Opportunities for enhanced lean construction management using Internet of Things standards

a r t i c l e i n f o Traditionally, production control on construction sites has been challenging, and still remains challenging. The ad-hoc production control methods that are usually used, most of which are informal, foster uncertainty that prevents smooth production flow. Lean construction methods such as the Last Planner System have partially tackled this problem by involving site teams into the decision making process and having them report back to the production management system. However, such systems have relatively long " lookahead " planning cycles to respond to the dynamic production requirements of construction, where daily, if not hourly control is needed. New solutions have been proposed such as VisiLean, KanBIM, etc., but again these types of construction management systems require the proximity and availability of computer devices to workers. Through this paper, the authors investigate how the communication framework underlying such construction management systems can be further improved so as to fully or partially automate various communication functions across the construction project lifecycle (e.g., to enable lean and close to real-time reporting of production control information). To this end, the present paper provides evidences of how the Internet of Things (IoT) and related standards can contribute to such an improvement. The paper then provides first insights – through various construction scenarios – into how the proposed communication framework can be beneficial for various actors and core business perspectives , from lean construction management to the management of the entire building lifecycle. Production can be conceptualized in three complementary ways: Transformation, Flow and Value (TFV) [1–3]. In traditional production management, the flow aspect has often been neglected, and particularly the information flow that is quite important from a lean construction management perspective since it affects all other resource flows significantly [3,4]. In the Last Planner ® process of production planning [5], the site team needs accurate resource information about the construction tasks in order to effectively conduct lookahead and weekly planning activities. In this regard, Caldas et al. [6] mention that in a fragmented and dynamic environment, the integration and exchange of information between various organizational information systems and sources is crucial for efficient production management. However, as the construction industry is a project-based industry, such information often lies in dispa-rate systems that are not always available to the site team, or even interoperable with one another, which is a major hurdle to reach such efficiency …