Modeling Of Construction Operations Research Articles

Chronographical Site-Spatial-Temporal Modeling of Construction Operations

Resource management, regardless of the work location, is inefficient and can sometimes lead to a misleading schedule. Resources cannot be used, even if available, beyond the capacity of workplaces. Otherwise, congestion of workspaces will negatively affect the movement of people and materials and may reduce the productivity at construction sites. Traditional planning methods focus on tasks and constraints; thus, they are difficult to adapt to model spaces on a construction site. The main goal of this research is to model the progress of construction operations to ensure linear planning and facilitate the monitoring of the project site. The aim is to link the site plan and operation with the temporal aspects. This will ensure suitable rotation of the workforce among different spaces. The dynamic representation of the occupancy rate of the construction site will ensure a good balance of the use of spaces throughout the project. The paper gives an example that applies three modelling approaches—namely, site-spatial-temporal modeling, Chrono-Allocation, and Chrono-Location—and explains the Chronographical scheduling modeling process. The site-spatial-temporal modeling of the construction operations presented in this paper belongs to the Chronographic modeling family. It presents the implementation of the schedule on the project site plan.

Achievements and challenges in audio-based modeling of construction job sites

Construction job-sites are noisy workplaces and construction equipment and machines create discrete sound patterns while performing their daily operations. Construction engineers usually considered job site noise as a negative phenomenon, but if processed properly, the generated sound patterns could be used as a rich source of information for analyzing ongoing operations at job-sites. This paper presents the current research efforts of the authors regarding initiating and developing an audio-based model for analysis and modeling of construction operations. The audio-based model is based on placing single or multiple microphones at the jobsite, recording the developed sounds patterns, and using various techniques for processing the recorded audio files and detecting and recognizing different operations taking place at the jobsite. The implemented techniques include noise removal and signal enhancement, source separation, signal processing and machine learning algorithms. The paper also discusses about the necessary hardware settings (number, type and locations of microphones). The results of using the proposed system can be used by construction managers for several purposes including productivity analysis, project scheduling, differentiating between idle and active times of machine, etc. The authors also present several case studies from construction job sites to illustrate how the system works in real world settings.