Design, Development, and Validation of an Augmented Reality-Enabled Production Strategy Process

The Production Strategy Process (PSP) is an integral part of production planning and control as it defines how production processes are structured and designed and outlines how production will be executed. PSP involves massive information transfer and communication among project participants. While BIM can improve the flow of information, the paradox of designing 3D models in 2D space remains. This paradox indicates that new visualization technologies are needed to leverage the use of information in the PSP. As Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, continues to evolve, it is imperative that construction firms seek, find, and adopt new technologies. This research employed Augmented Reality (AR) as a new user interface in the PSP. The current state of practice of PSP was investigated and current challenges are identified. The opportunities to integrate AR were defined, and an AR-enabled future state was proposed. Next, an AR-enabled PSP prototype using the Microsoft HoloLens was implemented and validated on a real-world healthcare project. Usability testing was then conducted using a one-on-one protocol to validate the prototype with 20 participants. Surveys were the deployed to qualitatively assess the impact of integrating AR into PSP. The difference between the traditional PSP and the AR-enabled PSP was tested through a series of hypotheses comparing both processes. The results demonstrate that the AR-enabled PSP offers significant benefits over the Traditional PSP: improved collaboration, reduced miscommunication, increased quality and detection of errors, enhanced decision-making, better documentation, better information access, improved information flow, increased input accuracy, and increased integration of safety considerations. Additionally, the technology, software, and hardware were also evaluated, and, on average, the findings demonstrated the potential of AR in production planning

Analysis of COVID-19 Concerns Raised by the Construction Workforce and Development of Mitigation Practices

The coronavirus outbreak has created a global health crisis that has disrupted all industries, including the construction industry. Following the onset of the pandemic, construction workers faced and continue to face unprecedented safety and health challenges. Therefore, construction employers established new safety precautions to protect the health and safety of the workforce and minimize the spread of the virus. The new precautions followed the advice and guidelines offered by different health and safety agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). With construction projects resuming operations, it becomes important to analyze the coronavirus-related health and safety concerns of construction workforce and understand how the new safety procedures can assist on jobsites. Existing studies mostly focused on interviews and surveys with construction companies to understand the impact on project performance and supply chains. However, no study has yet to analyze the United States construction workforce. This paper fills the gap by providing a qualitative descriptive analysis of the COVID-19 complaints data gathered by OSHA from construction jobsites. Information gathered by OSHA includes the jobsite location, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) of the construction company, the type of the complaint (i.e., formal or non-formal), and a thorough description of the complaint. N-grams were employed to analyze the complaints, detect trends, and compile a list of the most frequent concerns reported by the workforce. The analysis of the complaints data identifies safety practices that were most violated, highlights major safety and health concerns for construction workers, and pinpoints geographical areas that have seen a surge in complaints. The study also synthesized the existing research corpus and compiled a list of 100 best practices that construction employers can adopt to mitigate the concerns of the workforce. The findings of this study provide insights into the safety and health trends on construction sites, lay the foundation for future work of academicians and practitioners to address the concerns faced by construction workers, and serve as lessons learned for the industry in the case of any future pandemic

Integrating Construction 4.0 Technologies: A Four-Layer Implementation Plan

This research explores the current state of Construction 4.0 and discusses a four-layer implementation of Construction 4.0 in the industry. The research methodology consists of an extensive literature review to gain insights about Construction 4.0 and frame the four-layer implementation plan. A case study is also presented to showcase the proposed implementation plan. Nine Construction 4.0 technologies were discussed, their integration throughout the project lifecycle was presented in a roadmap, their integration and connectivity with one another were outlined in an interaction roadmap, and the requirements necessary for achieving the 4.0 transformation were articulated. However, the proposed implementation plan is focused on nine Construction 4.0 technologies. The research presents a comprehensive plan for integrating Construction 4.0 technologies into the industry and serves as a guideline to help construction companies better understand the implications of Construction 4.0

Mapping the capabilities and benefits of AR construction use-cases: A comprehensive map

The construction industry has undergone a radical transformation in its design and documentation process as it evolved from the days of the drafting board to today’s Building Information Modeling process. Despite the progress, a paradox of designing 3D in 2D space remains, calling for new visualization technologies that leverage the use of information in construction. Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology that can serve as an information aggregator and a data-publishing platform, allowing users to view and interact with information while collaborating with others in real-time from remote locations. While AR holds the key to advance the construction industry, no research project has yet comprehensively investigated the holistic integration of AR in construction. Thus, this paper presents a comprehensive map that provides a holistic framework to understand the integration of AR into the construction phase. To achieve the research objective, the paper identifies and describes 23 use-cases of AR in the construction phase, nine AR capabilities, and 14 AR potential benefits. Then, four AR applications in construction are explored, where the underlying use-cases are discussed and mapped as a function of their corresponding AR capabilities and potential benefits. These AR applications provide an example to illustrate the concept behind the comprehensive map. Finally, the map is developed by outlining the relationships between the identified AR use-cases, capabilities, and potential benefits. The findings of this paper are crucial for the AR implementation roadmap as it provides industry practitioners an understanding of the capabilities and benefits of integrating AR into construction tasks

Development, Implementation, and Tracking of Preventative Safety Metrics

What gets measured, gets improved. With respect to the safety and health of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) employees, the primary metric used has been the OSHA recordable incident rate. This incident rate measures how often a Cabinet employee sustains an injury that demands more than basic first aid. This metric is important for understanding injury frequencies, but it does not assist with management of the safety, health, and overall well-being of KYTC personnel. Based on a review of leading safety indicators adopted by various industries, this study devised a comprehensive list of safety metrics the Cabinet will benefit from tracking. Metrics were evaluated, organized, weighted, and compiled into a three-tier scorecard that is used to assess performance at KYTC’s district, area, and executive levels. Five major dimensions of an effective safety program were identified: (1) management leadership and commitment, (2) employee engagement, (3) training and competence, (4) hazard identification and control, and (5) evaluation and improvement. Surveys of KYTC districts found that all metrics performed robustly, while stakeholders at executive levels usually assigned lower scores to the five dimensions. Employee engagement had the lowest score. The Cabinet will benefit from seeking out more opportunities to involve employees in the agency’s safety program. Equally, the study reiterates the value of gaining management buy-in, support, and leadership when working to eliminate incidents and injuries

Roadmap to a Holistic Highway Digital Twin: A Why, How, & Why Framework

The advent and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the world’s focus toward investing in social structure projects that would improve urbanization and enhance equity. This shift compiled with the emergence of innovative technologies namely Digital Twins, allowed for investigating new approaches for designing and delivering infrastructures, thus paving the road toward smarter infrastructures. Smart infrastructures achieved by connecting the physical aspect of the infrastructure with its digital aspect will allow for optimizing the performance of infrastructure systems by digitally enhancing the asset value and leveraging the value of asset data. Digital Twins can be applied to several civil infrastructure projects including the transportation sector. Also, Digital Twins can be implemented for different spatial scales, on a national level, on the level of the city, and for a network of assets. Few case studies described how to transfer a Digital Twin vision to practice; thus, this chapter presents the journey for a holistic Digital Twin for a highway system formed of a network of assets by discussing the Why, How, and What framework. A holistic highway Digital Twin will allow for cross-asset data analysis, conducting predictive and preventive maintenance, and efficient resource allocation based on data-driven decision-making

Construction-Ready Digital Terrain Models

Since 2009, Kentucky has made its 3D design data available as a supplemental reference to bidders through the project delivery process. This research discusses methods for ensuring electronic engineering data (EED) — and specifically the proposed digital terrain model (DTM) — support modern construction management methods at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). Researchers performed a literature review, surveyed KYTC construction and design staff, engaged with Cabinet staff and industry members to understand the current state of practice, and evaluated quality- related attributes of the EED through case studies. The report presents a set of targeted recommendations for improving KYTC processes of highway design review, training and guidance for Cabinet staff, data sharing and management, professional service contract negotiations, and facilitated communication between KYTC and its industry partners

Evaluating the Safety Cultures of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Maintenance Crews

Highway work zones can be dangerous and unpredictable. Between 2003 and 2017, over 1,800 workers died on road construction sites. Eliminating injuries and deaths requires state transportation agencies to adopt robust safety cultures as there is a clear relationship between these cultures and worker behaviors. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is committed to improving safety performance by nurturing a positive safety climate among highway maintenance crews. To understand the safety cultures of KYTC maintenance crews, researchers administered a survey based on the Safety Climate Assessment Tool (S-CAT) developed by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR). This is the first tool developed for the construction industry. The survey was used to quantified the existing safety climate and evaluate how effective safety programs and controls are at reducing workplace hazards. Survey respondents answered questions on 37 indicators across eight safety climate categories: employee risk perception, management commitment, aligning and integrating safety as a value, ensuring accountability at all levels, improving supervisory leadership, empowering and involving employees, improving communication, and safety training. For each indicator respondents assigned a rating on a five-point Likert scale — Inattentive (1), Reactive (2), Compliant (3), Proactive (4), Exemplary (5). Analysis of survey responses at the statewide and district levels found that KYTC’s safety culture can be characterized as between compliant and proactive. Focus groups with maintenance superintendents generated recommendations to improve safety cultures and install multiple layers of preventive measures to further reduce the number and threat of jobsite hazards

Impact of technology use on workforce performance and information access in the construction industry

For decades, labor shortage has been a consistent struggle in the construction industry. At the same time, technological innovations have played a central role in the growth and development of an increasingly diverse construction industry. Existing research indicates that technological adoption is crucial for enhancing project productivity. Despite the importance and potential benefits of technology use, no research has yet studied how technology use on-site impact the worker’s performance and the difficulty of the process to access needed information. The objective of this paper is to analyze and understand the impact of on-site technology use on 1) the self-evaluated performance record (including safety, attendance, quality, productivity, and initiative), and 2) the difficulty of the process to access information, of construction workers and frontline supervisors in the construction industry. To achieve the research objective, 2,780 construction craft workers and frontline supervisors were surveyed using an online questionnaire. The survey participants were asked to self-evaluate 1) their work personal performance record (including safety, attendance, quality, productivity, and initiative), and 2) the difficulty of the process to receive or get access to information. The participants were additionally asked to specify whether different listed information technologies, material technologies, and equipment technologies are used on site. The collected data was then analyzed. Key findings indicate that the on-site use of several technologies had statistically significant impact in increased worker performance and information access. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by empirically quantifying the impact of on-site technology use on worker performance and information access in the construction industry

Investigation of PESTEL factors driving change in capital project organizations

In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, organizational change has been a central concern for capital project organizations, that continue to suffer from poor project performance in a growing industry. As such, capital project organizations must understand the changing environment and the factors driving change within their organizations to remain successful in a changing environment and adapt to change. To help the capital projects industry achieve successful organizational change efforts, this paper aims to 1) identify the external factors that are pushing capital project organizations to change and 2) investigate whether these factors impact organizations differently. To achieve the desired objective, a total of 22 PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal) factors were identified and validated with a group of 14 subject matter experts and defined via the context of literature. Then, the factors were evaluated via an online survey to understand whether they impact organizations differently based on their age maturity (including contemporary, transitional, and legacy organizations) and type of work (including owners, contractors, and service providers). Findings from this study can provide capital project practitioners and researchers with valuable insights needed to understand the external factors shaping change within the industry