Modular and Offsite Construction (MOC) Summit Proceedings
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An holistic approach to product evaluation and selection in industrialised building: Benchmarking of long span, low carbon floor systems
Get PDFAs the construction industry shifts towards more systematised methods of designing and delivering buildings, data-informed approaches towards product development, evaluation, and selection promise to enable improved performance (structural, acoustic, fire, environmental), material efficiencies, and ease of production while maintaining the highest quality end result. This paper presents the outcomes of an applied research project that takes the first steps towards the development of a framework to guide holistic evaluation of product performance and future design efforts. Key outcomes of the research include: a systems matrix approach to (1) map the current product landscape, (2) select representative systems for benchmarking, and (3) to communicate relative performance; and a decision matrix used to illustrate the effect of varying priorities when selecting products for use in a building project
AWP for residential buildings to modular construction: A proposed framework
Get PDFThe demand on affording homes for the growing population in the world is noticeably increasing. This demand creates a high pressure to find solutions that can help in constructing quick and affordable shelters. In efforts to improve productivity, performance, and constructability of residential buildings, the direction toward modularity in construction is increasing. In order to gain the best benefits of modular systems in construction, these systems should be associated with project management practices. Among these practices, Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) is a construction driven planning tool that proved its value in improve the delivery and execution effectiveness in the oil and gas fields and currently is witnessing greater consideration in the construction industry. The current study aims to link the two concepts through proposing a framework to integrate AWP in residential modular construction. This article is also presenting an example about the possible way for this integration. The article also discusses the opportunity to improve productivity and installation costs due to the implementation of the proposed framework
Environment-aware worker trajectory prediction using surveillance camera on modular construction sites
Get PDFModular construction sites are often reported as one of the most hazardous workplaces where the complex environments can lead to near misses and life-threatening collisions. To avoid contact collisions and provide a safe workplace, forecasting workers\u27 trajectories on dynamic construction sites is demanding yet remains challenging. Existing approaches for trajectory prediction are mostly limited to only considering the objects moving information. In this paper, an environment-aware distance worker trajectory prediction model is designed to fully exploit the contextual information on construction sites. Incorporating the interactions among workers and distances between workers and static elements into the prediction model, the proposed approach offers a reliable prediction of worker positions. To further exploit the contextual cues, an environment-aware direction scheme taking directional information of the static elements into account is put forth. Extensive numerical tests on synthetic as well as modular construction datasets showcase the improved prediction performance of the proposed approaches in comparison to several state-of-the-art alternatives
Data-driven cycle time prediction of fitting and welding stations in steel fabrication
Get PDFThe construction industry\u27s lack of materials, resources, and financial assets streamlined a shift toward using digital lean principles to obtain precise management over the limited resources. Steel fabrication companies rely heavily upon the enormous equipment to get promising results. However, implementing lean principles in the fabrication process is not straightforward due to the non-repetitive nature of steel construction products. Hence, the time-based modeling for such a process lacks accuracy and reliability, especially for manual steel fabrication processes. Accordingly, the current study aims to achieve a practical and accurate estimation of fabrication time aspects. This study targets modeling manual steel fabrication processes (fitting and welding workstations) in terms of processing times (cycle time and value-added time). The proposed approach builds a machine learning (ML) model to estimate the identified processing time aspects. For performance assessment, the typical correlation analysis and linear regression (LR) approach was used as a benchmark to quantify the ML model\u27s pros and cons in terms of practicality and accuracy. The required data source for this study is a steel fabrication industry partner. The results of this study show ML superiority in accuracy over LR processing time predictive models, particularly when predictive parameters increase ML presents a 13.2 % improvement in mean squared error compared to the LR predictive model. LR models need fewer data and are not computationally expensive like ML models, making them more practical. Additionally, the study introduces a precise and practical time estimation approach. Such an approach provides precious input for simulation models which support evidence-based decisions and benefits quantification of plans
Operations management concepts applied to offsite construction
Get PDFThe Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry has been criticized for low productivity, lack of innovations, damage to the environment, lack of improvement. Several innovations have emerged to address these problems and, in this paper, the relationship between operations management (OM) and offsite construction will be discussed. The purpose of this paper is to present a proposal for the application of OM concepts in offsite construction. A research method based on the assumption that construction processes can be analyzed as production systems will be used. The resulting proposal consists of the exploration of potential applications, benefits, and barriers of OM in offsite construction based on the current experience of OM in manufacturing processes. A thorough discussion about the implications of this proposal in a project and supply chain levels are presented. The most important conclusions were related to the need for applying OM concepts in offsite construction projects and the need for more research in this direction to prove the proposed proposal
A proposed conceptual framework for Computational Design Sustainability in Industrialized Building
Get PDFThe construction industry has benefited from the recent methodological advancements in Computational Design (CD) and its associated technological developments. However, the multifaceted challenges faced by the construction industry have limited its capacity to achieve global sustainability goals. In this context, Industrialized Building (IB) has opened new avenues to take advantage of technology while promoting the incorporation of sustainability principles to mainstream construction problems. Despite its great potential, the literature in this area is fragmented, and the relationship between various aspects of these topics is not fully understood. This paper aims to bring awareness to the potential integration of IB and CD in promoting sustainability, thereby advancing the understanding of the topic by proposing this integration for future investigations and unravelling their relationships and underpinning ideas. The critical discussion presented in this paper proposes a common ground on which to build new knowledge in seeking to disclose conceptual patterns and links instead of specific causal mechanisms. We propose that this integration paves the way for creating a trade-off structure to manage these multifaceted and complex factors through "satisficing" – finding the satisfactory solutions rather than the optimized ones – the design, operation and delivery of a building project (and its construction value chain) in a more sustainable way
Keyword identification framework for speech communication on construction sites
Get PDFWorksite communication is a key to boosting teamwork and improving worker performance on the construction worksite. Communication among workers on the construction site mostly consists of speech communication. However, construction sites are typically noisy due to construction tasks like drilling and operation of heavy equipment. Meanwhile, workers on construction sites typically represent a range of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and have different speaking accents. This can make it difficult for the listener to understand the speaker clearly, leading to miscommunication and errors in decision making on the construction site. Technological advancements in recent years can be leveraged to mitigate this problem. In this paper, a keyword identification framework is developed for speech communication on the construction site. For this framework, 12 hours of raw audio data containing 18 crane signalman speech commands (referred to as “keywords”) are collected. The crane signalman uses specific keywords to communicate with the crane operator and guide the crane operator in the crane operations. The 2-second audio clips (this being the approximate duration of each keyword) are extracted from the raw audio dataset, and construction site noise is added. Moreover, mel-frequency cepstral coefficients are extracted from the waveform audio dataset. The extracted mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, in turn, are used to train the 1-dimensional convolutional neural network. After training, the model is found to achieve a training accuracy of 97.3%, a validation accuracy of 96.1%, and a testing accuracy of 93.8%. The model is further deployed for real-time identification of keywords in speech, with the model achieving an accuracy of 95.3%. In light of these findings, it can be concluded that the developed framework is suitable for real-time application in noisy construction sites for identifying specific keywords in speech
Using terrestrial laser scanning technology to assess the quality of prefabricated concrete modules
Get PDFThe main objective of this study was external facade deviation analyses applied to prefabricated off-site concrete modules. This article is decomposed into three main parts: the first part is dedicated to the introduction and to the research background. The second part explains and details the construction project, the off-site factory, the modules as well as the use of a terrestrial laser scanner. A Framework and a data acquisition layout are also exposed. The third part elaborates, in addition to the discussion and study limitations, the main key results which were obtained. The bulging effect on the bottom half of the modules can be explained by the fact that, the greater the quantity of concrete is poured, the more the inside pressure of the formwork increases, exposing the mould’s structure to additional deformations
Offsite Construction education adoption in Civil Engineering undergraduate curriculum: analysis and proposal
Get PDFOffsite construction (OSC) is not new globally yet is still not widespread in Civil Engineering (CE) programs. This study proposes strategies for implementing OSC education in a CE undergraduate program curriculum. The research method used was the exploratory field study. Data were collected from three online questionnaires sent to interested parties: OSC industry professionals, faculty members, and final-year students. Each questionnaire sought to answer a specific objective of this study: to identify the design and onsite assembly competencies demanded by the industry, identify the interfaces between OSC and the CE program curriculum and determine the level of confidence of final-year students in applying OSC competencies. The collected data analysis was qualitative and generated from a crossing of the data from the three questionnaires, which supported the proposition of hypotheses for the insertion of OSC teaching by identifying the needs, deficiencies, and difficulties the three interested parties presented. Findings suggest that the OSC competencies most demanded by the industry are about knowing how to detail the interfaces between the components and the parts of the construction site, guarantee the assembly of elements within the deadlines, or learning how to take safety measures against accidents during the construction site. Data also suggest that students are interested in the subject but graduate with little confidence in applying most of the design and onsite assembly competencies demanded by the industry. One of the few exceptions is the knowledge to take safety measures against accidents on the job site. As a result, two hypotheses were generated to adopt OSC teaching in a Civil Engineering program
Automated BIM-based CNC file generator for wood panel framing machines in construction manufacturing
Get PDFConstruction manufacturing companies are endeavoring to integrate new technologies and machinery automation throughout the various project phases in the ongoing shift away from traditional stick-built methods. The current practice in constructing manufacturing supports the integration of automated computer numerical control machines, which can undertake various operations and thereby reduce manual work. However, shop drawings need to be obtained from the building information model and imported to third-party software (such as computer-aided design / computer-aided manufacturing software) to generate the corresponding computer numerical control codes. This underscores the need for a fully automated solution for computer numerical control machines in construction manufacturing that reduces the reliance on third-party software, thereby reducing the time, effort, and cost otherwise spent on managing multiple software solutions. As such, the aim of this research is to develop a building information modelling-based automated tool to serve as a direct connection between the building information modelling environment and the automated machine. The tool facilitates the generation of a computer numerical control file directly from the building information model that will serve as an input to an automated wood-wall framing machine. For the wood framing machine under study, a set of rules was developed by which to generate the computer numerical control file directly from the building information model. This included developing an identification system for the main operations that can be performed by the machine and extracting information from the model that may be of relevance to the process. An add-on was then developed in Autodesk Revit to generate the computer numerical control file. The proposed methodology was validated by generating computer numerical control files using the developed add-on and inputting them to the machine. Using the generated computer numerical control files, the machine was found to be capable of properly performing the operations as planned