Dynamic mobile RFID-based supply chain control and management system in construction

Construction project control attempts to effectively obtain real-time information and enhance dynamic control and management via information sharing and analysis from involved participants of the projects to reduce construction conflicts and project delay. However, extending the construction project control system to job sites is considered inefficient since construction sites are unconventional practice. Integrating promising information technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, mobile devices-PDA and web portals can help improve the effectiveness and convenience of information flow in construction supply chain control systems. Radio frequency identification is appropriate for various construction applications, and provides cost savings through increased speed and accuracy of data entry. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a RFID-based supply chain management application called the mobile construction RFID-based dynamic supply chain management (M-ConRDSCM) system in construction projects, demonstrating that it responds efficiently and enhances the information flow among offices and sites in a construction supply chain environment. The M-ConRDSCM system is then applied to a selected case study involving a High-Tech factory building in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate the effectiveness of information sharing of project control in the construction phase. The advantage of the M-ConRDSCM system lies not only in improving work efficiency for on-site engineers, but also in providing dynamic operation control and management to enable project participants to control the whole project. Moreover, this study presents a generic system architecture and its implementation.