4D-BIM-Based Workspace Planning for Temporary Safety Facilities in Construction SMEs

Abstract

Temporary safety facilities (TSFs) are an essential support system providing necessary protection to workers during construction activities, which are targeted towards preventing the occurrence of incidents and accidents at the construction site; however, the schedule and location of installation and demolition of TSFs continue to rely on labor experience, and are often omitted from formal drawings or documents. This results in thousands of accidents in the construction industry, especially in construction small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) because of their several limiting factors; therefore, this study proposes automatic workspace planning for TSFs based on construction activities, which is a systematized approach for construction SMEs to practice occupational health and safety (OHS). By using building information modeling (BIM) and add-in algorithm, safety facilities can be simulated and visualized to integrate into the designated workspace. The developed system was implemented utilizing 4D-BIM for TSFs installation and validated with a case study on a residential building project. The result revealed that the visualized TSF produces a better understanding of safety measures with regard to project schedule. Additionally, TSFs workspace planning provides an affordable approach that motivates safety practices among the SMEs; consequently, the effectiveness of construction safety measures and their management is enhanced appreciably.

Investigating the Critical Factors of Professionals’ BIM Adoption Behavior Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

“…Cost management [21,22] Facility management [23][24][25][26] Safety management [27] Green building development [28][29][30][31][32] Carbon emissions calculation [33][34][35] Life cycle energy efficiency [36] Prefabrication [37][38][39][40] Lean construction [41,42] Risk management [43][44][45] Energy retrofitting [46] Noise mitigation [47] Benefit…”

Facilitating Digital Transformation in Construction—A Systematic Review of the Current State of the Art

“…For instance, the potential of using robots to improve efficiency on construction sites is still shrouded in uncertainty (Pan et al, 2020) and this has increased the need to identify the digital technologies that are easier and less burdensome to implement (Dallasega et al, 2018). Particularly, in small organizations, digital technologies that are simple and familiar and better adaptable to the operation process should be a strategic choice (Pham et al, 2020). Project, time, size, and duration are additional factors that should be considered in determining the choice of digital technologies in construction (Koseoglu et al, 2019).…”

“…Enormous data are increasingly generated in the construction process (Woodhead et al, 2018). It is of strategic importance to consider making such data available (Buisman, 2018) from one technology to another (Pham et al, 2020), from a physical to a virtual world (Woodhead et al, 2018), and from one construction phase to another (Braun and Sydow, 2019). This increases the potential of data analytics in construction, which contributes to smart management and sound decision making (Woodhead et al, 2018;Pham et al, 2020).…”

“…It is of strategic importance to consider making such data available (Buisman, 2018) from one technology to another (Pham et al, 2020), from a physical to a virtual world (Woodhead et al, 2018), and from one construction phase to another (Braun and Sydow, 2019). This increases the potential of data analytics in construction, which contributes to smart management and sound decision making (Woodhead et al, 2018;Pham et al, 2020). Data-centric strategic consideration is very relevant for implementing digital technologies such as drones, robots, and 3D printing to perform tasks on construction sites without human inputs (Woodhead et al, 2018).…”

“…Studies have identified the emergence of new construction skills (e.g., construction informatics and block chaining) (Tezel et al, 2020), displacement of jobs such as traditional cost quantification (de Soto et al, 2018), and the evolution of new tasks such as sensor monitoring (Woodhead et al, 2018) as transformations that emerged following the use of digital technologies in construction. The enthusiasm for such transformations is greater among the young generation of construction employees who are keen to use new technologies and deploy new ways of working (Pham et al, 2020;Soman and Whyte, 2020). They strengthen their technical skills and soft skills such as communication (Braun and Sydow, 2019;Papadonikolaki et al, 2019;Winch and Cha, 2020), which promotes them from digital talents to digital agents (Goulding et al, 2018;Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020).…”