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International audience; This paper presents a dataset collected periodically on a construction site. The dataset aims to evaluate the performance of SLAM algorithms used by mobile scanners or autonomous robots. It includes ground-truth scans of a construction site collected using a terrestrial laser scanner along with five sequences of spatially registered and time-synchronized images, LiDAR scans and inertial data coming from our prototypical hand-held scanner. We also recover the ground-truth trajectory of the mobile scanner by registering the sequential LiDAR scans to the ground-truth scans and show how to use a popular software package to measure the accuracy of SLAM algorithms against our trajectory automatically. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first publicly accessible dataset consisting of periodically collected sequential data on a construction site.

Construction management can be grouped into two different levels: strategic early planning, that provides the baseline for project monitoring, and short time initiatives, based on objectives and selforganization from actors who are involved in on-site processes. This is currently managed through the representation of many separate processes and this does not eliminate the inefficiencies that arise at the level of synchronization of the individual tasks performed by different organizations. Efficiency in construction management implies to take into consideration choreographies because they better reflect synchronization of different organizations management processes. On the other hand, smart contracts linked to single task execution assure both promptness and irreversible tracking at single task level. The actual execution of processes depends both on what happens and on the information that flows between the subjects who actually carry out processes asynchronous to each other, so the only possibility to synchronize them is information. This research describes a framework for applying BPMN choreographies to construction site processes in order to better model processes and integrate them with smart contracts. Every single activity in the baseline can be modelled as a choreography at a lower level. On the other hand, process performance monitoring can be performed thanks to blockchain tasks notarization. Concrete casting quality assessment process has been chosen as use case. A BPMN choreography has been defined for this purpose and blockchain application for accomplished tasks and information notarization has been developed and tested on a construction site.

Monitoring of construction workers is important in managing labour productivity. To date, the construction sector relies either on intensive manual observations or intrusive tag-based practices. Visual tracking methods can provide automated and tag-less monitoring. However, no method to date has succeeded in tracking multiple workers, as construction sites are complex environments due to congestion, background clutter and occlusions. In addition, workers have similar appearance and exhibit illumination/scale/posture variations and abrupt changes in movement over the course of their task. To address these shortcomings, we propose a vision-based method that consists of 3 models. Firstly, an adaptive model provides continuous information about the previous position of workers and their appearance features. Secondly, a prediction model is used to calculate the current position of workers, and finally, an appearance model provides accurate localisation. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves high performance and outperforms the latest relevant state of the art methods.

Insufficient process transparency is one of the main reasons for process waste, quality deviations and safety non-conformances in construction. Lean Production frequently resorts to a range of visual communication strategies called Visual Management (VM) to increase the level of process transparency and to support continuous improvement at the workplace. Although VM is a fundamental part of the Lean toolbox, theoretical or empirical studies on the role of VM in team activities are scarce. This study explores VM in construction through a block diagram used in control theory. Two VM tools for construction teams from construction companies in the UK and Japan are analysed in detail. The initial findings suggest that VM can and must cover various communication levels in construction organizations in order to break the barriers for information flows and to share valuable and newest knowledge.

Lean Construction (LC) is under the spotlight to improve the overall performance of civil construction projects in England. A strategic target of public clients is to effectively extend the current LC efforts, which have been mainly led by large companies to date, across small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper presents a summary of the initial findings of a research effort aimed at understanding\ud the current condition of and future directions for LC at the SMEs in England’s highways supply chain. The research comprises of 20 interviews with senior managers, of which the initial findings were summarized in this paper, and a comprehensive survey study with 110 responses across the highways supply chain. 31 points for the current\ud condition and 40 action items for the future of LC in the highways SMEs were presented and discussed.

The UK construction industry has witnessed a recent shift towards integrated and collaborative approaches. Such collaborative efforts include the use of integrated systems like BIM, lean and innovative procurement options which are now reshaping project delivery systems. However, in the UK, most efforts have focused primarily on the conventional project management system, which is coherent and contract-based and has brought the separation in the processes of costing/design and production. In fact, cost and design processes are still treated as independent and separate functions which are carried out discretely within the current project delivery system. This neglect, and the lack of a holistic and collaborative approach in costing, arguably accounts for much of the cost overrun that is still prevalent in the UK industry. Traditionally, cost management has been the chief duty of Quantity Surveyors (QSs) in the UK. Recently, Target Value Design (TVD) has emerged as a management approach under the lean philosophy that aims to deliver exactly what the customer needs in terms of value within stipulated project constraints. The technique is aimed at making the budget become an input in the design and decision making process rather than an outcome of a design. The growth of collaborative approaches such as TVD opens new opportunities for project participants to deliver more value for clients and work collaboratively. This paper reports on the literature review that aimed at developing a framework to improve the current cost management practice towards a more collaborative system against the existing discrete form of costing that inhibits collaboration.