Construction industry is very labor-intensive and one of the major sources of employment in the world. The industry is experiencing low productivity with minimum technological innovations for decades. In recent times, various automation technologies including 3D printing have received increasing interests in construction. 3D printing in construction is found to be very promising to automate the construction processes and have the potential of saving laborious work, material waste, construction time, risky operation for humans, etc. There has been a comprehensive body of research conducted to understand the recent advances, future prospects and challenges of large-scale adoption of 3D printing in construction projects. Being one the labor-intensive industries, this study also investigates the possible impact on the labor market with increasing adoption of 3D printing in construction. It is found that 3D printing can reduce significant number of labors which can solve the labor shortage problem, especially for the countries where construction is heavily dependent on immigrant workers. In contrast, 3D printing might not be favorable for the countries where construction is one of the main workforces and labor is less expensive. Moreover, 3D construction printing will also require people with special skills related to this new technology.
Having a significant economic impact in country's GDP and being a major workforce, construction industry is yet characterized by low production rate, low technological advancement, minimum automation and robotic usage, and so on. With the visionary idea of Industry 4.0 that focuses on digitization of the value chain of a product and improving productivity through a variety of technologies and automated manufacturing environment, this research aims to develop a framework to adopt Construction 4.0 within a construction company. Current state of the art of the technologies in construction associated with the notion of Industry 4.0 (e.g., Building Information Modelling, virtual reality, augmented reality, Drone, etc.) is explored through extensive literature studies. The proposed framework incorporates current technological advancement related to construction industry, legislative requirements, barriers, enterprise transformation requirements and so on. Construction 4.0 would make a great impact in construction industry through improved value chain of construction projects, productivity improvement, and safe and sustainable construction. Indeed, the proposed framework would contribute to the advancement of new knowledge in the worlds' construction companies and provide potentials of new research focuses.
12 September 2011 in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Design projects often face changes from external sources causing redesign to many interdependent downstream activities. Depicting change propagation on the downstream activities and subsequent impact on design completion is a great challenge. This paper proposes a change propagation model to predict the change propagation on the downstream activities due to different degrees of change that might be initiated at different stages during a design project. The initiated change may cause change of different degrees to its immediate successors. The probability values of the change form a transition matrix for each dependency. The proposed model utilizes these transition matrices to depict the change propagation at the downstream. The change propagation model is then integrated with the scheduling model to schedule the propagated changes and to assess the overall impact on design completion and redesign (or loss in productivity). The effectiveness of the integrated model has been described with an illustrative case example. Such prediction and quantification of change impact would help project managers take the necessary actions for a proposed change.
1 August 2014 in International Journal of Project Management
Buildings are one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels, and thus, contribute largely to greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, a large number of studies have been conducted and innovative ideas or green solutions have been invented, adopted, and implemented across the globe. These solutions are often contextual and heavily dependent on local environmental and socio-economic factors. Green roofs are such an example. Green roofs (both intensive and extensive) for buildings have been successfully adopted in many countries around the world. Bangladesh, a developing country that can benefit from green roofs, seems to remain in complete darkness regarding its potential. The objective of this study is to identify the reasons why green roofs have not been widely implemented in Bangladesh, especially in the capital Dhaka, even though, theoretically, the climatic conditions of this country favor this technology. This study focuses on the perception of the construction industry to comprehend the possible obstacles they are facing towards using green roofs in their designs. A questionnaire study was conducted among architects, engineers, construction managers, contractors, and owners who are at different levels of experience in their respective fields. The results indicate a gap in knowledge and misconceptions, which are major hindrances to the implementation of green roofs.