencing factors and decision variables. Methods: To improve site layout planning, this study aims to develop a simulation-based decision support tool (DST) that enables planners to consider the following: (1) construction uncertainties, (2) construction resources (i.e., material, equipment, and workers), (3) site layout constraints, and (4) mutual impacts between site layout and construction plan variables, for site layout planning of construction projects. Results: The developed DST visualizes the site layout plan within a simulation environment and provides seamless interactions between the site layout model and the simulation model. These capabilities facilitate planning construction site layout using simulation by establishing two-way information flows between the site layout and simulation components, which can further promote application of simulation in construction site layout planning. Usefulness and practicality of the proposed DST is demonstrated in site layout planning of a steel erection project. Conclusions: Using this DST can reduce some common wastes in construction projects and the cost associated with them, including on-site transportation, material handling and storage, and waiting time for the material arrival.
Highlights
Construction site layout, which includes the information pertinent to the geometry of the site along with the sizes and locations of temporary facilities, is one of the decision variables that influences on-site transportation, logistics, and safety
This decision could reduce the need for material storage and reduce the correspondent costs, but at the same time, it increases the risk of material stock-out, which can reduce the production rate because of increasing waiting time for material arrival, and increase the construction operation costs
This paper outlined the development of a simple-to-use decision support tool (DST) that creates and visualizes the site layout plan within a simulation environment, thereby facilitating integration of the site layout components with the simulation components provided by accessing the properties of the facilities through predefined elements and simple programming codes
Summary
Construction site layout, which includes the information pertinent to the geometry of the site along with the sizes and locations of temporary facilities, is one of the decision variables that influences on-site transportation, logistics, and safety. For some facilities, such as material storage facilities, size can have a significant impact on the project, for projects with congested sites, where the planner may not be able to provide sufficient space for all facilities. Conclusions: Using this DST can reduce some common wastes in construction projects and the cost associated with them, including on-site transportation, material handling and storage, and waiting time for the material arrival
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