Improving Safety and Productivity on Construction Sites through Dynamic Planning, Monitoring and Control

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Construction has one of the highest numbers of fatalities among Canadian industries. During 2009 to 2011 alone, there were 651 construction fatalities in Canada, accounting for 22.6% of all fatalities. The poor records of safety and productivity on construction sites suggest that there are ample opportunities for improving the current practice. The overarching goal of this research program is to improve construction site management practices through effective planning, monitoring and control processes, to improve safety and productivity on construction sites. The main challenge in construction site management is thedynamic and ever–changing nature of construction sites that makes predicting events and making proactive plans difficult. This research will take advantage of the recent advancements and capabilities of ICT and automation to address the dynamic nature of construction projects and aims to develop novel methodologies for construction site management. The long term objectives of this research program are to develop new effective and practical methodologies for:    Objective 1- Dynamic construction site planning    Objective 2- Real-time monitoring on construction sites    Objective 3- Intelligent control for accident prediction and prevention This proposal adopts the three main project management processes of Planning, Monitoring and Control, which are traditionally used to manage project cost and schedule, and applies them to construction site management. Site planning (Objective 1) provides the optimal layout for both the location of stationary objects, and the paths for moving objects. Tradeoffs between site layout and schedule will be analyzed and heuristic optimization techniques will be employed to optimize the site layout and schedule simultaneously. Site monitoring (Objective 2) will ensure that the actual status of the site is according to the plan by tracking the status of static and moving objects (equipment, workers, material) on site. Seamless indoor-outdoor tracking will be used to track stationary and moving objects in real-time. This will allow detection of digressions from the plan in real-time and as it happens. Intelligent site control (Objective 3) analyzes the impact of the digressions identified by the monitoring system and detects unsafe proximity between objects. It provides assistance to prevent accidents by predicting potential collisions or falls before they actually occur. The research program outlined in this proposal will provide innovative methodologies to improve safety and productivity on construction sites and will bring construction site management in line with the advancements of the 21st century. The HQP trained in this research program will work in closely in collaboration with industry practitioners and will develop expertise in an emerging interdisciplinary area that is highly in demand in today’s construction industry.