{"id":25707,"date":"2024-05-06T14:12:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T21:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/the-need-for-situational-awareness-in-construction\/"},"modified":"2024-05-06T14:12:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T21:12:58","slug":"the-need-for-situational-awareness-in-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/the-need-for-situational-awareness-in-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Need for Situational Awareness in Construction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Recent research backs up what we already know from practice: construction work is suboptimal. What happens on a construction site has not kept up with the demands of an increasingly complex work environment. Situational awareness could give on-site employees the necessary means to finally reap the productivity benefits of digitalization.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Under the
\nguidance of Professor Olli Sepp\u00e4nen<\/strong>, research teams at the Finnish Aalto
\nUniversity have delved into everyday conditions at a construction site. With
\nthe workers\u2019 permission, they used video cameras, sensors, and surveys to locate
\nthe bottlenecks in productivity. The researchers also monitored the movement of
\nproducts and materials on a construction site. The results are eye-opening.<\/p>\n

According
\nto Aalto\u2019s data, digitalization has not improved the productivity of
\nconstruction foremen and workers. A typical worker still spends up to 70% of
\ntheir time on activities that add no value: searching for information, unnecessary
\nmovement, and waiting. Construction materials are moved from place to place six
\ntimes on the site before being consumed. In addition, especially on large
\nconstruction sites, machinery often goes missing or is displaced.<\/p>\n

Better Work Planning
\nImproves Productivity<\/h2>\n

Two reasons
\nfor these inefficiencies stand out: improper planning, and the lack of
\ninformation for the successful completion of a specific task. Tackling these
\ntwo issues provides considerable productivity improvements.<\/p>\n

An Aalto graduate, Hans
\nPasila<\/strong>, positioned video cameras on workers\u2019 hardhats in order to analyze
\ndrywall installation processes. He noticed how the installation team had to
\nmove about a lot in order to fetch missing information, tools, and materials. He
\nthen created a bill of materials for each room, which enabled the delivery of
\nthe right amount of materials to each room. This, and a few other small changes
\nin the process, resulted in a 20% reduction in movement and a 10% increase in overall
\nteam productivity.<\/p>\n

Professor
\nSepp\u00e4nen emphasizes that the planning of work should be more detailed. It
\nshould also incorporate industrial production and logistics processes, as
\nSuffolk Construction has demonstrated in the USA. On one large project, they spent
\n10,000 extra hours in planning, which improved installation productivity and led
\nto a 20% increase in the general contractor\u2019s profits and a seven-figure cost
\nsaving for the owner.<\/p>\n

Situational Awareness<\/h2>\n

For any construction
\nproject, we already have a huge amount of data. Designers create building
\ninformation models (BIMs), estimators provide material takeoffs, project
\nmanagers create documents and schedules, inspectors collect information,
\nmanufacturers have their own production data, and so on. IoT sensors, cameras,
\nand drones will multiply the amount of project data in the coming years. The
\nproblem is that those working on a site still lack information that is
\ncollected and presented in a way that supports the tasks they must carry out.<\/p>\n

What foremen and workers need is called situational awareness, a situation picture (see Figure 1). It means that every project participant gets the information they need about the project\u2019s past, present, and future status.<\/p>\n

The
\ninstallation of a fa\u00e7ade panel illustrates how situational awareness could work.
\nThe installation supervisor receives information on which panels are to be
\ninstalled, when those panels will arrive on site, where they must be installed,
\nand in what sequence. The installation worker and the crane operator see the
\nexact location of the panel in the building fa\u00e7ade on their devices. When the
\npanel is in place, the supervisor receives an automated update that the job has
\nbeen completed.<\/p>\n

Likewise, as
\nthe building is being erected, there are hundreds of indoor spaces that are in
\nconstant states of change. Situational awareness provides the means to know
\nexactly what to do, where and when, and shows if the work is proceeding as
\nplanned.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. <\/strong>A conceptual model of situational awareness\/situation picture. Adapted from a paper Situation Picture Through Construction Information Management<\/a><\/em> by Risto K\u00e4rkk\u00e4inen, Rita Lavikka, Olli Sepp\u00e4nen and Antti Peltokorpi (2019)<\/p>\n

Digitalization Enables
\nSituational Awareness<\/h2>\n

To fully
\nimplement situational awareness, you need data from the construction schedule,
\nBIMs, manufacturers\u2019 ERP systems, the transport companies\u2019 logistics systems,
\nand the construction site sensor network. This is possible only if the data flows across
\npartners and processes and is interoperable. In today\u2019s world, that\u2019s not an
\neasy task. To address this challenge, Aalto University\u2019s Digitalizing
\nConstruction (DiCtion) project has devised a shared data model, an ontology, of
\nthe construction process. It is a work in progress, but if implemented, it will
\nbring situational awareness one step closer to realization.<\/p>\n

Situational
\nawareness is not just about making data accessible to people and machines. It\u2019s
\nalso about making data usable. Designing the user experience so that workers in
\nharsh environments can locate information and then act on it is a demanding
\ntask.<\/p>\n

The
\ndigitalization of processes and situational awareness point to a future where
\nconstruction becomes more like manufacturing. The sheer volume of new
\nconstruction required necessitates this transformation. The growing demands for
\nlife-cycle thinking from building owners also put pressure on achieving
\ndata-driven and better controlled processes.<\/p>\n

The transformation is possible, but it calls for increased collaboration between businesses, researchers, and tech developers. The Finnish construction industry\u2019s efforts in the Aalto University-led Building 2030 consortium<\/a> and in several joint R&D projects serve as a good example for others to follow.<\/p>\n

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