Taneja, S; Akinci, B; Garrett, J H; Soibelman, L; Ergen, E; Pradhan, A; Tang, P; Berges, M; Atasoy, G; Liu, X; Shahandashti, S M and Anil, E B (2011) Sensing and field data capture for construction and facility operations. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 137, pp. 870-881. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Collection of accurate, complete, and reliable field data is not only essential for active management of construction projects involving various tasks, such as material tracking, progress monitoring, and quality assurance, but also for facility and infrastructure management during the service lives of facilities and infrastructure systems. Limitations of current manual data collection approaches in terms of speed, completeness, and accuracy render these approaches ineffective for decision support in highly dynamic environments, such as construction and facility operations. Hence, a need exists to leverage the advancements in automated field data capture technologies to support decisions during construction and facility operations. These technologies can be used not only for acquiring data about the various operations being carried out at construction and facility sites but also for gathering information about the context surrounding these operations and monitoring the workflow of activities during these operations. With this, it is possible for project and facility managers to better understand the effect of environmental conditions on construction and facility operations and also to identify inefficient processes in these operations. This paper presents an overview of the various applications of automated field data capture technologies in construction and facility fieldwork. These technologies include image capture technologies, such as laser scanners and video cameras; automated identification technologies, such as barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags; tracking technologies, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and wireless local area network (LAN); and process monitoring technologies, such as on-board instruments (OBI). The authors observe that although applications exist for capturing construction and facility fieldwork data, these technologies have been underutilized for capturing the context at the fieldwork sites as well as for monitoring the workflow of construction and facility operations.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | automated data capture technologies; facility management; field operations |
| Index terms: | monitoring, manager, quality assurance, progress monitoring, infrastructure management, radio frequency identification, decision support, construction project, environmental conditions, accuracy, workflow |
| Subjects: | quality assurance, decision analysis, practitioner, project controls, digital technology, infrastructure engineering, management, professional development, control systems, production management, environmental science |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Risk Management, Roles and Professions, Sustainability, Engineering Principles, Information Management, Project Management, Time Control, Business Strategy, Site Management, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here