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The Role of Smart Homes In The Journey Towards Net-Zero : A review
Get PDFAchieving net-zero requires an integrated approach to energy efficiency throughout a building’s life cycle. Energy consumption can be optimised and carbon emissions can be reduced when utilising smart technologies. This paper explores the role of smart home technology in achieving net-zero home goals, by synthesising existing literature on smart energy, user behaviour, and sustainable building strategies. A rapid evidence review is conducted to identify technologies that support net-zero through smart home systems. Key findings indicate that while smart homes can significantly contribute to reducing energy consumption and carbon footprints, challenges such as limited public awareness, data privacy concerns and policy barriers hinder their widespread adoption. The research demonstrates the need for further empirical studies on user engagement, cost-benefit models and policy frameworks to facilitate the integration of smart home technologies into decarbonising homes, therefore accelerating the transition to net-zero
Theoretical Framework for Risk Identification and Assessment in Infrastructure Projects Through AI-Knowledge Retrieval
Get PDFRobust risk identification and assessment strategies are required to reduce the likelihood of failures, delays, and cost overruns in today\u27s complex infrastructure projects. The inability to respond to changing risks and the delay in identifying and assessing risks are both caused by the reliance on static methods commonly used in traditional methods of knowledge retrieval and risk identification and assessment. This study lays out a theoretical framework for better risk identification and assessment through the use of an AI-powered knowledge retrieval. A variety of unstructured data sources, such as contract documents, risk logs, site inspection reports, and emails, are automatically analysed by the framework using AI algorithms. By enhancing efficiency and providing project team members with anticipated knowledge, this framework promotes robustness in infrastructure projects and allows for preventive decision-making. This framework also improves infrastructure projects\u27 ability to handle risk by laying the groundwork for AI integration into risk identification and assessment, filling in holes in current techniques
Analysis of Three Decades of Research in Road and Highway Work Zones Using Bibliometric Methods
Get PDFResearch in road and highway work zones has been continuously increasing since it is critical for maintaining traffic efficiency, reducing accident risks and minimising environmental impact during road maintenance, repair or upgrade. Road and highway work zones significantly impact safety due to traffic flow disruption, layout change and construction activities, which increase the likelihood of collisions, injuries and workers’ exposure to dangers. Despite the growing body of research, there is a lack of comprehensive bibliometric analysis that examines the historical, current and future trajectories of work zone research. This study analyzes 892 publications from 1990 to 2024, sourced from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Using the literature visualization tool CiteSpace, the study examines research hotspots, keyword clustering and keyword bursts in work zone studies. The results indicated an upward trend in the number of publications on work zones and research hotspots primarily focus on work zone modeling, optimization, traffic congestion, driver behavior and work zone safety. The results also showed the evolution of research in this area has undergone four distinct stages: foundational development, modeling and optimization, intelligent system and problem-oriented applications. Future research could focus on development of intelligent systems, environmental impact and sustainability, AI and data-driven methods and drivers’ and work zone workers’ safety
Mental Health in Construction 4.0: Enhancing Workplace Social Support Through Prefabrication
Get PDFThe construction industry faces persistent challenges in providing adequate workplace social support–a critical factor in protecting workers\u27 mental health. While the sector evolves toward Construction 4.0, with prefabrication emerging as a transformative method, limited research examines how these modern approaches impact workplace social support structures. This study aims to investigate how prefabrication work practices facilitate the development and enhancement of social support in construction. Using an ethnographic approach, research was conducted at a modular construction off-site factory in Melbourne, Australia. The study involved shadowing 12 office-based prefabrication professionals and factory-based supervisors over 21 days, non-participant observation of factory workers at the production line for 15 days, and interviews with five managers and nine supervisors and factory workers. The findings reveal that prefabrication work practices can enhance workplace social support through management, supervisory, and collegial mechanisms. The centralised facility and structured work processes in prefabrication enable stronger management support by facilitating flexible work arrangements, career development opportunities, and direct access to management. Additionally, the process-focused supervision within the centralised workplace fosters consistent and immediate supervisory support through regular interactions, efficient mentoring, and streamlined team management. Interdependent production processes and daily interactions further promote collaborative work relationships, reinforcing positive collegial support networks. These insights deepen our understanding of how the construction industry can enhance social support systems and highlight prefabrication’s potential to improve workers\u27 mental health and well-being as the industry transitions into the Construction 4.0 era and beyond
Advancing Off-Site Construction: Assessing Organizational Maturity and Capabilities in the Canadian Construction Industry
Get PDFThe construction industry, despite being a vital sector for societal growth, has struggled to match the accelerated growth seen in other peer industries. Over the past two decades, productivity within construction has remained stagnant, posing challenges to meeting societal demands and sustainability targets. Recognizing the potential of digitalization to revolutionize construction processes, this research addresses the critical need to assess and benchmark organizational maturity and capabilities in the Canadian construction industry, particularly in the context of off-site construction methodologies. This research project aims to establish a comprehensive method for assessing organizational capabilities related to off-site construction, thereby providing insights into current capacities and offering guidance for industry stakeholders to embrace advanced technologies and practices. Building upon an established international framework, the project evaluates organizational maturity across dimensions of people, process, and technology. By focusing on phases of design, manufacturing, and construction, the project will provide a nuanced understanding of the construction industry\u27s readiness for off-site construction adoption. The project provides a conceptual framework to enable construction companies to evaluate their maturity levels relative to industry peers, considering factors such as geography, size, and organizational type. By facilitating this benchmarking process, the research fosters a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the Canadian construction industry. Ultimately, the findings of this research will contribute to the advancement of off-site construction practices, enhancing productivity, sustainability, and overall industry performance
Exploring the evolution of digital transformation for construction enterprises: An entropy-NK approach
Get PDFDigital transformation (DT) has become a key driving force in the development of various industries. The construction industry has also begun to explore and practice DT, with the aim of achieving industry development through technological innovation. However, the existing application of digital technology in the construction industry is mainly limited to certain aspects and functions of project production and enterprise management. This fragmented use is insufficient to meet the construction industry’s needs for holistic business process collaboration and systemic transformation. The lack of an effective method to assess the DT status of construction enterprises from a systemic perspective — helping them in identifying key transformation elements and uncovering patterns in DT evolution — has become a major factor limiting the construction industry’s DT. In addressing this gap, this study applies the theory of complex adaptive system to extensively analyse the behavioral data of the entire DT process of construction enterprises. This study develops an entropy-NK analytical method for evaluating the DT capabilities and evolution process for construction enterprises, uncovering the patterns and characteristics of DT in construction enterprises. A total of 112 Chinese list construction companies’ data from 2020 to 2022 are used as a muti-case study to conduct DT capability evaluations and evolutionary analysis, verifying the feasibility of the proposed analytical methods. This study provides a scientific evaluation system for measuring the DT capabilities, revealing the evolution patterns of DT in construction enterprises, offering empirical evidence and a decision-making basis for enterprises to formulate specific DT strategies and for governments to develop the corresponding policy frameworks
Circular Renovation of Urban Infrastructures: A Multi-Project Perspective
Get PDFThe construction sector is a significant contributor to global waste. With growing concerns about sustainability, adopting circularity in construction projects has become increasingly important. The urban infrastructure sector has characteristics that present valuable opportunities for circularity. This research explores these opportunities by focusing on the renovation of urban infrastructure components through a multi-project perspective. This innovative approach in the field of circular economy reveals new possibilities for material reuse by integrating material flows across multiple projects. By identifying the supply and demand of secondary materials, designers can incorporate them during the redesign phase. Additionally, the synchronization of project phases can be optimized in advance, as material donors and receivers are pre-determined. This research contributes to the field of circular renovation in construction. Project planners, municipalities, designers, contractors, and other stakeholders involved in the renovation process can leverage this novel approach to enhance the circularity and sustainability of their projects. The outcomes of this research can therefore contribute to the goal 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 9 (industries, innovation and infrastructure) of sustainable development goals. This paper presents the initial results and outcomes of a PhD journey. The methods and results will be demonstrated in later studies
Implementing Lean Construction for Sustainable Project Delivery: Enhancing Efficiency to Meet the UN SDGs
Get PDFThe construction industry is under increasing pressure to deliver cost-effective, environmentally sustainable projects. Lean Construction (LC) provides a framework for improving efficiency by minimizing waste and optimizing resource use, making it well-aligned with global sustainability goals such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). This paper explores the strategic application of LC principles to promote sustainable practices throughout the construction lifecycle. By reviewing LC\u27s alignment with the SDGs, we propose a framework for integrating Lean practices to enhance environmental, social, and economic outcomes. The paper highlights how LC contributes to goals such as climate action, resource efficiency, and sustainable cities. Additionally, case studies and best practices are analyzed to demonstrate successful implementations, offering valuable insights for construction professionals seeking to balance efficiency with sustainability
QMQA: An intelligent question answering method for quality management of prefabricated buildings based on knowledge graph
No full textQuality compliance inspection is an essential procedure to enhancing the quality of prefabricated buildings. However, the current method for extracting specific legal compliance from regulatory texts is a both time-consuming and knowledge-intensive process. Aiming at the problem of insufficient knowledge service in this field, this paper proposes an intelligent question answering method for quality management of prefabricated buildings based on knowledge graph (QMQA). This method introduces a novel neural network model that integrates BERT with an attention based-bidirectional long short term memory network (AB-BiLSTM). First, a fine-tuned BERT model is used to analyze unstructured text and assign specific semantic tags to each segment. Then, based on the position and frequency of these semantic tags within the sentence, AB-BiLSTM automatically assigns appropriate templates to domain-specific questions, extracting the relevant semantic elements. Finally, this method enables the automatic generation of Cypher, the query language for graph databases. The method is validated using the knowledge graph developed from the Jiangsu Prefabricated Structural Engineering Construction Quality Acceptance Regulations in China. Results demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits outstanding performance, with the model achieving an accuracy of 95.2%. Additionally, this paper has developed a QMQA prototype system that includes functions for quality diagnosis and inspection inquiries. This paper presents a method for rapid quality diagnosis and timely question-answering responses, addressing a critical gap in this field and contributing to the improvement of quality management in prefabricated buildings
Evaluating and prioritising causal factors that led to the liquidation of Major Construction Companies in South Africa
Get PDFThe construction industry is labour intensive by nature and, therefore the highest contributor to employment, (Fakunle and Fashina, 2020), it also brings dignity to society by providing housing infrastructure, (Ejohwomu et al, 2021), and it is an industry recognised for its contribution to the gross domestic product. However, major construction companies within the South African context have been liquidated which could be as a result of numerous factors. The aim of the study is to determine the primary causal factors of major construction company liquidation in South Africa.The study employs a qualitative methodology wherein semi-structured interviews were used as a data collection method utilising five case studies with eleven respondents who held executive management positions and were involved in the liquidation process of such companies.The key findings indicate that the non-profitability of contracts, late and non-payments, and rapid growth and expansion of companies through acquisitions primarily had a major impact on the liquidation of major construction companies within South Africa. Other factors of significance include the participation of construction companies in the high-risk design and build contracts, heavy overhead structure, and underbidding. The outcome of the research can be utilised as a key tool for the construction industry major companies to gauge their readiness and preparedness against the current threats and ultimately build resilience. The identification of these potential threats to the well-being of the construction industry will form the basis of future research directed at achieving mitigation measures towards the identified factor