Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

HANDBOOK 2 SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
markets, created new cities and enabled people en masse to leave their hometowns, therefore
massively increasing the gene pool.
Ubiquitous information and computing technologies (ICT) such as the Internet, the personal computer
and mobile computing devices are general purpose technologies that are equally as transformative.
Furthermore, these technologies are converging with each other and with other pervasive technologies
such as satellite navigation and automatic identification. This allows objects and people to be
connected at all times, and identified in terms of time, place and thing and offers enormous potential
for improvement of construction project performance.
This real-time visibility and availability of information everywhere will allow project teams to capture
demand signals from the workface and make more informed decisions. It will also enable teams to
capture and analyse the digital trails of assets, which will allow them to fine tune procurement
scheduling, transportation, site distribution, storage and installation processes.
For example, the Galileo satellite system, a joint venture between the European Commission and the
European Space Agency, will employ a network of 30 satellites and associated ground infrastructure
to pinpoint location within one metre. This will enable construction project teams to locate objects or
people to a particular zone of a specific floor of a building under construction.
Within this tracking environment, intelligent physical assets, embedded with Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) tags will be able to wirelessly communicate what they are, where they are,
where they have been and their operational status, free from the constraints of distance and time. A
construction site that employs RFID sensing technologies will be able to read tags on materials, plant
and equipment as they arrive or leave site and automatically direct goods handlers to the point of use
or the storage location. This information can then automatically update the project’s building
information model and be linked to inventory management and automatic payment systems for the
different companies involved in a project, for example.
Conclusions
Organisations involved in the creation of the built environment face increasingly demanding
requirements for time, cost, quality, safety, social and environmental performance on their projects.
In order to more consistently meet this diverse range of demands, construction project teams need to
develop a clearer understanding of how crucial logistics is in successful project delivery, and make
sure their approach to construction project logistics is correctly designed, planned and implemented.
Project teams create value for a client by joining together the elements of a building or structure in a
particular sequence, and each one of these construction assembly tasks requires seven key prerequisites
to be in place – design information, components and materials, workforce, plant, tools and
equipment, working space, connecting works and external conditions. If one of these seven inputs is
absent or incomplete, then a constraint is introduced to the team’s ability to undertake an assembly
task efficiently, effectively, safely and with minimal environmental and social impact.
Logistics does not add value itself. However, intelligent, integrated and industrialised logistics enables
value-creating work to flow by creating a production process and work environment in which
construction assembly tasks can be undertaken efficiently, effectively, safely and with minimal
environmental and social impact.
The challenge for construction project teams is to develop a better strategic and operational approach
to logistics by exploiting the enormous potential of general purpose technologies, adopting a more
industrialised approach to construction by transferring activities from site to the upstream stages of
the supply process, and using integrated ways of working that mean all parties have a common, shared
understanding of what needs to take place, how it needs to take place, when it needs to take place and
who needs to do it.
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