Yang, Z; Yuan, Y; Zhang, M; Zhao, X and Tian, B (2019) Assessment of construction workers' labor intensity based on wearable smartphone system. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 145(7): 04019039, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Construction jobs are more labor intensive than other industrial jobs. Safety problems caused by overworked bodies are common, and the supervision of construction workers is always flawed. In China, piecework has long been the common way to evaluate workers' workloads, because it is always inconvenient to obtain direct indicators. To improve this situation, this paper proposes a method based on smartphone sensor acquisition and the concept of labor intensity to evaluate construction workers' workloads. A sensor application based on the smartphone platform was created to effectively measure labor intensity so that the application could track construction workers' movement data in an unobtrusive way. Moreover, preprocessing and a machine learning algorithm were used to classify 25 groups of experimental data. Then, the accuracy of the method was tested. It was shown that not only did the application meet the portability requirement, but its output also satisfied the accuracy requirement for supervising construction workers' activity. The research presented in this paper can help construction organizations promote the intelligent management level of monitoring workers' activity in real time and evaluating the workers' whole-day workload.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction management; construction safety; labor intensity; machine learning; smartphone sensors |
| Index terms: | monitoring, real time, construction worker, supervision, construction organization, platform, acquisition, construction safety, machine learning, China, movement, workload, accuracy |
| Subjects: | artificial intelligence, practitioner, control systems, health behaviours and lifestyles, business, organization, environmental health, project controls, Geography, professional development, digital design, management |
| Topics: | Human Resources, Digital Applications, Time Control, Site Management, Information Management, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Business Strategy, Sustainability, Roles and Professions |
| 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