A systematic approach for monitoring and evaluating the construction project progress

A persistent problem in construction is to document changes which occur in the field and to prepare the as-built schedule. In current practice, deviations from planned performance can only be reported after significant time has elapsed and manual monitoring of the construction activities are costly and error prone. Availability of advanced portable computing, multimedia and wireless communication allows, even encourages fundamental changes in many jobsite processes. However a recent investigation indicated that there is a lack of systematic and automated evaluation and monitoring in construction projects. The aim of this study is to identifytechniques that can be used in the construction industry for monitoring and evaluating the physical progress, and also to establish how current computer technology can be utilised for monitoring the actual physical progress at the construction site. This study discusses the results of questionnaire survey conducted within Malaysian Construction Industry and suggests a prototype system, namely Digitalising Construction Monitoring (DCM). DCM prototype system integrates the information from construction drawings, digital images of construction site progress and planned schedule of work. Using emerging technologies and information system the DCM re-engineer the traditional practice for monitoring the project progress. This system can automatically interpret CAD drawings of buildings and extract data on its structural components and store in database. It can also extract the engineering information from digital images and when these two databases are simulated the percentage of progress can be calculated and viewed in Microsoft Project automatically. The application of DCM system for monitoring the project progress enables project management teams to better track and controls the productivity and quality of construction projects. The use of the DCM can help resident engineer, construction manager and site engineer in monitoring and evaluating project performance. This model will improve decision-making process and provides better mechanism for advanced project management

Composite Indicators measuring the progress in the construction and integration of a European Research Area

This report is the deliverable of the first work package (WP1) of the feasibility study entitled: ‘ERA monitoring: Composite Indicators measuring the progress in the construction and integration of a European Research Area’, financed by DG RTD. For this deliverable we developed a composite indicator to measure progress in the construction and integration of a European Research Area (ERA). The indicators required for this study and the theoretical framework have been drawn and adapted using the headline indicators proposed by the expert group report on ‘ERA indicators and monitoring’ 2009 EUR 24171 EN. The report combines economic and statistical expertise and presents a comprehensive and flexible framework for an evidence-based monitoring of progress towards the European Research Area.JRC.G.3-Econometrics and applied statistic

The preliminary design of a wearable computer for supporting Construction Progress Monitoring

Progress monitoring has become more and more important as owners have increasingly demanded shorter times for the delivery of their projects. This trend is even more evident in high technology industries, such as the computer industry and the chemical industry. Fast changing markets, such as the computer industry, force companies to have to build new facilities quickly. To make a statement about construction progress, the status of a building has to be determined and monitored over a period of time. Depicting the construction progress in a diagram over time, statements can be made about the anticipated completion of the project and delays and problems in certain areas. Having this information, measures can be taken to efficiently >catch up< on the schedule of the project. New technologies, such as wearable computers, speech recognition, touch screens and wireless networks could help to move electronic data processing to the construction site. Progress monitoring could very much take advantage of this move, as several intermediate steps of processing progress data can be made unnecessary. The processing of progress data could be entirely done by computers, which means that data for supporting decisions can be made available at the moment the construction progress is measured. This paper describes a project, that investigates how these new technologies can be linked to create a system that enhances the efficiency of progress monitoring. During the project a first prototype of a progress monitoring system was developed that allows construction companies and site supervisors to measure construction progress on site using wearable computers that are speech controlled and connected to a central database via a wireless network

Hydrobiological service for observations and control of surface waters in the USSR

Technological progress, having reached in our time an unprecedented speed, is still increasing the rate of mineral extraction, industrial construction, and the mastering of new kinds of energy is growing. Correspondingly the anthropogenic load on the biosphere is increased and that requires the comprehensive development of monitoring the anthropogenic changes in the natural environment. Among problems resulting from the scientific-technological development, a noticeable place is given to the problem of pure water. Surface land waters proved to be a sensitive link in the natural environment. The hydrobiological service for observations and control of the surface waters is one of the subsystems of the State/Federal Service for Observations and Control of pollution levels in environmental objects, conducted by the USSR State Committee for Hydrometeor- ology and Control of the Natural Environment. This paper summarises the the main principles of the organisation and goals of the national system of monitoring of the state of the natural environment in the USSR

Appearance-based material classification after occlusion removal for operation-level construction progress monitoring

Today, the availability of a large number of smart devices on construction sites, has significantly interest popularity of appearance-based methods for automated construction progress using site photographs monitoring. These methods, however, face a number of technical challenges that limit their applicability including low spatial resolution of images, and static and dynamic occlusions due to the construction progress and moving resources (equipment, workers, scaffolding, etc). To address these limitations, this paper extends on an existing model-driven appearance-based material classification method for appearance-based construction progress monitoring using 4D BIM and site photologs. Specifically, it introduces a robust occlusion removal algorithm that can lower false positives in material recognition. The method leverages the depth information from the 4D BIM as well as the 3D point cloud created through Structure from Motion procedures. Once the occluded regions are removed, square-shape patches can be extracted from the back-projection of the BIM elements on site images. These improved image patches are then used in the material recognition pipeline to create a vector quantized histogram of all the material classes. The material class with the highest frequency is chosen as the material type for the element and this appearance information is used to infer the most updated state of progress for the elements. To validate, four existing incomplete and noisy point cloud models from real world construction site images and their corresponding BIMS were used. An extended version of the Construction Material Library (CML) developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Real-time and Automated Monitoring and Control (RAAMAC) lab was used to train the material classifiers and the experimental results shows an average accuracy of 90.9%. The occlusion removal and subsequent classification for the four datasets resulted in an accuracy of 92.2% compared to 89.9% in the existing method, demonstrating a definite improvement. By predicting the material present in an element, the status of that element can be identified as “in progress” or “completed’ and compared with the schedule. Since static occlusions are detected, analyzed, and removed, this method has potential to be effective for appearance-based progress monitoring methods and can results in higher accuracy material classification

The practice of time management in construction projects

The Malaysian construction industry plays a vital role in the country development. CIOB in 2008 has indicated that the quality of time-management on construction projects is generally poor. Therefore, an effective time management for the construction project is important in managing risk of delayed completion project. The aim of this project is to examine the practice of time management on construction project. The objectives of this study are to assess the respondents’ participation in the planning of construction works, to investigate how progress records are kept and to identify the process of monitoring the progress of work on construction industry. To achieve these objectives, there were thirty questionnaire survey distributed to the respondents. From the findings, project manager has the highest percentage in both drafting a planning method statement and project planning meetings. Most of the respondents had their experience of sequence was planned as a result of a discussion and written method statement, the activity durations being calculated in whole or in part, the price were allocated in separate documents with contingency, date constraints were used constraint the performance to dates given in the contract documents and float constraints were used to control critically. As for the progress reports, majority prefer to keep the records on paper but were immediately input into database. Most of them had the experience of additional work relation to labour allocation. When it came to relating the resource used to the work done and in which location, it was the experience of majority respondents identified task on schedule for both labour and plant and equipment records. The respondents preferred to report the progress in meeting or correspondence and the schedules were updated monthly. Lastly, most of them have corrected the logic to conform to progress achieved to deal with consequences of out of sequence work

Structural health monitoring of an innovative timber building

A main focus in timber construction research is the development of innovative, sustainable and reliable structures. In order to determine the long-term structural behaviour of these novel structures, structural health monitoring is a valuable tool. In the past two years an innovative timber-hybrid pilot building has been conceived, designed and realized at ETH Zürich. The building contains four innovative structural systems, a post-tensioned timber frame, two timber-concrete hybrid floor systems using beech LVL, and a biaxial pure timber floor in beech wood. In order to fully understand the combined structural behaviour of these innovative systems an extensive monitoring system was set up. The dense sensor network was implemented along with the construction progress, in order to also quantify the effects of important construction stages on the structural behaviour (addition of significant loads, addition of stiffening elements, extreme changes in environmental climate, etc.). The installed setup includes 16 load cells, measuring the changes in the post-tension force in the frame, absolute deformation measurements, temperature and relative humidity sensors, as well as measurements of the moisture content of timber. The monitoring campaign is planned to be continued for several years beyond the completion of construction, in order to quantify the long-term behaviour during the use phase of the building

Rancang Bangun Aplikasi Monitoring dan Evaluasi Pekerjaan Proyek pada Bidang Penataan Ruang di Dinas PU. Cipta Karya Sumenep

Dinas PU. Cipta Karya dan Tata Ruang Kabupaten Sumenep as executive agencies wheel development. Bidang penataan ruang became a top priority along with the occurrence of resistance in the city of sumenep, among others, the construction of a drainage channel, local roads and sidewalks. Problems encountered can not do monitoring with respect to time, cost, and project work progress in the field. So in the initial evaluation and identification work difficult, it often causes a delay in the implementation of the project work. To overcome the obstacles faced by bidang penataan ruang, can be done by means of building the application of monitoring and evaluation of the project in bidang penataan ruang di dinas PU. Cipta Karya Sumenep. Monitoring included the time, cost, and work progress. If there is a mismatch of the project, the system will give an alert/notification to immediately followed up. The results of monitoring will be evaluated by the system for each stretch out. So if there is a discovery that could harm the project can be identified since the beginning. At this stage of implementation, the application indicates conformity with the expectation of 100% and worth to be used. Based on test data planning and realization, obtained results information monitoring and evaluation of each project is presented in the form of the curve S