Mobile Computing in the Construction Industry: Main Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

Cloud computing (CC) enables users to access application remotely, providing mobility and ubiquitous data access; this would be an advantage in construction management. In addition, mobile cloud computing (MCC) enables mobile devices to augment constrained resources such as processing, storage, and battery autonomy by using the cloud infrastructure. This paper is aimed at proposing solutions to some of the main challenges of the construction sector by adopting mobile cloud services. A literature review was performed highlighting the potential benefits and risks in the implementation of CC, infrastructure and execution of MCC, and main challenges in the construction industry. The main benefits of adopting cloud-based resources are cost reduction, system mobility, system flexibility, and system maintenance. While the main risks are information security, privileged user access, regulatory compliance, data location, availability, and disaster recovery. In terms of execution, cloud-based mobile applications present mostly benefits since they enable users to execute ubiquitously high-performance operations in mobile devices. The review of the literature provided enough information for this paper to suggest solutions to some of the main challenges in the construction sector, namely: design, materials, finance, management, and knowledge. The solutions are mainly based on providing mobility, ubiquitous data access, and improved cross-functional communication.