Smart Construction: Remote and Adaptable Management of Construction Sites through IoT

Abstract

Construction sites for large civil engineering projects consist of very different workflows, depending on the size and type of the project (e.g., highway construction). Managing and coordinating such complex projects is a difficult task. Lack of proper digital and reliable data makes the near permanent physical presence of a project manager necessary. But even on site, they have to rely on manual and slow reporting ad hoc information gathering processes. In this article, we report our experience in using Smart Construction, an Internet of Things cloud-based platform for large civil engineering projects. The platform allows project managers to remotely manage multiple construction sites in different locations at the same time and promptly intervene to adapt their operation according to real-time data analytics results. We performed two experiments on real construction sites to collect real world data by using the platform under realistic conditions.We discuss the challenges that we encountered and the results of the performed data analysis.