Current benefits and future possibilities with digital field reporting

Abstract

Mobile phones and tablets enable contractors to digitally collect large amounts of production remarks and facilitate the acquisition. The increased data access and machine learning techniques allow the construction industry to take a significant step forward in shifting from implicit to explicit knowledge. However, this step requires both standardisation and data quality assurance combined with project incitements ensuring continuous data collection. Therefore, this study examines the current data quality and standardisation of inspection data generated using the production software Dalux Field, mining a dataset of more than 95000 production issues. Additionally, a survey of production software users assesses project and project member benefits and future possibilities with digital inspection reporting. The results show considerable benefits with digital inspection reporting, such as time savings, cost reductions and increased general quality control. However, the standardisation in reporting between projects and team members is low. Finally, this paper suggests methods for improving data quality and standardization for automation of the data analysis, allowing new projects in project-based organisations to benefit from previous project experiences.