Abstract
ABSTRACTWorker productivity is a major concern for the construction industry. Many studies assessed the effect of various factors, such as the work environment and worker health, on productivity. Nevertheless, the extent to which an automatic productive assessment can benefit from wearable electronic-based sensor technologies for physiological and psychological tracking purposes has not yet been fully investigated. This work assesses the ability of capturing the effect of construction workers’ happiness on their productivity using physiological signals collected via wearable sensors. Data from both a traditional tracking process (human annotators) and an automated worker physiological signal tracking process that was designed for the purposes of this study were compiled. By considering the traditional tracking process as the baseline for the comparison, this study evaluated the effectiveness of automating happiness tracking as a leading indicator of construction workers’ productivity. The physiological signal data collected included blood volume pulse (BVP), respiration rate (RR), heart rate (HR), galvanic skin response (GSR), and skin temperature (TEMP). These data were obtained from a 4-day field study conducted at a pre-fabricated stone construction factory. The study concluded that a moderate positive correlation exists between a worker’s emotional status and his productivity exists, with a p-value = 5.5 × 10–8 and a Pearson’s coefficient of 0.43.
Highlights
The financial development and strategic growth of many developed countries rely heavily on the construction industry
For that we examine two main issues: 1) the ability to detect labour real-time emotions from physiological signals collected through wearable sensors using machine learning classifiers, and 2) the significance of the detected emotions to be included as one of the variables for predicting productivity in a multi-variate regression model
We demonstrated the key role that emotion plays in construction labor productivity and examined this empirically
Summary
The financial development and strategic growth of many developed countries rely heavily on the construction industry. With a close inspection of these studies, we found that the majority (if not all) list the procedural aspects of the projects or the execution aspects, such as absenteeism, skills and experience, lack of finances, inspection delay, and incomplete drawings, as the main contributing factors (as described in Porntepkasemsant and Charoenpornpattana) (Porntepkasemsant and Charoen pornpattana 2015). Apart from these factors, the emotional health of the worker is an important contributor to the productivity of the worker (Hwang et al 2018). Despite the importance of these factors, these authors argue that those studies unintentionally ignored the role of the worker’s emotional and psychological well-being in his efficiency and productivity
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