Smart concrete transportation in semi-automated construction sites

Abstract

Recently, applying industry 4.0 (I4.0) concepts was a top priority for many companies. Enterprises seek to invest more resources on research like Internet of things (IoT) technology to improve industrial process and to satisfy goals of stakeholders. I4.0 uses the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to make industrial process more intelligent, reliable, and fixable. IoT is a network of devices that uses a smart set of sensors to monitor the industrial aspects of the industrial process, and collect massive amounts of data about it for further processing. Big data analytic is used to process such data to enable predictive dynamic system adjustment for a more optimized industrial process. Smart cities encompass many IoT solutions. Traffic engineers used IoT devices to sense traffic status. Weather stations uses IoT to detect temperature, pressure, etc.In this paper, we present a novel I4.0 solution to exploit IoT networks integrated with semi-automated construction sites. There are two categories of concrete manufacturing process problems: Problems with concrete mix and problems with concrete transportation. We focus on concrete transportation problems like solidification occurring due to concrete transportation delays as a result of unexpected traffic, and weather conditions. We introduce a solution for these problems using IoT technology to automate transportation process. The presented solution enables the application of optimization mechanisms to enhance the concrete-industry quality of service. We using linear programming implemented in matlab for simulation, Results showed that enabling inter IoT systems cooperation in I4.0 can enhance the system efficiency and cost effectiveness.